I'm Not a Zombie Today

Well, I got nearly seven hours of sleep last night, all in a row! It's been a lot harder than that lately, where I get two plus three hours, or four hours plus one or two. Getting Emma to sleep is the easy part. If she doesn't fall asleep with snuggling, I let her cry herself to sleep, so that's not the problem. It's getting those long stretches of uninterrupted sleep that's the challenge. I only have between 10pm and 6am to sleep, because I have to take care of everyone during the other times of the day. I try to get extra naps on the weekend, but that's not very consistent. I think prayer helped last night. I was thinking about how little engergy I have for my daycare kids these days, and how I wish I could be doing something else. I have a really delayed reaction to the endless, and pointless, bickering, and often wish all these people would just get out of my space. But I make good money doing daycare, so that's not going to change anytime soon. I was asking last night that something could change, either I get more energy, or miraculously find a different source of income. And guess what? Baby slept a long time last night. Hallelujah! I was so exhausted last night, that I did not cook dinner, and everyone fended for themselves. I think nearly all of us ate ice cream and popsicles for dinner. I'm such a good mom. Did I mention I'm trying to lose weight...

Also, it's confession time, I think. I'm ready to talk. I have to thank, or blame (hah, hah), Sue for her blog post on depression. It was like a long-distance, unintentional, intervention for me. I think I just got to a point where I was ready to admit that I've been miserable for over two years, and have been on a roller coaster of emotions. Most days I have been in a fog, with hardly any mental focus. And I have had crying bouts, where I hate myself intensely, wishing the kids had a better Mom, and Zen had a better wife. Don't laugh, but I even mentally picked out my replacement. It's not that I seriously contemplated suicide, I would never visit that kind of misery on Zen and the kids, but the self-loathing was just so intense. And it would just come and go, for no good reason, following by a short period of energy and enthusiasm. I'd often ask myself, "What is wrong with me?" And that would just make me feel worse, not having my act together. I hid the depression from my family (meaning Zen & the kids), not telling anyone how sad I was all the time. To me, it was more painful to try to explain myself and receive understanding, than to just keep it to myself. Although I'm sure the crankiness and anxiety were evident to everyone, the causes and related symptoms were not.

Anyway, after reading Sue's post, I just thought, "Okay, enough is enough," and I made an appointment with my doctor. I dreaded it, because I thought I would have to jump through all these hoops, and I'd face some kind of ridicule, or have to have several psychological evaluations to prove I needed some kind of medication. But it was so straightforward. He asked a bunch of questions, talking about my symptoms, and within minutes, he was satisfied with his diagnosis. It was textbook depression/anxiety. He says there has been such a stigma about depression, that the attitude has been that the patient should just suck it up, and get over it already on their own. And there's also been the problem that past medications have had a lot of side effects like grogginess. But he was saying that the medications available today are so much better, and have proven to be very helpful. He said that I should ask my family to pay attention to my feelings and attitudes, to see if they notice a change in the next four to six weeks. He says that often the patient doesn't notice much of a difference, but that the people close to them say, "Don't take them off their meds!" They notice a big difference. He also half-jokingly said that half of Rock Springs should be on meds, and that they should just them in the city water supply.

One of the symptoms that we discussed, and I had not even associated it with my feelings, is that I often have a hard time falling asleep, like my brain just won't shut up. It's this endless cascade of meaningless details that I can't shut off until nearly three or four in the morning. That is also related to depression/anxiety. And I can see now that I definitely have been getting strung out over little things, and not just since the pregnancy and birth. This isn't postpartum depression. It's been going on for several years. He told me that the sleeplessness and anxiety are from excess seratonin and melatonin(?) in my brain. He put me on Cymbalta, which is a serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, meaning it helps to balance all these chemicals racing around in my brain.

I left the appointment feeling a huge sense of relief. I'm not crazy! And now I can be on the road to getting myself back. I've only been on Cymbalta for about 10 days now, but I've noticed that the intense self-hatred has gone away. And though I could certainly have a reoccurence of that, I know that I haven't gone this long without it in a very, very long time. My doc said it could take up to six weeks to notice a change, and while I don't feel a big turnaround in other respects, I think there's light at the end of the tunnel.