Can I Overcome My Obsessions so That I can Start Working Again?

My mind is filled with fear, my body reeks of old sweat from not showering, my hair is greasy, my eyes are blood shot and my hands are trembling. I’m not depressed, in fact I’m far from the eternal darkness that has consumed me for most of this year. Rather I’m afraid of the changes that are occurring in my life. I’m afraid that I will fail. I’m afraid that I will lose my sobriety and start using again. I’m afraid that I will lose my ability to write. I’m afraid that my future will be no more. And I’m afraid that my mind will crack and I will loose all of my progress, all of my healing and end up back in the hospital.

I should be happy that I have a new job and that I’m not depressed. I should  be relieved that it has been months since my last mixed episode. And I should be happy that I am still sober.

But I’m not. All I can think about is that I will fail and lose everything. It has happened before, in fact most of my life is filled with incomplete projects and jobs that I could never hold. Yes, I graduated from college, but I didn’t learn anything and never paid attention. Most of my time was spent trying to figure out how to graduate early and to make myself well known. I was afraid that when I died, my existence and history would be lost forever.

So I made myself well known. I did PR for my college’s football team. Before I stared working for them, their average attendance was 100. When I quit, they were getting close to 1000 fans a game. I obsessed about working with the football team so much that my life became the football team. I stopped doing my homework, I rarely slept, I never read or played video games and I had no friends. Instead I spent all of my time with the football team trying to make them into a massive success. I became so driven that I began working with the community that surrounded the school. I attended city business networking groups, had lunch with local civic leaders and convinced the mayor to work with the school. At that point my obsession exploded and I shifted my interests from the football team to the school itself.  I was convinced that I could reunite the city and the college (for years the city had shunned the college, and the college refused to acknowledge city. Instead of working together they ignored each other).

I started working with the president of the school to help increase the college’s exposure and convinced her that we needed to build a relationship between the city and the college. I was just a college student and yet I was able to have numerous private meetings with the president (I was able to circumvent her secretary and the rest of her staff. No student had ever been able to do that before. I was put on her schedule along with donors, politicians and business leaders). She agreed and I stared doing various jobs for her, as well as becoming one of her PR advisers. I was given an official title and I was invited to join a major committee that worked on various projects to improve the school (the board consisted of professors, heads of every major department in the school, student government president/vice president and me) as well as the student run activities committee. At that point I had my hands in every part of the school and was the creator of the school’s new slogan (there is a lot more, but it is a little fuzzy and I don’t really want to think about it, because it stresses me out).

I had my wish; I was well known and respected. But my life was fucking miserable. I had spread myself so thin and had so many responsibilities that I didn’t know what to do. Instead of asking for help, I just gave up. I stopped going to the meetings, I stopped helping and I stopped caring. I shut myself in my dorm room and gave up on life.

For the next year I did absolutely nothing. I watched TV and drank myself into oblivion. I stopped caring about school and just wanted to graduate . At that point I thought my life was over. I had no reason to live, I had no reason to move forward. And I was scared shitless.

Every time I have done something in my life, I have over obsessed about it, pushed myself to become the best at whatever I was doing and then quit. Besides graduating from college, I’ve never finished anything in the last decade.

And that is why I’m so fucking afraid.

I’m afraid that I will end up repeating my mistakes and once again give up on life.

A friend of mine has given me a position in his company. He has helped me so much during the last year: coaching me, talking with me and just being there when I was really down. Now that I am stable and sober he has given me a chance to start working again. A chance to become self sufficient and move towards the next step in my mental health progress. But I am so damn scared that I will fuck it up.

I don’t know what to do. The last year and a half has been so fucking miserable, so painful and so depressing.  I have been wallowing in self pity for far to long. But I’m afraid I will never be able to break through this dark barrier. Will I be able to overcome my obsessions and my self pity? Fuck I hope so, because I want to live a stable and productive life!

Wow this has been a long post, I haven’t written this much in months. And all though my anxiety is high and I’m really stressed, I’m fucking glad I did this.

Well that is all for now. What do you guys think I could do to help myself overcome my fears? What has been your experience with fear and self pity? How have you overcome your mental roadblocks? Or if you are currently struggling, please comment about it, so that we can all work together to heal and survive.

