When it comes to antidepressants, all I know is my own experience. Drug therapy always seems to be a contentious issue, at least among LDS people. Maybe that's because we have great faith in God and in our relationship with our Savior; we believe we can be healed by the power of God and through the Atonement. Sometimes, though, I think we forget that many of the medical miracles we are blessed with in our modern age are brought about by God's will and through his power. I remember hearing someone say in testimony meeting that Lasik surgery was a miraculous healing for them. Maybe antidepressants are the same kind of thing. Anyway, I have been on antidepressants three separate times in the past five years. Yes, I have spent more time on the drugs than off but I think that my going off and on again has given me a pretty good idea of how they work for me.
The first time: Four months after Number 1 was born I realized I was nuts (i.e. paranoid, vaguely suicidal, angry, constantly tired, unable to enjoy anything--even reading!, and anxious). After talking to my doctor I started taking 5mg of Lexapro every day. After a couple weeks, I was quite pleasantly surprised when one day I was able to walk past the razors in the bathroom and not have fleeting images of slit wrists (whether those wrists were mine or not, I don't know). Also, my back, neck and shoulders didn't hurt as much because I wasn't try to keep my body from its usual anxious trembling. However, I still cried a lot and would get so angry I'd have to scream myself hoarse in a towel or break things to be able to stop seeing red.
Unfortunately, I was quite embarrassed by my status as a person who has to take pills and thought my body should be able to manage itself (why do we all think our bodies are perfect just the way they are? I know I'm hoping that my freckles, along with my chemical imbalance, will be gone in the Resurrection). So I took them for what was supposed to be the shortest time advisable: 3 months. Turns out that was misinformation and you need to stay on an SSRI for at least 6 months once you start taking it. People who do less than that usually end up having a relapse. After three months I quit and felt horrible. My anger got worse and some of the violent thoughts returned. My paranoia started to creep back in. But, I started exercising and writing and running a book club and getting more sleep and my life felt very managable--except for a few depressed days here and there and my body-shaking anxiety and cup-shattering anger.
The second time: Then, I was delighted to discover, I was pregnant with Number 2. The pregnancy was pretty good until about 20 weeks. Then I started to have trouble disciplining Number 1. I was always coming down hard on her and I actually swatted her bum out of anger once. I also pushed her over once. These things were unacceptable to me and I couldn't understand how itwas happening. I loved her so much--I didn't want to hurt her and so far I hadn't really. But I had come close, far closer than I ever thought I would. It was obvious the potential was there. I waded out the last few months of the pregnancy hoping someone would ask me about my previous PPD experience and hoping I could deny it, but that they would press the issue and take it out of my hands. No one did--except for maybe my sister who encouraged me to start my medicine again. After a smooth delivery and first few weeks, when I did my best to act how I knew other mothers acted with their newborns, I lost control of my life. When Number 2 was about three weeks old I found myself screaming at her and Number 1. I would call my sister or husband and cry and yell and cry. I knew I wasn't being the mother God intended me to be. The guilt was horrible and I wasn't sure if I could trust myself. I went in for my three week PPD screening, which was standard at my new OB's office, and she told me that I had one of the highest depression scores she had ever seen. She sent me home with a perscription and several referrals and business cards for therapists.
This time I was on twice the dose I had been on before--I was taking 10 mg of Lexapro--and the difference was amazing. Not only did the violent thoughts disappear, but so did my anger. It was like I had been sleep walking for the last couple years and finally woke up. I had more patience and energy--I felt way better than I had during my first course of antidepressants. Turns out, I hadn't been on a big enough dose or taken them long enough to really get better. (I tried working with an LDS therapist but, oddly enough, she and I just didn't seem to understand each other.)
That time I stayed on them for a year. Then it was time to have the next baby and I weaned off them. I didn't recognize this at the time, but I don't think I was ready to quit taking them when I did. Once they were out of my system I became convinced that my husband was going to leave me (paranoia, again!) and that I was an unfit mother (guilt, again!). My anger came back, this time as door slamming and, yes, I did break some door frames. My anxiety was back too. One morning, I arrived at a preschool field trip crying and shaking so badly all the other mommies thought somebody had died. I couldn't bring myself to tell them that I was just freaking out because I was late.
