Personally......Depression

I've gone back and forth about writing this, because I never know how personal is too personal. But I figured this might be better than a "sorry, I've just been so busy!" post. I'm not even sure how many readers I have left, that's how long I've been gone. Or it feels that way, anyway. And May is Mental Health Month, so this seems appropriate.

Back at the end of February, I went to see a psychiatrist. I was referred there by my neurologist, who just couldn't figure out why I have the most debilitating headaches ever. All my scans and tests came back fine, which was a huge relief. But it was also a tiny bit frustrating, because it gave my doctors nothing to work with, and the word hypochondriac was becoming more and more used. So the psychiatrist was a last resort, because everyone seemed to think that if I wasn't making it up, then stress just had to be the cause. So I went, and was told I had severe major depression. I was given some pills called Viibryd, and told to start seeing a therapist immediately, because it was clear that I needed someone to talk to. Well, immediately in that office means end of May. I still haven't seen the therapist yet, but will be soon.

As for the pills, I have yet to take them. The most commonly occurring side effects with this pill are nausea/vomiting, diarrhea and weight gain. Knowing how messed up my gastrointestinals are, I figured the likelihood of experiencing those were extremely high. I made a lot of excuses for not taking them. March was our birthday month, I didn't want to be sick for that. April was busy and I would be traveling a lot, and I didn't want to have all those symptoms while going to all the conventions. And now we're here in May, and I still haven't started. Its my son's last month of school, and I have a lot of PTA stuff to finish. Plus, the stomach flu is currently making it's way through my house, and I have to take care of my family. Those all sound like really good reasons, right? But they're also really good masks. After trying Zoloft and reacting to it like I did, I'm scared to try something else. And for the weight thing, its shallow, but I'm already on a few medicines that are making me gain weight, I can't gain anymore. To put that in perspective, when I was pregnant with my daughter, I hit 200lbs. She was a big baby, but I did gain a good amount overall with her for some reason. Anyway, currently, sans baby, I am just a few pounds shy of that weight. That is the most I've ever weighed in my whole life and it is embarrassing.

Depression is an ugly thing though, and its gotten bad enough that I can see it having harmful effects on my life. My marriage is suffering. That's a hard thing to type, but it is. My moodiness and paranoia has put a big strain on our relationship. He's not completely blameless though, sometimes he does things to purposely provoke it. But a lot of it is me. My blog life has suffered too. I haven't felt like writing much, its too much effort to sit here and pretend that things are okay when they're not. And I found that blogs I was usually loving were making me angry. I was jealous that they were more successful than mine, and I knew that was a problem for me. And I needed desperately to sell ads to pay for my pharmacy tech license renewal, but nobody was buying. In fact, I couldn't give my ad space away (and trust me, I tried). I suspect the desperation was seeping through, and that's another reason why I took a step back. I even got into an argument with another mom in the PTA. Shes annoying anyway, I don't like her on days that I feel normal. But she started in on me for no reason, and I let her get to me. She made me cry, and I went the immature route and called her names, because I didn't know what else to do. If I was me, normal me, I would've handled that situation completely different, and I never would've cried in public about it.

I am still not feeling one hundred percent myself (partially because I think I'm getting the stomach flu that everyone in my house has), but I will be starting to blog again. I have a ton of blog posts in my drafts, so I will be completing them and finally posting them. Lots of backdated posts from April will be popping up in your feeds over the next few weeks.

Thanks for letting me ramble on. I really do appreciate it.