Born crazy

I'm spending the next week in Omaha with my family so this is a super appropriate picture. 

I want to make it clear that I'm not blaming my parents in any way for my depression.  Well, maybe my dad a little since it runs in his family and if there is some sort of gene that carries depression then he would be a likely culprit.  Besides, the type of depression I have isn't caused my some external force. 

Anyway, I arrived on Friday and have been having a pretty relaxing time so far.  I came here to help my mom go through some things since she and my step dad (who I am now calling Dado which is a combination between Dad and his name) are trying to downsize some.  Some of what we will be going through will be mine - dolls and stuff from my childhood plus my baby book, christening outfit and other items a mother saves for her baby.  The rest of the stuff we will be going through will be items my mother will try to pawn off on me.  There's a good chance she will use some guilt tactics, mostly in fun, but I'm worried that I may not take it in that manner.  I just hope that if I react poorly, I can explain to her why in a way that she can understand.

I'm staying here until noon-ish on Tuesday.  Then I head to my dad's house to stay with him and his wife until Friday.

*insert daunting and potentially scary music here*

Don't get me wrong, I have had many wonderful visits with my father.  Most of the time he is very good-natured and jovial.  But, when things go boom, the damage is epic. 

The atmosphere is not overly relaxing.  It's tense and all about the outside appearance - clean house, nice clothes, perfection.  It is so not me.  This will be the longest time I have spent with my dad in a while.  Usually when we are in Omaha, the time is split between my two sets of parents, sometimes between my two sets of current parents and my step mom.  So no one really gets a lot of time.  And even if they do get a lot of time, it's a weekend trip where we arrive late-ish Friday and leave shortly after lunch on Sunday. 

I'm going to hope for the best but rehearse through my coping mechanisms in order to prepare for the worst.

When your loved one is depressed

Found this great letter on the blog "Little bits and pieces."  I've done a bit of editing to make it more me.  I am strongly considering printing this off and giving it to my loved ones.  It isn't perfect, but it does explain a lot to someone who doesn't have depression. 

Dear Loved One:

Being a parent/spouse/boyfriend or girlfriend/friend to someone who deals with mental health issues such as the ones I have (major depressive disorder, general anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and ADD) is never easy. Being a part of my life means taking on a different type of responsibility that would normally come with fully healthy person. If the illness came on after we met, that can come as a big surprise and create a lot of extra stress because of your lack of experience dealing with it.

I want you to know that love you. I am also extremely depressed, anxious and going through a bad time right now. You have a big effect on how I will deal with my illness. I would like to share with you some things you should know about, so we can fight together to help me get better.

1. Love doesn’t cure all. You may wish that just because we have a good relationship that I should be happy all the time. But no, love is not enough.
2. As a caretaker, your priority is to take care of yourself first. If you are exhausted, overly stressed or aren’t taking care of your own basic needs, you won’t be able to help take care of mine. Be strong in this and I’ll thank you later.
3. Don’t do what you think I need. Ask me and I will tell you the best I can. I don’t give a shit if there are dishes in the sink or laundry needs to be put away. Yes, it is nice that you do that, but I would rather you wouldn’t roll your eyes at me when I cry and make sure that I don’t forget to take my meds.
4. Do NOT, under any circumstances — even as a joke — tell me to just get over it. This is a complicated illness brought on by faulty brain chemistry and years of abuse. I want to get better a million times more than you do. Trust that with support, I will do my very best each and every day to improve.
5. Don’t ever forget that each day may be different. Yesterday, I may have gotten a bit manic and cleaned/organized for hours. It may take me another two weeks before I can do that again.
6. If I say I need alone time, please, please, please — do not take it personally. Most of what I need to do to get better is internal. If I don’t get enough time to withdraw into myself and figure things out, then it will take me that much longer to cycle back out again. And if we have kids, help me to hide it from them and try to get them out of the house when I am unable to do that.
7. Do not ask me how long it will take before I am better again. I have no freaking idea.
8. If you need to vent how hard it is, go ahead. It will be okay. Venting is different from anger though. Find your own support system and ways to deal with those negative feelings. Don’t bury them. You may even want your own therapist for a while to help you deal with what I am going through.
9. Each episode of depression is different. One time, it may be helpful to veg on the couch and watch a bunch of romantic comedies so I laugh a lot. Other times, I may get hyper-focused on a computer game or in reading or in another hobby. At my worst, I may need to sit in my room, alone, in the dark, rocking back and forth crying. I might want to try all of these things. Make gentle suggestions, but if I let you know it isn’t helping, please listen. And don’t take it personally.
10. You are going to feel helpless. You love me and it will drive you crazy that you can’t fix me. It’s a horrible feeling and I can’t take that away from you. But, I can tell you that even though you might think you aren’t doing a lot, if you are following the above advice — you are doing more than you can imagine. Thank you so much for reading.

