Depression, you bitch.

Mental illness is a bitch.  A cunt, even.  Just when you start feeling like things will be okay, she shows up to ruin the party.




Charlie Brown is a fantastic example of depression and anxiety.  If you haven't seen the recent Peanuts movie and want to understand what depression & anxiety is, I highly recommend it.  Here's a guy who can't win, if even only in his mind.  When he doesn't win IRL, that's all the evidence he needs.  Trying to kick that damn football is the story of my life.



I keep trying to be positive.  I keep trying to be successful.  And I keep not.  Then not only have I been unsuccessful (in being happy, in doing something, whatever the case may be), I've completely sucked in my judgement of thinking I ever had any hope of kicking that fucking ball.

I have the world's best husband.  He is unconditionally supportive.  He rarely gets angry with me for being an angry, mixed-state* bitch.



He may have patience for me and he may accept that I feel miserable even if he doesn't really understand.  I can only imagine how difficult it must be to watch a loved one be in pain and not know what do to help.  Today he told me that I had to stay positive.  I'd love to.  That would be fabulous.  And that, my friends, would be the end of the depression.  I can't remember the last time I genuinely felt positive (at least not without immediately having the sensation of the "whoooof" that happened as I kicked the football that was no longer there).

Today I sobbed while my 8-year old daughter held me.  That is so wrong in so many ways.  A child should not be responsible for soothing her parent.  And that thought made me sob harder.  I am constantly apologizing for being and angry and sad.  If the world at large can't understand this, how can a child?

You wanna know what kicked off this downward spiral today?  My son dropped a little dish of ranch and it managed to cover every surface (including the underside of the breakfast bar) as it made its way down and crashed.  I didn't even get angry (for a change).  But I cried.  He apologized and started to clean it up but I knew it would only make it worse.  1) He's 10.  2) He's a boy.  3) His fine motor skills leave much to be desired.

A mess of ranch dressing = thoughts of needing to be hospitalized and thinking about whether or not a suicided (I just made that up, I think it's fitting, sort of like "murdered") mom is better than an emotionally unstable mom.

Life really is unfair and there is nothing that says everyone, sooner or later, will no longer suffer.  Lifelong suffering is possible, very, very possible.

I stick around for H.  It's one thing to have to live with a suicided mom.  It's another thing to have to live with that AND to have no one to fight for you in school or in life.  Today, I just realized the strongest argument I have for sticking around.  I don't see any way around that argument.  Lucky me.






*Bipolar disorder is made up of manic episodes, depressive episodes, and/or mixed episodes.  Interestingly, one does not ever have to have a depressive episode to meet the criteria of bipolar disorder.  I heard Charlie Sheen once say that one of the many reasons he didn't think he had bipolar disorder was because he was never depressed.  He was wrong about so very many things.  Another common misconception is that someone with bipolar disorder swings from high to low very quickly.  Not so.  In fact, a person is characterized as having rapid-cycling bipolar disorder if they have more than 4 different mood episodes IN A YEAR.  I think the lay person doesn't understand how deep a mood episode is, with roots, like a deep wave that holds a person hostage.  It's not just a little ankle-biter wave.  A person is said to have ultra rapid-cycling bipolar disorder if they have more than 4 episodes in a month.  I think I'm probably one of those lucky people.  I also never get the euphoria that goes with full-blown mania.  That's probably good because that often lands people in the hospital but I often wish I did, just for some reprieve from the suffocating darkness.  I usually have what are called mixed-episodes.  I found this on a website and it is the most accurate description I've found.  Most places just say that it's an episode where both manic and depressive episodes can be found, alternating.

Mixed state (also called mixed mania):

A period during which symptoms of a manic and a depressive episode are present at the same time. People who experience mixed states describe feeling activated and “revved up,” but also full of anguish and despair. Rapid, pressured speech can co-exist with impulsive, out-of-control thoughts of suicide and self-destruction or aggression. Hopelessness, irritability, uncontrollable swings between racing thoughts and a feeling of “being in blackness” can all happen over the course of minutes.

I teach about mixed episodes and it wasn't until a week or two ago that I really realized I was in the midst of one.  The way I describe it when I teach, and I was probably unconsciously describing my experience because almost nothing ever describes it this way, is having the yucky feelings of depression with the pressured amplification that goes along with mania.  It's like depression on speed.  And lots of rage.  Did I mention that I broke the glass topper on my desk this week?  It's been awhile since I've broken anything so there's that.  Anyway, mixed episode = the opposite of fun.