My goal for this blog is to make it into a community and a safe place for everyone who suffers. I want to invite you to continue commenting and if possible respond to your fellow readers so that we can create a living dialogue, and an internet support group. Your comments and responses have helped me get through my struggles and I want to share that love and support with everyone. 

I hope you are all having wonderful weekend and I look forward to the coming discussions. I am going to push myself to respond to your comments, so that I can overcome my fear of communication and human contact.

Stay strong,

Dave.

My Week is Going Well & That Scares the Shit out of Me :(

Sorry for not posting this week, I’ve been taking a mental break- I had three straight days of therapy (both group and individual) and my mind is tired. And on top of that everything has been going well, which I fucking hate. Even worse, I liked the new group I went to on Tuesday and because of that it messed my entire week up.  For two weeks I had been prepared myself to hate the new group, to fear the fact that the group of new people would make fun of me, and force me to sit in a corner and cower. For two weeks I made myself sick with fear. But when I finally went to the group, I actually enjoyed myself, which sent me into a paranoid/anxiety filled rage (well, I don’t know if it was a rage because it didn’t happen all at once, but something broke in my head). The rest of the week went well too, which caused my mind to further crumble. By Friday I was a mess, I didn’t know what to do. My week went well and I was not prepared for that. It got so bad that I couldn’t do anything, I spent most of the night staring at my blank computer screen, wondering what went wrong.

I’m finally stable again, but now I’m just confused. Why does happiness scare me so much? Is this going to happen to me every time I have a good week? Shit, the last time I ended up in the psych ward, I was having a really good day, I woke up happy, had an enjoyable drive and then fell into an extremely destructive mixed episode that go so bad I had to be escorted by multiple security guards to the hospital. Happiness seems to cause me immense pain and suffering. And every time I’m stable, I try my hardest to fuck things up.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

Does anyone else struggle with this? Do any of you guys fear happiness, or try destroy your stability? And if so what have you done to get over the fear/hate of happiness and stability?

Well, that is all I can write at the moment. Hopefully I can post again soon. I know I constantly make this promise, saying that I will post more often and then I don’t for days, but I’m really trying my hardest to change this. It’s all linked to my struggle with motivation, ever time I try to get myself to write (or do any other activity) I get this really horrible feeling that I cannot describe. Further it is compounded by this habit I forced myself into as a kid. When I was in high school, I was a solid student. I would spend hours and hours working on homework, keeping myself dedicated to my studies. However, I started realizing everyone else was playing video games, going to movies, partying or doing other things not related to homework. So, I started to get really jealous and forced myself to stop studying. Unfortunately, this “habit” got worse.

When I was in college I never studied (well I studied a little bit, but most of the knowledge I learned was from taking notes during the lectures) and I wrote most papers the day they were due. You would think I did horribly in college, but you would be wrong. I graduated in three years, with three degrees and honors in one of my degrees. Because of this my “habit” got even worse. It got so bad that any activity, other than watching tv or playing video games, would be considered “homework” in my head and I couldn’t do it.

As a result, every time I want to write, my brain tries to convince me that it is a chore and I should be doing something “fun.” Even though writing is the most exciting, exhilarating, stimulating activity I can do (it gives me a mental high that I cannot explain), I get this horrible feeling every time I try write (or do anything else, like go outside, call someone on the phone etc.)  This problem has gotten so convoluted and powerful that it impacts every part of my life. And I’m fucking frustrated. I know you might think that I’m complaining and that this is a trivial problem attributed to laziness and lack of motivation- but to me it’s not. I really struggle with this.

Well I guess I wasn’t done writing. I just wanted to let you all know what I’m going through and why I’m having such a hard time posting. I’m not depressed anymore, thanks to the lamictal and my anxiety has gone from extremely high to somewhat high. I’m just struggling with psychological problems I’ve had for well over a decade and they are fucking hard to break.

I hope you are all doing well,

Dave.

Hiya, A Break from the Depression

For the last few days I have tried to write this post. Each time I sit down, I open my blog, click the new post button, create a title and then quit- convincing myself I can’t write and that all I am good at is watching TV and beating myself up.  I have gotten really good at convincing myself I am not good at anything, in fact, I have pretty much given up on all activities and spend most of my time staring at the computer screen, telling myself I am worthless and wishing that I was no longer depressed. This cycle goes on everyday.

and yet here I am, actually writing! I guess there is hope for me.