Love from Me

It struck me as familiar

I follow a few blogs that I connect with in regards to my depression and anxiety.  One of them is Anxiety Adventures.

About a week ago, I read an entry that spoke to me on so many levels.  I need to really sit down and dissect my thoughts to it so I can see how they fit into my tangled brain. 

Here are the points (italicized and bold) that really gave me some aha moments:

Downtime is tough for me, as I often fall into the isolation rabbit hole and get kidnapped by anxiety and depression. It’s difficult to predict how I’ll react to downtime -

• Should I try to keep busy and avoid thinking too much?
• Will making plans but failing to keep them cause a shame spiral?
• Will having no plans cause a shame spiral?
• Will no plans keep me relaxed so I feel able to interact with the world?
• Does the answer lie somewhere in between?

For me, I want to say that the answer is somewhere in between.  I don't know where quite yet.

I also really like the term "shame spiral" because I can relate to it and it is such an accurate and descriptive term.  For those of you who've never experienced a shame spiral, here's what mine are like:

1. For whatever reason, I feel as though I've failed.  This can be not completing something I'd intended to do or simply not doing anything.  It can be any type of failure, no matter how big or small.
2. I will overly focus on and obsess about said failure and get worked up.  There will probably be tears and there will definitely be a great deal of negative thoughts of general worthlessness.  There might even be a panic attack.
3. By the time I've hit this part, there is a strong chance that I will be completely useless for the remainder of the day which will only further perpetuate the shame spiral.
4. Bonus round - I might even carry the shame on for multiple days or start reliving past failures and have more shame spirals form. 

Herein lies the trouble, my mind waffles on whether these plans are mandatory, wanted, needed, or time-fillers.

I both love and hate making plans.  Plans are good because I can then actually plan them.  I know what to expect and what is expected of me.  I am prepared for the event/outing/whatever.

However, plans are commitments and promises.   And I really hate breaking commitments and promises.  This means that if I freak out or have an issue and cannot participate in said plan.  That means I've failed and BAM - shame spiral.

(I do want to mention that most of my close friends as well as my husband and the kids understand that this can happen.  While they still may be hurt or disappointed, they are supportive and understanding of me.  My extended-immediate family (parents and siblings) is getting better at it, perhaps due to my blog.) 

Spinning about my head is the recurring thought that I need to maximize my time off. I need to have fun. I need to be productive. I need to have interesting stories to tell once real-life resumes. I need to recommit to my life and find fulfilling activities. I need to be a functioning, contributing member of society.

This starts a potentially vicious cycle of:

1. Plans/objectives
2. Failure
3. Shame spiral
4. Deep depressive episode
5. Isolation from my life
6. Recover period

Of course it can go well and does rather often.  It is when it doesn't go well that I suffer.

I feel like I'm setting myself up for failure but I need to start to realize that I may also be setting myself up for success.  In a perfect/better world, I would just try my best.  I would try my best and actually be content with what I was able to achieve and focus on the achievement instead of the failure.  Sometimes I might not achieve much of anything and that is okay.  I would wade in to the shallow water first instead of just cannon-balling into the deep end.  I would be realistic with my own personal expectations. 

Realistically, I’ll get anxious about failing to accomplish anything that I won’t actually try, then half-heartedly convince myself that I didn’t try so I didn’t fail. 

Really need to stop that one and come to an acceptance that failure is an okay and human thing.  By not beating myself up over a failure that is really quite minor in the big scheme of things, I can hopefully avoid going any further and the "2.  Failure" step I mentioned above. It is just so difficult to do since I've been berating myself over my moments that are unsuccessful. 

Embracing failure as a learning experience would also be helpful.  If I was able to look back on the failure and dissect it so I could figure out what pushed that moment or event over into the failure zone.  This would allow me to avoid those triggers or come up with ways to cope with them.

Christmas with the family 2012, part 1

At least two of my past posts (Bah humbug and Struggling) dealt with what I like to call the weekend from hell or the hectic weekend.  For the weekend from hell, we (me, my husband and the two kids) drive two and a half hours to Omaha on Friday.  On Saturday we celebrate the holidays with my mom's siblings, their children and my grandfather and his girlfriend.  Later that evening, we have our smaller family Christmas with my mom, my step dad, my brother and his wife and me and my family.  Sunday we head to my dad's house for a meal and gifts with my father, his wife, my brother and his wife, my sister and then me and my family.  This all must be accomplished by 2:00 pm so we can be home in time to pick up the dogs from the doggie hotel (Sunday pickups are between 5:00 and 5:30 pm) and return the kids to their mother's house by 6:00 pm.  Hectic!