The third time: We got pregnant with Number 3 right after that and I couldn't start taking my medicine again. So I joined the YMCA to get some exercise, which always helps, and opted for therapy, which also always helps. In therapy my new therapist (who was not LDS but was very open to learning about it through me) and I focused on my anger issues and did a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy to stop my guilt cycle and to help me stay out of the red zone. I loved it! I finally felt like I was understanding my emotions and was able to control them. That sense of self-mastery was new to me and really boosted my confidence. Maybe I wasn't actually deperssed! Maybe I just had poor emotional skills! Ha, ha, ha. Depression is like a bad rash--once you think it's gone it just starts itching somewhere else. By my the third trimester I was on my way downhill and, even though I felt like a failure for it, I started taking my medicine two weeks before the baby was born.
That failure feeling didn't last long. Since we were able to head it off at the pass, my depression wasn't too bad. Being on the pills this time just made me feel groovy. I no longer had the pressing need to finish everything on my to do list before the baby was born. And even after Number 3 was born, instead of worring about how I'd repay them, I was happy to let other people bring me dinner. So what if the laundry was wrinkled and the dishes were never all the way done? I wasn't crazy and I liked that.
I'm still on the medicine right now. I don't know when I'll stop taking it. I feel good and pulled together and my family needs me to be that way. After all, you know the old saying, "When Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy." Well, this mama doing all right.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
I Don't Go to Therapy to Find out if I'm a Freak
Something I really appreciate are songs that are about something other than falling in love. Not that falling in love is bad. It's great. It's just that there are so many other things in this world to think about. So why not set some of those things to music?
One day, in a fit of teenage rebellion, I stumbled on one of those rare not-about-love songs when I went to Hastings and bought a Lilith Fair cd. I found it on the used rack for a massive discount and just holding it made my palms sweat. I kept thinking of all the subversive material it might possibly contain. After all, there were some songs by the Indigo Girls and they were, well, you know, lesbians. I kept thinking of the day my brother brought home an Alanis Morisette cd and the way my parents reacted.
But, for the moment, I was a being a rebellious teenager so I bought it and furtively listened to it late at night in my room. A lot of the songs were too arty or too angst-y for my delightfully sheltered Mormon brain. However, there were some songs that really resonated with my inner rhythms--an awesome arrangement of "Eternal Flame" was one of them. (I'm too young to know the '80s version of it, so that cd was my first exposure to that fabulous teenage love song.)
Another of my favorites was a song by Dar Williams called "What do You Hear in These Sounds". Perhaps my liking of the song was a premonition because when I heard Williams' throaty and vulnerable voice croon the first line, "I don't go to therapy to find out if I'm a freak," I knew I had found a personal anthem.
So, since I think putting the actual song on here would be some sort of copyright infringement and I'm afraid of going to jail, I'm posting the lyrics for you all to enjoy. Well, and to be honest, I have no idea how to put a song on my blog. I just barely figured out how to put my picture on here. And my husband had to help with that. So, go to Itunes and look up Dar Williams "What do You Hear in these Sounds" so you know what it's supposed to sound like--it's on there I checked :)
WHAT DO YOU HEAR IN THESE SOUNDS?
I don't go to therapy to find out if I'm a freak
I go and I find the one and only answer every week
And it's just me and all the memories to follow
Down any course that fits within a fifty minute hour
And we fathom all the mysteries, explicit and inherent
When I hit a rut, she says to try the other parent
And she's so kind, I think she wants to tell me something,
But she knows that its much better if I get it for myself...
And she says ooh, aah, what do you hear in these sounds?
And, ooh, aah what do you hear in these sounds?
I say, "I hear a doubt, with the voice of true believing
And the promises to stay, and the footsteps that are leaving."
And she says "Oh." I say "What?" She says "Exactly."
I say, "What, you think I'm angry
Does that mean you think I'm angry?"
She says, "Look, you come here every week
With jigsaw pieces of your past.
It's all on little sound bites and voices out of photographs.
And that's all yours, that's the guide, that's the map.
So tell me, where does the arrow point to?
Who invented roses?"
And, ooh, aah what do you hear in these sounds?
And, ooh, aah what do you hear in these sounds?
And when I talk about therapy, I know what people think
That it only makes you selfish and in love with your shrink
But, oh, how I loved everybody else
When I finally got to talk so much about myself.
And when I wake up and ask myself what state I'm in
I say, "Well I'm lucky, cause I am like East Berlin."
I had this wall and what I knew of the free world
Was that I could see their fireworks
And I could hear their radio.
And I thought that if we met, I would only start confessing,
And they'd know that I was scared,
They'd know that I was guessing.
But the wall came down and there they stood before me
With their stumbling and their mumbling
And their calling out just like me.
And, ooh, aah, The stories that nobody hears
And, ooh, aah, and I collect these sounds in my ears
And, ooh, aah, that's what I hear in these sounds
And, ooh, aah, that's what I hear in these
That's what I hear in these sounds.
