I Had To Change

SOMETIMES I MISS THAT TEDDY BEAR.

Shortly after I was diagnosed with, and began treatment for, clinical depression (see previous blog post), San Geraldo and I were on the move again. It was our third move in our five years together. From Boston, Massachusetts; to Los Angeles, California; to Washington D.C.; to New Haven, Connecticut.

I was doing well and didn't seem to need any talk therapy. The antidepressant medication had done the trick. After about a year on the medication, I independently decided I was ready to go drug-free. I phased off the meds and continued to do well. However, over the course of the next year, without really realising it, I had begun to give myself those pep talks again to help me face the days. Finally, more than a year later, I had another major crash. I found a psychiatrist in New Haven and started back on Sinequan. He was a Freudian psychiatrist (so, let's call him Sigmund) and hardly spoke. But that didn't really matter to me. At first, I just wanted to talk and cry. But, after a few weeks, the medication levelled off my brain chemistry again and I was back to this new life I had been learning to live. I was no longer crying and only went to Sigmund for weekly med checks.

Since Sigmund didn't talk, he didn't help me to understand my condition any more clearly. I still thought I could get to a point where I wouldn't need to take medication. So, I went through another cycle of about a year and half without medication before another crash. And I still wasn't learning.

By the next crash (yet another), we were living in California (having moved from New Haven after 1-1/2 years to Guilford, Connecticut, and then to San Diego five years later where we celebrated our 12th anniversary). I found a psychiatrist who truly changed my life permanently (although I still had my stubborn moments).

When I insisted I didn't need to be on medication forever, he asked, "Would you say that if you were diabetic?"

"That's different," I argued.

And thus began my real education on the "illness" called clinical depression. I've read that clinical depression is one-third each biological, brain chemistry, and inherited traits (if broken into quarters, the fourth would be hormones). Maybe an oversimplification, but my depression I'm sure has been partly a result of my childhood and later-life experiences. But many children have suffered much more troubled childhoods. And many adults have suffered much more painful lives. This is simply the way my brain responds. There's nobody and no thing to blame. Besides, I've looked hard into my life experiences and, finally, there's only me to face the result and survive it.

SORRY. I'M EVEN BORING MYSELF.

I know that physical activity is important for me. And healthy mental activity, too. But those alone are not enough. Unless there is some new revelation in the treatment of clinical depression, I now accept that I will likely always be on medication to treat it. And that's fine with me. Sometimes, the medication may need to be changed or adjusted. That's also fine with me. Yes, I do have some challenging times, but they're nothing like those crashes I used to have. And, as I think about it, I probably wouldn't give up my experience of this depression. Now that I've survived it, at least. It has played a large part in forming the person I am. I'm sure it's where my humour was born. It taught me to be more honest with myself and with others. And it has certainly taught me to appreciate this life.

I'm still learning to forgive (myself and others) and to forget what doesn't do me any good to remember. But, as long as I'm being honest, I haven't forgiven everyone. And I haven't forgotten everything. OK, and I can still be bitter, sarcastic, and acerbic. But not all the time. So, what the hell.

Many of you were very moved by my recent revelations and I'm so grateful for your support and understanding. But please don't cry for me. I'm here to entertain you, enlighten you, charm and inform you. (Ain't I grand?) I'm not here to depress you!


The truth is...