Add to that I have issues riding in the car for long periods of time.  I get incredibly freaked out and sometimes bump up into a panic attack.  Let's also include that I sometimes have problems in crowds even if I know everyone and/or are related to them.  In addition, there is a certain amount of anxiety involved when I need to don the daughter/granddaughter/niece/cousin persona.

This year there was some added stress since we were also going to go to my sister's college graduation...on Saturday morning.  She's was graduating from the largest college in Nebraska so there were lots of people and a lot of things I didn't have control over.  I wasn't going to miss her getting her college diploma so not going was simply not an option.

(I'm not even going to get into the stress and anxiety that built up during the week prior.)

So, everything on Friday seemed to go just fine.  No major snags and I did really well riding in the van on the way there.  I did take an Ativan prior to the trip and once during.

Saturday things started off okay until I went to take a shower and realized I brought the wrong shirt to go under my vest.  Quick search revealed a Walmart on the way so we were going to leave just a bit earlier and all would be fine.  We got to Lincoln with very little problem.  As we were heading to the location of her graduation we got off track.  Pulled up driving directions on my phone and we were back on track and going just fine.

When we arrived, the lines were HUGE and the parking areas were filling.  My husband and I got a bit snappish with each other.  I had taken an Ativan prior to the trip and was very temped to take another but knew I might need my remaining two later on in the day.  After all, it was only 9:00 am. 

After being directed to a parking lot, I switched into my other shirt and we began the jaunt to the center.  We arrived and spotted my brother, sister-in-law and father rather quickly.  We were lucky to find some seats just behind them.

The ceremony was long and I got a little weepy but the panic didn't set in.  Afterwards, we found my sister and since we had some time to kill, we headed to my sister's apartment.  She rode with us so it was easy.  She was also going to ride with us to her reception site.  Time at her apartment and the ride to the reception went beautifully.  We arrived and I was able to see my step mom for the first time in probably three and a half years.  We chatted some and vowed to stay in touch better down the road. 

The reception continued and was going very well until we were getting ready to leave.  Since my dad had to bring my brother and sister-in-law over to my mom's house, we were trying to come up with the best plan on how to make that happen since he didn't know where their house was located.  I had mentioned giving him directions or just meeting at his house back in Omaha, but he said we could just follow each other.  I said we could do that but would need to meet up with each other since we were parked in different areas.  My dad started explaining things to me and I just lost it.

I couldn't deal with the information and being responsible for it.  Hell, I wasn't even the one driving.  I told him to talk to my husband and walked out.  I needed a break and some air. Apparently my father and husband worked it out so we all took off to our vehicles.  We had a little problem with ours (the sliding door wouldn't open) so it took us a bit longer to reach the meetup area.  When we did arrive, my father was nowhere to be found.  We drove a little bit, looking for him.  No luck.  So I called him and he didn't answer.  I called my brother.  No answer.  I called my sister-in-law and our luck ran out.  My husband kept asking me what we should do and I kept getting more and more anxious and upset.

I've learned that when I'm already having issues (depressed or dealing with anxiety), making decisions is something I am incapable of doing.  I figure it is because I'm already dealing with so much shit going on in my head that anything else just pushes me completely over the edge.  This was one of those times.

Eventually I told him to just pull over until we could reach my dad.  We did after some time and I thought we were figured out.  Nope.  So we talked on the phone again.  We still weren't on the same page.  I was done so I told him we should just head back to Omaha and meet at his house.  He agreed.

Once on the interstate, my husband decided he needed something to drink so he suggested we stop at one of the towns and meet my dad there.  Called dad and he thought that sounded like a great plan so we met at a gas station.  Once everyone did their thing, we went to leave and my dad, instead of following us, took the lead.  Are you kidding me?

My husband was feeling just as frustrated as I was so we just let it be.  We caught up to them right before the exit to my father's house.  And my father took it!  My husband asked me what we should do and I told him to just keep driving.  Immediately, my phone rang and it was my dad.  He said he messed up and they would get right back on the interstate.  They did and we were on the phone and off it for the ride to my mom's house.

I was so glad to get there.  I tried not to let my frustration and anger show to my dad and I know he felt some tension but not all of it.  We hugged it out and I told him we would talk later.

Part two will be up soon.  Just writing this I've just about worked up into the emotions I was feeling that day.  Not cool.

(Part two can be read here and part 3 here.)