A couple of weeks ago I opened my eyes, looked at the iPhone on the coffee table and realized I had slept from 10:30 last night without waking. I was basically in the same position I started in, on the couch and curled up in a semi-fetal position. 7:30 in the morning, with hints of sun coming through the front window.
Within 30 seconds of waking, I also realized that the overwhelming nausea I had felt for the last 6 days was gone completely. My pain level that morning was the lowest it had been in several weeks. The normal feeling of aching in every joint was gone, maybe not completely, but enough my mind was not attuned to it. For once pain was not a constant distraction.
I’m overly frustrated today, as I find myself exhausted and down. A funk has set in, the shadow of a cloud is once again hanging over my head. Maybe it’s a reaction to lack of sleep for the next two nights, as restless legs have been keeping me up until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning before I finally fall asleep. My body aches, but at least I’m not sick, meaning my gut seems fine.
Mrs. Kyd has been traveling, and during our nightly call I told her I could feel my depression coming on and that I was feeling down for no specific reason. Is it this unbearable lengthy winter we’re experiencing, or the loneliness I go through when she’s traveling? I don’t think so. Seasonal Affective Disorder? Hmmm…it certainly plays a role, but don’t think it would cause such ups and downs.
Nothing specific I could think of, I’m just plain down. I wish I could pin this someone or something, because then it could be dealt with. Chronic depression comes on like a common cold. You don’t know how or where you caught it, it’s just there and needs to be dealt with somehow.
I absolutely hate the feeling of being depressed and wish to hell there was some sort of fix, cure, or help. “Pull yourself out of it.” I’m grateful the missus don’t ever say that, but now fully understands this is something out of my control.
Canada is sorely lacking in mental health care. Nearly to the point of non-existence. Even if I was willing to pay out the nose for help, there just aren’t enough actual doctors of psychiatry practicing medicine here. The waiting list is close to 18 months now. And please don’t put me in a group of other people to discuss my childhood trauma, that may work for some but not all.
That was one benefit in the U.S., although you had to pay for it, you still had easy access to a psychiatrist. I’m tempted to find a good doctor in the States and make the hour and a half drive (one way), but doing this every two weeks would be more demanding than I think I could manage on my own. Maybe just have to think of it like a fishing trip.
Sure there’s plenty of psychologist or psychotherapist around, but I need someone with the ability to prescribe an anti-depressant here in Canada. Or else I can fill a prescription in New York that I would simply take with me across the border. There must be some new medication that would help, if not I’ll know we at least tried. But it takes a good psychiatrist to figure out a treatment plan, and follow through with it.
I’m tempted to start making the trip. Besides a little bit of gas and time what can it hurt?
Will pharmacology offer any benefit? Maybe, but we’ll never know until we try. Are there alternatives? Sure, like ketamine treatments. But we know that was disastrous, for me at least. I can still go back on Abilify, and become totally unemotional. No more real lows, but no highs either. Just plain friggin’ numb to the world.
Maybe a simple frontal lobotomy would work just as well, save the trip and the money.
The best way I’ve found to get through these darker periods is to hope for lighter and brighter days to arrive. There will be days when I feel much better than this emotionally, they just are getting to be fewer and farther between.
I’m not one to sit and wait patiently though. I am looking into a treatment called Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation or rTMS. The therapy is now being offered where I normally get nerve blocks, spinal epidurals and the like, so I do trust them to have my best health in mind.
Instead of me writing troves of misinformation I thought the link below from the Mayo Clinic would give you a better idea of the treatment.
So watch this space as I go forward with trying rTMS at least. Anything to help…absolutely anything.
(Author’s note: my apologies for the delay in posting, well actually not posting at all lately. Having been bedridden for 14 days in January I find myself way past being down. Waaaaay past. I’m going to have to force myself to take action, do something, anything, or it’s never going to get better. In the meantime, here’s a look at my day from hell today.)
There’s a reason for the title, as I find myself reacting to a bad situation on a day that started off well. I almost felt half decent this morning, both physically and mentally. Every day has its challenges when you deal with both chronic pain and depression, but today had started off promising. The day wound down with thoughts of ending it all as it’s the only way I can see to get out of this miserable world I’ve created.
Seems I’m leaning toward writing about seconds, more specifically the second worst things in my life. Am I saving the worst things for last? Seems that way. But I will write about the longest day of my life, and the worst Christmas I promise. They’re at least a fun read. Someone once told me my life is like a movie with too many plot twists and turns to be real. I wish. The worst Christmas is a long drawn out saga of travel and adventure…haha. But it did have a happy ending, sorta.