One day, in a fit of teenage rebellion, I stumbled on one of those rare not-about-love songs when I went to Hastings and bought a Lilith Fair cd. I found it on the used rack for a massive discount and just holding it made my palms sweat. I kept thinking of all the subversive material it might possibly contain. After all, there were some songs by the Indigo Girls and they were, well, you know, lesbians. I kept thinking of the day my brother brought home an Alanis Morisette cd and the way my parents reacted.
But, for the moment, I was a being a rebellious teenager so I bought it and furtively listened to it late at night in my room. A lot of the songs were too arty or too angst-y for my delightfully sheltered Mormon brain. However, there were some songs that really resonated with my inner rhythms--an awesome arrangement of "Eternal Flame" was one of them. (I'm too young to know the '80s version of it, so that cd was my first exposure to that fabulous teenage love song.)
Another of my favorites was a song by Dar Williams called "What do You Hear in These Sounds". Perhaps my liking of the song was a premonition because when I heard Williams' throaty and vulnerable voice croon the first line, "I don't go to therapy to find out if I'm a freak," I knew I had found a personal anthem.
So, since I think putting the actual song on here would be some sort of copyright infringement and I'm afraid of going to jail, I'm posting the lyrics for you all to enjoy. Well, and to be honest, I have no idea how to put a song on my blog. I just barely figured out how to put my picture on here. And my husband had to help with that. So, go to Itunes and look up Dar Williams "What do You Hear in these Sounds" so you know what it's supposed to sound like--it's on there I checked :)
WHAT DO YOU HEAR IN THESE SOUNDS?
I don't go to therapy to find out if I'm a freak
I go and I find the one and only answer every week
And it's just me and all the memories to follow
Down any course that fits within a fifty minute hour
And we fathom all the mysteries, explicit and inherent
When I hit a rut, she says to try the other parent
And she's so kind, I think she wants to tell me something,
But she knows that its much better if I get it for myself...
And she says ooh, aah, what do you hear in these sounds?
And, ooh, aah what do you hear in these sounds?
I say, "I hear a doubt, with the voice of true believing
And the promises to stay, and the footsteps that are leaving."
And she says "Oh." I say "What?" She says "Exactly."
I say, "What, you think I'm angry
Does that mean you think I'm angry?"
She says, "Look, you come here every week
With jigsaw pieces of your past.
It's all on little sound bites and voices out of photographs.
And that's all yours, that's the guide, that's the map.
So tell me, where does the arrow point to?
Who invented roses?"
And, ooh, aah what do you hear in these sounds?
And, ooh, aah what do you hear in these sounds?
And when I talk about therapy, I know what people think
That it only makes you selfish and in love with your shrink
But, oh, how I loved everybody else
When I finally got to talk so much about myself.
And when I wake up and ask myself what state I'm in
I say, "Well I'm lucky, cause I am like East Berlin."
I had this wall and what I knew of the free world
Was that I could see their fireworks
And I could hear their radio.
And I thought that if we met, I would only start confessing,
And they'd know that I was scared,
They'd know that I was guessing.
But the wall came down and there they stood before me
With their stumbling and their mumbling
And their calling out just like me.
And, ooh, aah, The stories that nobody hears
And, ooh, aah, and I collect these sounds in my ears
And, ooh, aah, that's what I hear in these sounds
And, ooh, aah, that's what I hear in these
That's what I hear in these sounds.
Monday, February 18, 2008
One of those days
Today is one of those days. I'm feeling low. (I've wanted to write about feeling depressed while I was feeling depressed, so here's an effort. I usually give up on these posts cause they read so horribly, but since I've wanted to try it, I guess I will.)
I was feeling pretty good this morning, but for some reason today just got harder and harder as it went on. And it's not like anything really happened. I just got bogged down in the minutiae. You know, no matter how much housework I did this morning the house is destroyed before dinner. It doesn't matter that a magazine wanted to buy a poem, all I can think about is how I'm having writer's block on the next one. It doesn't matter that my girls played for almost thirty minutes this morning without arguing (a new record!), all I can think about is how grouchy they were during family scripture study. It doesn't matter that the baby had a good nap and is beginning to settle into a routine, all I can think about is how he cried and cried at the gym and I'll probably have to cancel my membership. Or wake up at the crack of dawn to exercise. And then it just feels like a flood or a box or something closing in on me and swallowing me.
On days like today I just feel like a failure at everything--as a mother, a wife, a writer, a friend, everything. That feeling of failure is like having quicksand inside. It just opens up and sucks everything inside it, getting bigger as it does. By the end of the day I just feel empty and achy.
