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‘Round Midnight 4

It’s becoming tradition. Every year since 2007, on New Year’s Day (or thereabouts) I’ve written a little post talking about all of the things that happened in the past year. (See previous years in review: 2006, 2007, 2008.)

Looking back on them is always an interesting experience. It’s kind of amazing to see how far I’ve come in the past four years, and fun to imagine what will change in the next year (hopefully good things!).

Anyway, without further babbling from me, here’s 2009 in review!

January – the month of friendships – Began to expand my social circle when Derek started working swing shift; found out about a few friends’ pregnancies; got U-Verse – actual television for the first time in like two years!; met up with my parents in Vegas
February – the month of reflection – Celebrated one year with Derek; got really into blogging pretty regularly; began thinking about the past and starting to grow from it.
March – the month of growing pains – Found out I was going to be an aunt; watched my younger sister start planning her wedding; started getting sick more often.
April – the month of missing you – Lost my great-grandmother; turned 23; continued to keep getting sick.
May – the month of admitting the problem – Realized my sicknesses were being caused mostly by psychological issues; began seeing a psychiatrist; pretty much hit rock bottom as far as being depressed and hating life. Not a good month.
June – the month of facing the problem – Started Lexapro for anxiety and depression; began biweekly therapy sessions with the psychiatrist.
July – the month of improving & looking ahead – Started feeling better for the first time in ages; began looking forward to the family vacation; Derek turned 29.
August – the month of family – Went to Florida with Derek and my family; met my little cousin, Alexis, for the first time; began to realize how much I love my grandmother and hope to be like her when I’m older; began to face some of the issues related to feeling out of place among my siblings.
September – the month of learning to live again – Started talk therapy with the psychiatrist; explored how I was living my life and what was important to me and Derek in our living situation; found out my ex was moving to China and tried to work out how I felt about it; met up with my parents and grandparents in Vegas.
October – the month of kiddies – especially RORY! – My niece, Lorelai, was born the day before my brother (her daddy) turned 28; decided to start volunteering at Kidspace; visited my friends in New York
November – the month of thankfulness – Withdrew from the online world a little to focus myself on life; spent a wonderful Thanksgiving with Derek and his family
December – the month of “home is where the heart is” – Stayed a week with my brother in Indiana; met Rory, finally, and fell in love – she’s the best niece ever!; visited my parents and grandparents; then came home to my Derek again… and my home.

Overall, this year was a lot less eventful than last year – that is for sure – but it was still a really important year. I dealt with a lot of things this year, a lot of very difficult things, even. But I’m already feeling so much stronger than this time last year, and I know I can only get stronger from here.

I’m looking forward to starting 2010. Farewell, 2009.

What It’s Like

“I have to work the day after Christmas, I’m so depressed!”
“If this game goes into overtime I’m going to kill myself.”
“Waiting for the next episode is going to give me an anxiety attack!”
“I’m totally OCD about spelling! I can’t leave a misspelled word alone!”

While I realize that Twitter is practically a huge bucket of melodrama – everything seems to be exaggerated when compressed into 140 characters – quotes like the ones above (which are pretty much direct quotes from random people on Twitter) really frustrate me. And not just on Twitter; practically every day I hear someone lament how depressed they are or how they’re going to kill themselves or how they’re practically having an anxiety attack or how they’re suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder.

It’s just people exaggerating, Jess. What’s the problem?

Well, those are some pretty powerful phrases people are throwing around. Depression, suicidal thoughts/tendencies, anxiety and OCD are not really very light things to deal with, especially if you actually, truly deal with them.

When I get depressed, people don’t know about it. I don’t tell hardly anyone that I’m depressed. Why? Because, for me, depression is like a huge weight that’s laying on top of you. You can’t get out of bed. You can barely move. You ache all over and you feel like just sobbing because it’s crushing you. You don’t go to work. You can barely tell the people you love what’s wrong – and even if you do, you have no idea how to explain how it happened. It hurts to be depressed. And chances are you don’t talk about it openly on Twitter – or anywhere, for that matter. You don’t want everyone to know.

Anxiety is pretty similar. Usually I can function a little better when I’m just feeling anxious, but there have been a few times when I’ve gotten halfway to work, started to freak out and had to summon every ounce of strength in my body to not turn around and run — literally, run — home. Again, you feel like sobbing. You can feel the adrenaline gripping every muscle, and they start to ache from being tensed so hard. You can’t catch your breath very easily. It’s terrifying. And this time, you can’t tell anyone, because you’re so terrified that you can’t even speak.

And in both cases, you feel like a failure. You couldn’t get out of bed, so you just laid there and cried, and then you cry more because you just laid there and cried through the entire day. Something negative caught you off-guard at work and you had to excuse yourself and hide in the bathroom, and then you didn’t want to come out because you knew you’d just run away to hide.

And, while I’m not personally OCD nor do I have very acute obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and it’s been a very long time since I felt like I wanted to die, I know the feelings are similar. You can’t control it. You can’t easily get past it. You’re stuck in that moment, in that feeling, and it’s so hard to get out of it – but only you can do it, and you can only do it by focusing so hard on everything else — if that even works at all.

Especially if you’ve been going through some sort of treatment for your issues, when you relapse you feel ashamed. You don’t want to have those feelings anymore, so when, uncontrollably, you do, you feel like you’ve failed yourself. You feel hopeless – like it’s never really going to get better.

Mental illness is a disability – reasonable accommodations for psychiatric issues are protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act. And those of us who have to deal with it on a daily basis — and it really is pretty much a daily basis — know exactly how disabling it can be.

Sure, tiny little things can set it off, but generally the relapses/attacks/episodes/whatever you want to call them are literally disabling. A spelling mistake is not likely to make most people fly into a tizzy where they can’t think straight and nothing is right. It’s rare that someone commits suicide because of a game going into overtime. Anxiety attacks usually are triggered by something a little more gripping than the season finale cliffhanger. And, although there are exceptions, a missed phone call is not going to be the only reason one spirals into a depression.

So please, think before you speak…
It’s not that bad. Trust me.

Sleeping In

As much as I’ve always hated being sick, I’ve found that since I started taking Lexapro I hate it even more.

Since I started taking it, I’ve been in a much better mood overall, of course. I don’t fall into my depressive, mopey states nearly as often and when I do it’s much easier to snap out of them.

That is, unless I’m sick.

It’s always been that when I’m sick I tend to get really grumpy and generally irritable, and in the past getting sick has even sparked some of my depressions. It’s just not fun; I’m uncomfortable, homebound, exhausted and just generally blah.

And, apparently, even Lexapro can’t help that much when I’m sick.

I missed two days of work last week and today is day two that I’ve missed this week. I check in every hour or so and my boss is very understanding, but it stresses me out not being there and having control or at least knowledge of what’s going on with my team.

I’m trying to stay positive and not let myself succumb, I’m telling myself that it’s just that I’m sick and stuck in the house getting stir crazy.

Does anyone else get like this when they’re sick? :\

On a lighter note: Thank goodness I have Derek. He made pasta for me for lunch and he keeps letting me sleep in even though it means missing lunch with him before he leaves for work. He even makes tea for me when he gets home from work, even though it’s after midnight and he’s tired. I have no idea what I’d do without him…

Anyway… Off to cook some rice, drink some tea and veg out in front of a Degrassi marathon (guilty pleasure woo).