(manualdeladepresion.blogspot.com)

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, my psychiatrist put me on lamictal for depression, it seems to be working.  Although I am skeptical, because I  have yet to find a cure for depression, I am happy that the darkness has receded a bit. And I’m slightly sad- as fucked up as this sounds I do miss the depression. I’m so used to being depressed and so scared of being manic, that I miss the darkness.

Sorry for the jumbled post, I’m really tired (I sleep during the day and stay up at night and I haven’t had much sleep the last few days). But, I wanted to make sure I got this post out, in hopes that I can convince myself to write more consistently. I want to thank everyone for the comments, I will be responding to them soon, it just might take me a bit of time. I have read them all, and they all have helped me during this dark time. I want to encourage everyone to participate in the discussions, as you are all an important part of this blog.

How do you deal with depression? What are your depression stories?

I hope you are all doing well,

Dave.

Manic Depressive Illness- Avoidance, Panic Attacks and Lack of Motivation

This has been one strange week. I have been avoiding my life, escaping into video games and TV shows, hoping that the world would just go away. I was afraid to write, I was afraid to go outside and I was afraid to live. My anxiety has been at an all-time high, causing me to think irrationally- I thought the whole world was out to get me (I do take a med for anxiety, however, it doesn’t always work), so I just quit functioning. As a result, I stopped doing the one thing that makes me happy: writing.

I guess I overwhelmed myself, I thought I was ready to start another blog and expand my writing, but in doing so I completely collapsed and gave up on everything. It’s frustrating because I’m still unstable; I thought I had made progress in my mental health, but I guess I was wrong. I want to be ambitious, I want to move forward and do something with my life, but at the moment I can’t.

End of self-pity mode

Sorry about the previous paragraphs- I  needed to expel/verbalize the frustration I’ve been holding in all week, so that I can move forward. For the time being I’m going to spend all of my energy on this blog and maybe in a few months I will start up the religion blog. I love this blog to much to let it die because of my fears, paranoia and avoidance. Hopefully I will write a bigger post in the next few days.

Post questions:

How do you get yourself out of a rut (it can be depression, anxiety, agoraphobia, paranoia, mania)?

And if you have low motivation, what can you do to jump-start your mind?

I hope you are all well,

Dave.

Continuing the Medication Debate: An Examination of Bob Fiddaman’s Book on The Seroxat Scandal (Guest Post)

In an effort to continue our dialogue on medications, I have decided to post this book review. This does not mean I am for or against medications, but rather I am providing you with another chance for discussion. Today’s guest post comes from reader Sheila who writes the blog  Prozac Withdrawal (a blog on her personal struggle with antidepressants). Throughout the book review, Sheila struggles with the positives and negatives of medication- the same struggle all patients go through. The following is her book review:

I’ve been following Seroxat Sufferers Stand Up and Be Counted! For a little while and I cottoned onto the fact that the author, Bob had written the book “The Evidence, However, Is Clear” so I sent off for it and read it in one day, that’s pretty fast for me nowadays.

Bob was prescribed Seroxat (an SSRI in the same family as Prozac/Lustral) for depression due to work related problems, what followed was a journey that took him through a tapering process of, what he believes to be, a highly addictive antidepressant.  Following almost two years of withdrawal, Fiddaman’s new battle with the manufacturer of the drug (GlaxoSmithKline) and the UK Medicines Regulator (MHRA) took him on a more frustrating journey than he could ever have imagined. (This bit is from the blurb on the back of the book). I understand from Bob’s website/blog/book that he is an activist and winner of two Human Rights Awards and lives in a council flat in Birmingham.