Tonight I filled the ache with Thin Mints. Well, I stopped at seven because noshing out on cookies just felt like another failure. So I filled the ache with television. Which actually worked pretty well. Most people in TV shows (at least the ones I like) are depressed. Take Scrubs for example, the show is funny and depressing at the same time--although I do mute it everytime the Todd walks on; he's icky. I'm not sure how the writers do it, but the strange mix ameliorates the ache. Or at least distracts me from it. It's a good thing I'm Mormon or I'd probably have a substance abuse problem.
I guess the weird thing is that in my head, I keep hearing all those hymns and Sunday school lessons that say I should pray or read my scriptures or do something church-y to make myself feel better. But, honestly, I don't want to. It just seems too hard. A lot of the time those things actually make it hurt more. Odds are, praying about today would only make me cry and I'm not sure what good crying would do. It might just work me up more, especially because the feelings don't make a lot of intellectual sense. I don't know how to pray about it. Reaching out that way just opens it up more--like pulling the scab off a wound.
When I was in therapy the sessions all ended too quickly and I was always stirred up inside. I would sit in the car and feel shaky all over, trying to transition back into being the mom. I needed to take all the things that had been let out and put them away again, that way I could be the one who didn't have a lot of needs because my children had (have!) a lot of needs and failing them would be something I would never recover from. I would always picture my worked-up-self in a beautiful white room. The room was all full of light and had the most comfortable bed in it--like if the celestial room was a bedroom, that's what the room in my head looked like. I would picture myself laying down in that peaceful room and just going to sleep. Just imagining that setting helped calm me down. And somehow that feels spiritual to me. It's not scripture reading or anything traditional but it reminds me of God's love and that seems important. He's with me in this even if I don't know how to feel Him. And that's important.
I was feeling pretty good this morning, but for some reason today just got harder and harder as it went on. And it's not like anything really happened. I just got bogged down in the minutiae. You know, no matter how much housework I did this morning the house is destroyed before dinner. It doesn't matter that a magazine wanted to buy a poem, all I can think about is how I'm having writer's block on the next one. It doesn't matter that my girls played for almost thirty minutes this morning without arguing (a new record!), all I can think about is how grouchy they were during family scripture study. It doesn't matter that the baby had a good nap and is beginning to settle into a routine, all I can think about is how he cried and cried at the gym and I'll probably have to cancel my membership. Or wake up at the crack of dawn to exercise. And then it just feels like a flood or a box or something closing in on me and swallowing me.
On days like today I just feel like a failure at everything--as a mother, a wife, a writer, a friend, everything. That feeling of failure is like having quicksand inside. It just opens up and sucks everything inside it, getting bigger as it does. By the end of the day I just feel empty and achy.
Tonight I filled the ache with Thin Mints. Well, I stopped at seven because noshing out on cookies just felt like another failure. So I filled the ache with television. Which actually worked pretty well. Most people in TV shows (at least the ones I like) are depressed. Take Scrubs for example, the show is funny and depressing at the same time--although I do mute it everytime the Todd walks on; he's icky. I'm not sure how the writers do it, but the strange mix ameliorates the ache. Or at least distracts me from it. It's a good thing I'm Mormon or I'd probably have a substance abuse problem.
I guess the weird thing is that in my head, I keep hearing all those hymns and Sunday school lessons that say I should pray or read my scriptures or do something church-y to make myself feel better. But, honestly, I don't want to. It just seems too hard. A lot of the time those things actually make it hurt more. Odds are, praying about today would only make me cry and I'm not sure what good crying would do. It might just work me up more, especially because the feelings don't make a lot of intellectual sense. I don't know how to pray about it. Reaching out that way just opens it up more--like pulling the scab off a wound.
When I was in therapy the sessions all ended too quickly and I was always stirred up inside. I would sit in the car and feel shaky all over, trying to transition back into being the mom. I needed to take all the things that had been let out and put them away again, that way I could be the one who didn't have a lot of needs because my children had (have!) a lot of needs and failing them would be something I would never recover from. I would always picture my worked-up-self in a beautiful white room. The room was all full of light and had the most comfortable bed in it--like if the celestial room was a bedroom, that's what the room in my head looked like. I would picture myself laying down in that peaceful room and just going to sleep. Just imagining that setting helped calm me down. And somehow that feels spiritual to me. It's not scripture reading or anything traditional but it reminds me of God's love and that seems important. He's with me in this even if I don't know how to feel Him. And that's important.
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