Laughter is the only way to get us through all seven days of the week plus this pandemic! Every day of ours is filled with nonsense and shenanigans, and we love to let you in on them, so welcome to the weekly review of our antics beginning the week of May 25, 2020. Let the laughter commence!
Monday Week – May 25, 2020 –
Memorial Day. While everyone was out celebrating, I stayed inside trying to cope with my depression. It wasn’t working.
Depression grabbed on to me tightly and refused to let go.
I’m OVER it,
On Monday, I decided to resume writing on my blog. Expression through writing can help me feel better. At least I was trying. You can find Monday’s post here. Despite writing, I found it difficult to breathe and just wanted to die.
Tuesday Week – May 26, 2020
I had an at-home Ketamine treatment. I’ll write more about ketamine and my experience with it later, but to find out more about Ketamine now, go here and here for more information.
Normally during a ketamine treatment, I feel relaxed and calm. Within a day, I find some relief from the depression.
But currently, the treatment feels like it’s stalling and is not helping with the current increase of my depressive symptoms.
On Tuesday, I also had a teletherapy session with my long-time therapist Randy. We discussed my need for hugs to make us feel safe, protected, and cared for.
However, the session didn’t feel productive. I was very numb and disconnected from my feelings and my self. I just didn’t feel present, and it was hard to articulate what was going on inside my head. I hate it when I’m absent from my own life. It is dissociation working at its hardest. I’m still looking for myself. I don’t know where I went or how to get me back.
Just lost. Maybe someone can find me.
Wednesday Week -May 27, 2020
I had a session with Celia, my ED therapist. It was such an awesome session. I can’t wait to see her again.
Ok. Maybe it wasn’t a great session. I talk about it here in Wednesday’s blog post. I’m not happy with her response to my question.
Thursday Week – May 28, 2020
On Thursday I had another ketamine treatment, but it’s not really helping right now, and I’m grasping at straws. At least I got out of bed, showered, and even put on some makeup to make me feel a little more normal and a little less depressed. However, none of it seemed to help, and I still can’t hide the crazy.
Friday Week – May 29, 2020
Friday was just about outrunning the crazy in my head, trying to get ahead of the depression before it got ahead of me and started strangling me.
I started the day walking my dog Lizzie.
After our walk, I showered, shaved, (TMI) and, once again, dashed on a little makeup just to make me feel better.
I had a few errands to run, and I took Lizzie with me. We even went to Home Depot for some dog training and socialization with people.
She did very well at the store. I had her doing some commands, including going in spaces she might initially be afraid of. I found open carts and told her to get on them and sit. I want her to gain confidence that she can do hard things and that I will protect her.
When I came home from the errands, I again didn’t know what to do with myself. One part of my head felt busy and needed an activity to occupy it, while another part of my head was just depressed, restless, and wanted to numb out.
Lately, my life has just become me trying to outrun my depression. But it’s hard to stay busy when your depression is paralyzing. There’s no happy place.
I journaled for an hour, but it wasn’t very enlightening or epiphanous. My senses are dulled. I can’t keep up this breathing.
Our thoughts of death have been consistent, constant, and persistent. I wish they would leave me alone. I guess they offer the hugs and comfort we need.
I just need help. Anybody?
NO? I don’t blame you.
Saturday Week – May 30, 2020
I managed to get out of bed and out of the house to drop off some books at the library. When I came home, I again tried to outrun the depression by any means necessary. I can say I tried, but I eventually had to rely on medications to help me get through.
Not ideal, but sometimes you have to do what depression mandates.
Still, my mood was edgy and tense. I didn’t really know what I was feeling, but I knew my mood was on a hair-trigger. One word, one look, one anything-at-all, and I wouldn’t be able to hold her back.
I began writing in my journal and tried carefully not to trip myself. I penned that I was afraid to stop writing because I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. The tentacles of panic were starting to twine and entangle themselves around my neck and choke off my life.
It’s not that I didn’t have options or things I could do. I could color, play Sodoku, complete word puzzles, watch something entertaining, etc. I had plenty of things to occupy me, but none of them satisfied the muted chaos in my head. It was all overwhelming.
And, again, I was dissociative. Disconnected and detached from the world. Everything was too much.
My husband Daniel and I had Lizzie’s final dog-training session to go to Saturday afternoon, but I just didn’t have the spoons to go, so I stayed behind. (Click here for an explanation on spoons and the Spoon Theory) I knew I needed something to soothe me, something to help ground me and connect me to the present.
Part of me just felt like I needed a good cry, but I was too numb to have tears.
I had strong urges to self-harm so I could feel something besides death living inside me.
I wanted to feel anything, and so I did what was necessary. Self-harm won, but I didn’t lose. I was able to breathe for a change. I don’t even care anymore.
\
Sometimes the pain of not feeling is worse than the pain of feeling..
I want to feel something.
I finished the night off by trying to find comfort anywhere I could. There weren’t too many places to look.
I succumbed to the moment by drinking a sippy of wine (or maybe an I.V.) and listening to music. I was capable of nothing else.
To finish, I think right now, at this moment, if I could just fall into the arms of someone safe and dissolve into their protection I might be okay. Right now, I’m a scared little girl. Please save me.
(It has to get better. I know it does. I hope it will. Please.)
And speaking from both sides of my brain:
Please, just make it stop.
But I really hope to be okay soon.
And for the encore, my favorite show of all time. Golden Girls. They always know how to make me laugh.
Lastly, I watched this scene over and over. It was the only thing that made me feel something other than numb.
Sometimes, there just aren’t enough rocks.
Music Mood
Today’s mood: sad
Gloomy Sunday