I am really so much in awe of Bob and I learned a lot from his book, about how the pharmaceutical industry has cynically marketed SSRI’s, how the MHRA is hand in glove with the manufacturers of SSRI’s (and other drugs) and not detached as it should be.  How they have suppressed information that these drugs are extremely difficult to get off of, and kept the medical profession in the dark about how to get people off SSRI’s properly. I learned how the drug companies peddled the myth of a “Chemical Imbalance in the Brain” which I fell for and believed myself until the penny slowly dropped after 10 years of failure to get myself off Lustral.  It’s a shocking read but I wasn’t surprised by anything I read, I’d kind of realised for myself a long while ago that someone must be making a lot money out of all these people who struggle to get off SSRI’s and believe they have a chemical imbalance.

Where I struggle is that I know a lot of people who have benefited from antidepressants as well and feel they have improved their quality of life, I find myself avoiding discussion forums on mental health on certain women’s web sites now for fear of upsetting people who are on SSRI’s with what I now know. I don’t want to cause additional depression and anxiety for people who are already depressed and anxious and probably wouldn’t want to listen anyway.

What I really have a problem with is that doctors are not presenting patients with the full facts about SSRI’s before prescribing them like smarties.  The first time I had Post Natal Depression I soldiered on without drugs, I really struggled, and it took me  a good year to really come out the other side, I’m glad I did though and I’m glad I didn’t go into a second pregnancy  on SSRI’s and the worry about the effect on my second baby. After I gave birth the second time I thought I had got away with it, but then I felt the blackness wash over me soon after, worse than the first time.  This time I decided I wasn’t going to keep it to myself, I was going to fess up, I told Peter and my health visitor, together we went to talk to the doctor, the doctor suggested antidepressants, I was desperate but my overriding concern was that I would be addicted and that was the first question I asked, I was reassured that no these were a fairly new class of drug and they were not addictive…..the rest is history.

I often wonder, if my doctor had said, there is a drug that can help you feel better, but they do have some side effects, they can make you feel numb, if you stop them suddenly or come off too fast they can make you feel desperate and suicidal, they can be extremely difficult to get off and worse case scenario it could take you as long as 3-5 years to taper off them, I wonder what I would have decided then? I wonder what a lot of other people would decide?

~

Please use the comment section for discussions on this book review as well as the medication debate. Remember, please be civil and respect everyone’s comments and enjoy the discussion.

I hope you are all well,

Dave.

Manic Depressive Illness: When Depression hits Like a Ton of Bricks- My Therapy Session

I saw my therapist yesterday and it turned out to be a very difficult session. I’m not used to having a therapist who pokes and prods and takes an interest in my mental health- my previous therapists were crap and rarely cared about my progress (this will be the topic of a later post, detailing the potential damage psychotherapists can cause). So when Dr. J started digging into the root of my depression, I was not ready for the outcome…

The first part of the session was spent talking about various aspects of the mental health world- in a previous session I had told Dr. J that I was writing a blog about my struggles with mental health, so he was updating me on various topics and studies. This lasted for a few minutes, until the conversation began turning towards my life. We started talking about how my week went and the fact that I’m still isolating. However, that was not my main concern, so I shifted the conversation towards the subject of mixed episodes. Dr. J asked me a few questions about my episodes and we began discussing how my emotional state has changed over the last few years (a lot of it due to my drug use. This will be the topic of a future post). It was around this point that I began to fall apart. The more Dr. J dug into my mental state, the more I started to loose control of my mind. I don’t know what the breaking point was, but something he his said sent me spinning.

The walls started closing in and I felt myself shrinking into my chair. A wave of darkness washed over me and the only thing that I could think of was, get me the hell out of here! I could see Dr. J sitting across from me, trying to engage me in discussion, but my mind had other plans.  I could barely move, I could barely think and the walls continued to close in. The depression was growing and I couldn’t fight it; instead I spent all of my energy trying to stop myself from crying (I do cry, however, it embarrasses me to cry in front of other people, shit it embarrasses me to just be in the presence of other people). What the fuck was I going to do? How the hell did this depression start? Why am I acting like this? Why am I being tortured by my mind? I hate myself! I hate myself! I hate myself!  The mental screaming only made my situation worse, as the darkness began to tighten its grip. I still could barely understand Dr. J and although I wanted to speak up, my mind was occupied. As I stated in my title, the depression had hit me like a ton of bricks.