But let’s talk about the Second Worst Christmas. Apologies for the shorter length of this, I’m in a fight at the moment. Nothing new, just my body is waging war against an invader, yet to be identified. Whatever is happening, it’s like I’m an innocent bystander who is forced to endure an ever worsening fight with pain, inflammation and severe nausea. The pain in my gut is crippling, and I’m relegated to laying in bed all day, stopping every so often for a cig and more ginger ale..
I’m stuck on this ride and can’t get off. I’m trying real hard…inside…to turn things around.
I have been unable to post or write anything. Which is frustrating in itself, just adds to the pile. I have to remind myself that writing while in the deepest throes of depression may be a way out. A way off this ride.
Don’t expect much, because doing anything while suffering from depression is getting to be damn difficult.
Author’s note: I haven’t posted for some time, my apologies. I find myself slowly recovering from eye surgery, winter has descended in full force, and I’m really down. There’s little I can do, simply make it through each day.
I’m not done…yet
I was stuck in bed again, well the couch and bed, recouping from eye surgery. Laser cataract treatment to be exact, finally completed 10 months after the retinal surgery. They basically removed the real lens that was clouded over from the first surgery and popped in a plastic one. All for a measly sum of $1300 out of pocket.
The operation itself wasn’t bad compared to the first one, 30 minutes versus 3 hours. Even the recovery time is a lot easier, I simply have to put two dozen drops in my right eye everyday, don’t bend over and don’t pick up anything more than 10 pounds.
There’s no point to this, I just needed to write for myself.
I wish I could take a break, as we all probably do. I don’t mean two weeks on the beach in Cancun or the Mayan Riviera. Although that would be nice, I agree. I mean just escaping this body and the ills of pain and depression for a while. Sleep would help, and would at least give me some time to just not think.
A break from a mind always in overdrive. but can’t rely on alcohol to turn it off. Yeah that may have worked, sometimes, but the side effects were worse than the depression, fed the disease.
I had to take a break from writing. I haven’t been posting simply because my body, with all its aches and pains, was dictating the mood. When you’re in so much pain and constantly nauseated it’s difficult to concentrate, and as such my writing goes out the window.
“In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God”. –
From the play Agamemnon by Aeschylus, 458 BC.
The two types of pain, one being physical, the other from the heart. Although the physical pain becomes overwhelming at times, beyond my capabilities to endure, it pales in comparison to the mental anguish we all may have to bear.
Broken heart. I don’t know when mankind started associating our souls and life with the heart, although it does seem to be accurate. Broken heart, heartache, makes no difference, but everyone understands that pain. Heartfelt, real honest. A pain so deep you swear it will kill you at times.
I tend to gravitate toward sad songs, which is unfortunate since I suffer from chronic depression. A few tear-jerking ballads to start the day, great therapy. People tell me I bring this on myself, and perhaps it’s true. Do I wallow in self-induced misery? Maybe so. Since it’s what I know more than anything, this sadness, perhaps I seek it like a comforting blanket.
When I’m low and feeling blue I put on songs that only reinforce my loneliness. Not too bright really. Odd how the color blue is associated with sadness, like having the blues. Singing the blues. Doesn’t work with another color, try it yourself.
“My woman done me wrong, and I got a bad case of the greens.” See, it just doesn’t fit does it?
I’m rambling today, my mind fretting about yesterday, where a case of the blues led me to thinking about the bottle. That’s a bad train of thought for a reformed drunk. The idea of speeding up the day crept in from nowhere. I thought by numbing myself with a stiff drink, or two, the day would be easier. It was 11:00 am.
(Author’s Note: This is Part I of a three part series on anxiety, or panic attacks, and a bum ticker. Meaning my heart decided to get in the mix with everything else that was going wrong in my life. 30 years that ended with my death at one of the best cardiac hospitals in the world. But I don’t want to spoil the ending.)
I start another day following a somewhat restless night. It finally rained last night and into this morning. It’s been a hot dry summer, not fit for much outdoor activity even.
Right now I’m lying in bed in the middle of a panic attack, one of those days when intense worry is eating me alive. There must be something wrong, at least that’s what part of my mind is telling me. I’m too hung up at this moment to take stock or inventory. I’m just worrying. Feel giddy, tense, ready to jump off the ceiling.
