This Is Me Maria

Ever since I could write, I have been inconsistently keeping journals. Growing up I spent an inordinate amount of time at Barnes & Noble with my dad. I usually came home with a new shiny and cool looking journal rather than a book. I once loved fresh clean paper and a ballpoint pen. I would write in the journal for about a quarter of the book, throw it away and get a new one.

See I like to go back and read what I have written and eventually my words begin to haunt me and embarrass me. The same thing has happened with this blog a few times now…

I am going to unlock some posts I’ve written. They are rather dark. If you don’t like what you read, please hit that X button in the upper corner of your browser. If you think I should be committed, I agree with you. Feel free to contact my husband and tell him so.

Scroll down at your expense, you’ve been warned.

Every time that I go through a bought with depression, it seems mountains worse than the last time. Perhaps it is.

Every time that I am scrounging blindly on the ground at the feet of the rest of the world I start to get tired. I get restless and tired of being depressed and lost. I start twisting and shifting and looking for a way out. Perhaps it is a new kind of survival mode.

The decisions that we have made (Christopher and I) as with nearly all decisions has plopped us into a swift current river forcing us almost helplessly in one direction. I do not allow myself to climb onto the shore even though it is nearly within  my grasp.

The sense of being trapped and having no good options is perhaps the most disheartening thing of all. It is this reality that keeps me feeling depressed and locked in a vicious cycle.

If only my decisions didn’t affect a couple young and innocent lives around me…

I am going to have a pharmacy in my kitchen before this is all done. My insurance apparently requires me to try and fail on 2 other medications that have a generic version before they’ll pay for my Lexapro. So the next time I see my doctor I’ll be starting over on a new medication. Damn.

I switched to Lexapro on Wednesday. It isn’t going so well. My therapist called my doctor’s office and while I wait to see my doctor again only a week after our last visit, I’m taking half a dose of each the Prozac and Lexapro.

It is like starting over. I was making progress until I switched medications. I wonder how many times I’ll have to do this until we find the right one.

It is not going well. I don’t feel like talking to anyone or doing anything. Chris is being very helpful and supportive though.

I’m reading this book in little pieces called “How I Stayed Alive When My Brain Was Trying to Kill Me”.

So I’m alive kind of. Still trying to get better.

I don’t want help. I want the peace that only the sweet release of death can bring.

I beg God all the time to just let me die, but he’ll provide no such comfort it seems.

I don’t believe I was meant to live a full life. For a moment I believed I was here to raise the two Littles but now I can’t tell if I am just mucking it all up.

Every emotion filled moment is like a brush with death, but only a tease as if to remind me that I’ll have no such luck today.

I’m afraid I’ll run away and abandon my family so that I can find my sanity.

I’m afraid I’ll swerve into on coming traffic.

I’m afraid that my urge to reproduce will cause me to seek out sperm elsewhere since there is none to be found here.

I’m afraid I’ll jump if I get to close to an edge.

I’m afraid I’ll speed up and smash into something, anything that is sure to end all of this hell.

I’m afraid that my husband is sick of me.

• Not able to read anything more than a few sentences at a time.
• Not able to listen the radio.
• Not able to look at certain colors. Everything is over stimulating.
• Not able to listen to the news.
• Not able to shower on a regular basis with out great effort.
• Not able to get out of bed.
• Not able to do more than the absolute bare minimum.
• Not able to think about the future or make any plans.
• Not able to carry on a normal conversation.
• Not able to make important decisions.

These are things that I have recognized in myself of late. It is some what eye opening how my physical being is impacted by simply my mental state.

Each day with the help of my medication, these things get minutely easier. It is my hope that I will eventually be able to carry on doing these kinds of things without so much effort.

The overwhelming theme in the last few weeks has been hopelessness. I have now lost track of how many days I have been taking medication. I figure it is 27 or so.

I feel like I am going insane. I wonder if and when Chris might decide to have me committed. The thoughts in my head are ridiculous. I feel like dying a lot though. Dying because I feel hopeless. Dying because what is in my head is unreal.

Chris took my gun away. He won’t let me near it ever again now. I feel kind of unsafe in the house alone unarmed but the part of me that feels like dying is glad that he has made it harder for me to give up. I can see how part of me might resent this during some difficult moments in the future though.

I get to see my doctor again today so I think we’ll discuss trying a different medication. I won’t stop trying to get better, right now it is only because of the Littles. One day I hope it might be for myself.

In a fast paced, competitive world those of us striving to get through each day don’t stand a chance. How can you give it your all when your all is just trying to keep you alive each day?

The progress I make each day is minute. What we’ve (my therapist and I) established is that I am in survival mode. I can function only on a basic level. My ability to give anything else of myself is non existent. I have nothing else to give.

If you have never experienced this, let me paint you a picture of what this looks like. It isn’t pretty. I won’t sugar coat this at all, as my ability to think creatively is also non existent.

The place where it is most apparent to me is my interaction with my children. I am some how able to take care of their basic needs. It takes everything I have but I can feed them, dress them, and send them off to school. I can hug and kiss them but when they need anything else from me, I cannot give it.

Every moment with them is taxing and all I want to do is be alone so I can focus on breathing. This was most apparent one morning when I took them out to breakfast at a Denny’s by myself. They were good. They weren’t rowdy or loud. They pretty much stayed seated the entire time and yet it was so incredibly stressful and practically traumatic for me, I just wanted to be done. Of course there are other things tied to this like my perfectionistic tendencies that cause me to insist that my children behave in public as if it were a reflection on myself but its complicated.

As you can imagine this inability to function on no more than a basic level affects every area of my life. There is no on off switch for this. All I can do is take my medication and use my plastic spoon to dig myself out of this 1000 foot hole that was dug with a giant shovel. Each day I try and recognize the areas that are affected. It is a constant discovery process.

One thing I am barely able to do is to read a book. I picked up a book today that I’ve been staring at for awhile. I can only read a page at a time. I am starting to see that the signs of my break down began quite some time ago. I drop words from my sentences when I am writing and even now when I am talking, this began quite some time ago.

The real kicker here is that we think that perhaps my husband is also in survival mode. I don’t want pity, just understanding and perhaps a prayer if you have any to give.