Eventually the depression began to weaken, and I was able to regain control of my mind (I know this was a quick leap from deep depression to stability, but I didn’t want to ramble on and on about my depressive state. That could have taken up hundreds and hundreds of words). I could finally hear Dr. J clearly and we began discussing what I had felt. He determined that a lot of my episodes are situational, as exemplified by the episode I had just experienced. The session ended a few minutes later and I was happy to leave (well happy that I had survived the session). By the time I made it home, I was exhausted. Although I wasn’t completely depressed I was lethargic, un-motivated and stressed.

End-post questions:

Have you ever experienced an episode during a therapy session? If so, would you be willing to share.

How do you keep your therapy sessions on topic? Sometimes I struggle with going on random tangents that take away from  my session time. Does anyone else struggle with this?

Are your episodes situational? Do events, memories or actions cause an episode to start?

 

I hope you are all having a great weekend.

Dave.

Manic Depressive Illness: An Unknown Episode- Or Why I’m Haunted by my Past

Every once in a while I experience a bizarre and crippling episode, that forces me to reminisce about my past. I know it doesn’t sound that bad, but when it hits I’m overwhelmed by a sense of dread, paranoia, anxiety and fear. I start thinking about how shitty my life is, which then evolves into depression and suicidal thoughts. What makes it even worse is that I don’t know what triggers it or why it happens.  Since I was diagnosed with manic-depressive illness, I’ve only encountered this “unknown episode” a few times.

Last night I experienced one of these “unknown episodes.”

I had just finished eating dinner and I was trying to clean up. As I was walking to the sink I started getting this feeling that something was wrong. My mind wasn’t racing, the voice in my head was quiet and I wasn’t depressed,  so I ignored it (I don’t know how this post will turn out, my memory is spotty because the episode only lasted a few minutes). After cleaning my plates, I started calling for Domino and he rushed into the kitchen. Then it hit me. I almost fell to my knees as I was overcome by a sense of failure and regret. I started getting flashbacks of my past, my high school years, when I wasn’t a complete mess. It felt like my life was over and that I had no reason to live. I couldn’t breath. Memories of my youth overwhelmed me, causing me to loose control of my mind. I didn’t want to live, I didn’t want to be the failure that I was, and I didn’t want to be crazy.  One thought started swirling around in my head: Why had my life fallen apart?  

It felt like my head was going to explode and it took all of my energy to pull myself out of it. Slowly the thoughts began to disappear-the memories stopped, the feeling of failure went away and I started gaining control of my mind. However, the damage was done and the frightening part was that I really wanted to die.

As I stated above, I don’t know what caused the episode and that’s what scares me. I don’t know how to prepare myself for the next episode.  So I want to ask you guys, have you ever experienced something like this? And what should I do to prepare myself or protect myself from this “episode?”

I’m going to stop here, my mind is all over the place. Unfortunately, I’ve spent the entire day (I started at 11am)  sitting in front of my computer and drinking coffee. I know it’s not very healthy, but I’ve been trying to avoid the world around me.

Dave.

Say Hello to Domino- My Best Friend and Therapy Cat!

My good friend Susan (and fellow cat lover), who runs the amazing blog If You are Going Through Hell Keep Going, suggested that I should share Domino with the world.

Domino is 1.3 years old and I rescued him from an abusive home. He means the world to me and he has helped me get through some of my worst episodes. And he is just as crazy as I am

Domino as  a baby.

 At my old apartment, Domino loved climbing to the top of the fridge, so he could look over his apartment and keep an eye on me.

 Somebody is tired or he is laughing.

 Nap time.

Although he hates water, Domino loves to hide in the bathtub

Domino says hi

My parents bought Domino one of those massive towers. The problem is he has gotten so big part of his body hangs off the ledge. But he loves it!

Domino resting in my arm.

 I hope you are all doing well,

Dave.

Follow up questions: Do you have a pet and have they helped you heal? What are some of your pet stories? I would love to hear them.

Manic Depressive Illness- The Origins of my Agoraphobia: Or Why I Struggle with Isolation

As I mentioned in a previous post I have been isolating, blocking myself off from the rest of the world. I have made a little progress- yesterday I saw my therapist, Thursday I went to see my psychiatrist and Wednesday I ran some errands. But I am still deeply scared of the world outside my door. Every time I try to convince myself to walk outside, I have an internal battle. My legs try to walk, but my mind fights back. So instead of walking forward I tend fall back into my chair, defeated, paranoid and anxious. The frustrating part is that I want to leave my apartment. I want to be around other people, but my mind won’t let me. I’m a prisoner to my fears and paranoia.

