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I actually got up this morning at 6:45 with no alarm. For me this is well, sort of amazing.
For the last 7 weeks I've been unable to get up before 10, waking up earlier, but anxiously trying to prolong that state of being semi unconscious, knowing I'm up against one of "those days."
Days where before I open my eyes, I know it's going to an agonizing battle to put on foot in front of the other and try to justify to myself why I keep going at all. For me it's like being in a long, slow purgatory of souless boredom, self condemnation and meaningless existentialism.
I read a quote that says, "If you're in Hell, don't stop, keep going." I think that's true, because the one day I did stay home alone all day sitting on the couch, I found myself reading about people jumping off the golden gate bridge to escape their current predicament.
Anyways, back to the ray of light part....This morning I felt like something was a little different.
Some of the heaviness and mental fog had lifted. I could almost hear my little spirit birds chirping.
I started thinking about my life, and my thoughts had some nuance, some hope.
I could see more than one way to look at a situation, and the a realistic, positive outlook didn't feel so foreign to my conscious mind.
I've been desperately looking for some answers for this cycle of low moods, and periods of joyful dis-organized living. Drugs and therapy for bipolar haven't really arrested these cycles, and I was pretty sure it was getting worse and I was really in for a tough ride through life.
Than finally, a meaningful second opinion, first from a highly trained therapist and than a psychiatrist. They picked up something that I thought was pretty trivial or maybe even funny.
It's a diagnosis that's almost always overlooked in women presenting with depression.
Since I've beed a teenager I've been battling with ADD. Just because I've hid it well and learned to be "functional" doesn't negate the struggle I've failed to recognize for all these years.
I still have along ways to go. Even as I sit here writing, I can feel the pain of what I've gone through haunting me. I want to take all of it and weave it into something meaningful, but I can only do that if I'm well enough to feel a sense of self amidst the suffering. My ultimate goal is to take all the colours of my sorrow and make an art installation on a white gallery wall, that I can reflect on periodically but ultimately detach from and move on with my life. Perhaps other people can look at what I've experienced and see if anything resonates with their journey.
I still haven't been able to start taking medications for ADD, but I think I'm going to talk another therapist at the private clinic about this option and pursue counselling related to managing the this condition effectively. I was instructed to get off a medication first, because I'm on a whole shwack of medications and two mood-stabilizers is overkill. I begged the doctor to go back on an SNRI and I'm on day four of that, so that may be helping. I also did something I'm kind of embarrassed about, but may account for some of my positive spirit today. I "gulp" "sigh" "erg" got botox. There are some preliminary studies saying that having a relaxed facial expression helps the feedback loop in the brain that controls mood. I believe this to a degree, because my depression feels like I'm on a circus ride through a haunted house, over and over again. I can see how even one system reporting a different impulse, i.e. neutral facial expression, could be a shift.
That's the thing I find about depression. I have to keep going, and trying new things, because it really comes down to interrupting that negative feedback loop, which can take a lot of effort. It feels like the train of thought is speeding around on the depressive track, and the switch to a normal mindset is broken. So here I am a tiny person, trying to get a train to stop by throwing cans at it. It feels pretty futile. That's what recovery from depression feels like, I'm a tiny being trying to derail a massive train. It feels like I'm not getting anywhere, because each gesture of recovery in singularity is ineffective. It takes a lot of continual effort and new strategizing to stop this monster.
I'm really hoping I am on the right track again, but I know my neutral or positive train of thought gets derailed to easily. I'm hoping that by working with a therapist that knows ADD in adults I can work out some of the kinks that I fearfully thought of as being hypomanic. If the disorganization and frustration I feel when I try to start my art business or contribute in a substantial way to my landscape business are resolved by addressing the ADD that might make all the difference. I want to feel like a competent, capable adult, not a teenager staring out the window, doodling in her notebook, unable to follow what is going on in class, or take control of her life.
