An Anger That Won't Go Away

My manic episodes are rage. Screaming, swearing, sobbing. Tom understands this and talks quietly and reasonably to me. It would be infuriating, except that I know his primary concern is that I not have a heart attack and die on the spot. He used to sit me down in front of the TV, which oddly seemed to work, as watching it must have engaged some other part of the brain, diverting the fuel from the fire. I don't watch TV anymore. Can't concentrate. It could be a problem.

When I was first diagnosed with depression many years ago, a very intelligent psychiatrist asked me to tell him my story. He stopped me about halfway through and prescribed SSRIs, a particular form of anti-depressant. I asked him if I would have to be on these for the rest of my life. He looked at me over his glasses. "With your history? Absolutely."  Hmm...  Didn't even bother to hear the rest of the story. It seems that after three major depressive episodes, the brain loses it's ability to properly process serotonin, and never recovers. We all have a little pool of serotonin in our brain and in a correctly functioning brain, that little pool manages to stay full. In a clinically depressed person, the serotonin just drains away, and you are left with an empty pool, a hole in your head that nothing can fill.

I learned years later, after trying several SSRIs, that this particular family of drug can actually make your manic episodes worse. Interesting. Did the medical community know that then or was it just a guessing game then as it now?

Let's talk drug side effects. Do you listen to those commercials on TV for drugs for every condition under the sun? The list of side effects usually concludes with "even death." Enough said. Anti-depressants cause them all.

There's more, much more. But let's leave a bit of the unpleasantness behind. There are a few things that might help. Light helps. Early morning light in the summer, a light box built to specifications for the winter. This is one of Tom's summer projects. Physical activity, exercise, also can help. And then there is good old positive thinking. I don't mean to scoff, as this has possibly helped me more than any other treatment over the 40 years I have tried to cope with this condition. There is great comfort and beauty in small things, as Wendell Berry says, "The Peace of Wild Things."

Well, I expect you are sick of reading for now. I am sick of writing. But more will come. The betrayal of family. The exclusion. The deception. The good times that are forgotten in favor of the bad times remembered. It is enough to make you slowly peel your skin away, in an effort to forget the present, and become the real person you know still exists inside the old person you have become.

Enough. I am telling this story now and I don't care if anyone at all reads it. It needs to be said, and by God, it will be told.

This is Tom. Come August 18th, we will be 30 years sober and 30 years together. And, apart from the occasional rough patch here and there as you might expect, 30 years happy. He is extraordinary, though there were times I had difficulty convincing him of that. He knows it now. You say, "I love you," often enough and your beloved comes to believe it. When my deep sadness comes, I still need to be told. And Tom obliges.

Let Sleeping Dogs...

 

 

A beagle named Molly, with velvety ears.

Since my last entry in 2009, much has happened. In 2012, Tom injured his back and was forced into early retirement. He's been in agonizing pain ever since and unable to do the things he needs to do, as well as the things he wants to do. We are reaching the point where his doctors are veering away from opiates and trying other procedures. Hopefully, something will work!

My situation is somewhat different. After being diagnosed with depression for more than twenty years, the doctors here determined that I have bi-polar disorder. After trying numerous medications, we have yet to find any that seem to work. I am still largely inactive, find it difficult to keep up with errands, and even simple tasks around the house. But for the moment, I'm doing somewhat better. A momentary improvement.

At some point, I'll talk about the pitfalls and stigma of mental illness. But not today.

Today I am going to show you the face of mental illness - my face. I took these pictures some time ago for a lark. It was a dreary day, I wanted to play with my very nice camera, and I wanted to see how I looked in a few new clothes. I posted some of them on Facebook. They were the cheerful shots, but here you will see the ones that are not cheerful. Well, you'll see what I mean.

When I looked at these photos, I saw a woman hiding....wrapped up in scarves, shielding her face. I saw sorrow. Almost all of these photos show depression. And yet, I thought I was doing better. But the shadow is there. It is always there. It never goes away.

It's four-thirty in the morning and I'm sitting in the dark, trying to find words for something that cannot be expressed. The inevitability of grief creeping over the mountain like the cold mist in the morning. The knowledge that it will come again and again, and all the learned men and all the carefully consumed pills, will never defeat it.  The prayers and the pleas, the rest of my life on my knees, won't touch it.

And yet today I chased ten little chicks down the road, and looked up at the sky through the slowly unfurling leaves of spring. Touched violets in the long green grass and chose not to pick them, but to let them grow as long as they might. Rubbed the velvety ears of a little dog sleeping.

I cannot reconcile these things. The great grief and the blinding beauty of this life. I don't understand. And I have had a long time to think about them. A long, long time. I don't think an answer will come anytime soon.