As a result of my isolation, I’ve spent a lot of time analyzing my past- trying to figure out how I ended up becoming a partial shut-in. I wasn’t like this in high school (ok, I wasn’t the most popular kid in school, but I had a few friends and I made an effort to go outside) or the first year of college, in fact I was both gregarious and confident. Then I realized something, in my sophomore year of college I started seeing my old therapist again. And after a few meetings, Dr. E diagnosed me with OCD and Agoraphobia. Using this period as a reference point, I tried forcing myself to remember the memories leading up to my diagnosis.

Eventually the memories started coming back.

They were dark, horrible and tragic scenes of a young me trying to fit in with the “popular” kids. At that time, I was desperate to fit in (yes, I know this is a typical scene from most  high school and college movies, but this happened to me and the results scarred me for life) so I went to parties, I drank heavily with the football team and I made a fool of myself. At the time I didn’t realize they were taking advantage of me, pushing me around and treating me like shit. I didn’t care, because I felt like I was being included.  Every day my self-esteem was taking a huge hit, shattering what little confidence I had in myself. This went on for a few months.

Manic Depressive Illness Needs a Sense of Humor (Guest Blog)

Tonight’s guest post comes from reader/author/artist/poet Meredith who runs two different blogs- one on manic-depression called The Daily Bipolar  and another that showcases her poetry and art: Gurgling Thoughts. Meredith examines how humor can impact life:

I used to have a sense of humor. Sometimes it pops out now, but when I was younger, without children or any real ties, I had a sense of humor mixed with cynicism and at times anger. Of course, then I was self-medicating with alcohol, acid, pot, pretty much anything but the heroin and PCP.

I married a man who has an over-the-top sense of humor – everything is funny. Every situation got laughed at and not enough was taken seriously. At first, this was ok and didn’t stress me out. It was when we had children that things started splintering.

I got serious, really serious. Solemnity became a badge I wore strung so tightly to my heart it took years before those ties would begin to unravel. I believe much of my seriousness is from fear (i.e., anxiety), a fear that if a problem isn’t taken seriously, nothing will be done to solve it. Carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders was natural to me and none of it was funny, to laugh would just be disrespectful.

After the divorce, I was finally able to see his part in the turmoil and that I wasn’t crazy. With distance from his humor-laden conversations, my own sense of humor slowly emerged.

Being able to laugh at oneself makes living, in general, easier (once past the embarrassment) and makes living with bipolar lighter and much more manageable. My children have taught me how to laugh at myself. It’s a good thing too, since they’re two of the main reasons my world got so serious! J

There are times we get into giggling fits at the dinner table, even when it relates to manners. My mother would be appalled as manners are no laughing matter. I have found that I must take my laughter when it comes, for the most part, because it doesn’t come that often. After so many years of working on it, it actually feels good and less scary to let go. My wife may not always agree with me when I laugh at something the kids say in response to my discipline, but sometimes that’s ok.

I will always remember one of the funniest things my daughter did. We went camping this summer and as we were packing up to go, the kids were in the tent trailer getting things ready. My son (13) said something and my daughter (15) hit him.

I sent him out of the trailer and looked at her (stonily) for a moment. I said, “Who do you think you are?” She replied, “Runnin’ ‘round leaving scars.” My pursed lips were suddenly perforated with zerbet sounds as I laughed involuntarily. She cracked up, too. I still laugh when I think about it. Eventually, we got down to the brass tacks, but now that scene is remembered when certain stress points arise. It allows us to laugh, relax, and solve the issue in a diplomatic fashion.

Some days, I go a day without laughing at all. Some days, I laugh in the company of myself reading someone’s blog or tweet. And there are those days, amazingly enough, when I have a lighter step and nothings seems to rile me. But I still have trouble predicting or controlling them. Gotta roll with it.

~

*If you are interested in writing a guest post for Struggling with the Elephant in the Room, please send an email to manicdepressiveblog [at] yahoo.com