Depression

Those of you who follow this blog and my twitter know that I’ve been dealing with a pretty big bout of depression the past few days. Today it’s starting to lift a bit, and hopefully will soon pass. I get to see MasterDoc today, and Shane came over last night to spend some time. Both of them are great to cuddle, as well as enjoyable to spend time with. I’ll talk about the naughty bits of my evening with Shane in another post. Davey comes home just in time for MasterDoc to go away again – so I won’t be sitting around alone for another weekend.

I want to talk today about clinical depression. There’s still enough of a stigma against it that it can be terrifying to be openly depressed (or suffer from any other mental illness). While I did have a lot of nice people send tweets of support, I still felt afraid that I’d be perceived as “crazy” and therefore undesirable. (I also worry that people like the guy who assaulted me will use it against me to dismiss my claims of being assaulted.) Granted, being depressed adds to this feeling of being lesser – it’s part of the issue in the first place. When I’m depressed I feel overwhelmingly sad, overwhelmingly bad about myself (I kept thinking that I’m too much trouble and that MasterDoc and Davey would be better off without me), and I feel guilty asking for help. MasterDoc was spending the weekend at DeeDee’s for the first time, and last thing I wanted to do was ruin his or her weekend. When depressed, I don’t have energy to do much, and I don’t get pleasure out of much either. I felt so depressed yesterday afternoon that I actually told MasterDoc that I didn’t have any interest in sex right then. (Yes, I know, can you imagine??)

But I really needed to seek help. Part of the complexity of depression is that you withdraw, you think you’re not worth helping right at the time you need help the most. And I have to say that it is definitely an illness – I couldn’t  control my dark mood any more than I could control my gall stone attack a few weeks ago. When it comes to physical ailments, we shuffle people off to the doctor or emergency room right away for treatment, even if it’s just to reduce the pain via painkillers. But with mental illness people often look the other way – they don’t want to embarrass the person who’s depressed and since curing depression isn’t as easy as a shot of painkiller (wish it was) they feel helpless. So they give the person space. But if we treated other ailments that way it would seem crazy, wouldn’t it? To ignore a gall stone attack while it’s put someone in agonizing pain seems absurd, but ignoring a bout of depression which has similarly put the subject in pain is not unusual.

While I’m depressed and pushing people away, I’m also hoping that someone will ignore my pushes and come in and take care of me. I want nothing more than to be reassured that I’m not worthless. As the depression lifts, I can see that my thinking has been irrational and was caused by being mentally ill but in the midst of it it’s practically impossible to see. And it hurts. Being depressed hurts. Maybe not in the same morphine-fixable way that gall stone pain does, but it’s an agonizing emotional pain.

When dealing with someone who’s mentally ill, please don’t ever tell them to just “cheer up.” My friend and I were laughing about this yesterday. “Haha, yeah I hate when people think that’s gonna help. “OMG, I hadn’t thought of that! ‘Just feel better’ – You’re a genius!” she said. I agreed that it’s just as hard to will the pain of mental illness away as it is to will the pain of my gall stones away. (Or will away cancer, or a heart attack.) “Exactly! Its miraculous! I can feel better whenever I want, and I CHOOSE to be miserable like this! -facepalm- “ It really helps to talk with someone who understands. I do not choose to be depressed. I cannot just make it go away. I do take medication for it but medication is imperfect. It feels lousy to be mentally ill – the longer I live with it the more I see it as an illness just like any physical one. It has an onset, I feel really unwell for a while, and then gradually it improves and goes away.

But even though I’ve long been open about my depression (I think we need to be open to get rid of the stupid stigma) when I’m actually depressed I stigmatize myself. I’ve been understanding that since I sprained my wrist late last week that I have to coddle it and rely more on my other arm. But I’ve been much less understanding that I need to coddle my psyche and lean on MasterDoc’s mind for a while. As a submissive, I feel it’s my job to take care and to not be any work. It’s hard for me to truly let my defenses down and let someone in to the whack-a-doodle shit going on in my brain. I wrote a blog entry offline to work on expressing my feelings. I only just showed it to MasterDoc and I doubt I’ll post it here. He didn’t think it sounds as crazy as I thought it did. It’s scary to do so though, because even in the midst of it you know it’s disordered thinking and sharing it with someone is terrifying. You become a prisoner in your own mind. Reaching out to connect with someone else is often the biggest help, but the hardest thing to do.

I’m not 100% back to normal as of yet. But the fog has lifted somewhat, and I’ve managed to open up to help and support from people around me finally.