Yeah, I know what you all were thinking when you read THAT title. But come on, we all need a little humor in our lives.<\/p>\n
I feel like it is time for me to write about my \u201celephant in the room\u201d. I don\u2019t know why it\u2019s taken me so long to say something about this, because it\u2019s important and has been an overwhelming part of my life, and yet I have felt embarrassed or ashamed of it.<\/p>\n
So what is it? In a word: DEPRESSION.<\/p>\n
There, I said it. Depression. You know, that \u201cmental illness\u201d that some people have. Here\u2019s a definition from dictionary.com, \u201cA psychiatric disorder characterized by an inability to concentrate, insomnia, loss of appetite, anhedonia, feelings of extreme sadness, guilt, helplessness and hopelessness, and thoughts of death. Also called clinical depression.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only exception to that list, unfortunately, is the loss of appetite. I seem to have the other problem. Really, wouldn\u2019t you think if you have to go through all of those other terrible symptoms, you could at least benefit from weight loss?!<\/p>\n
All joking aside, I haven\u2019t said this to many people, because I felt like it shouldn\u2019t be happening to me. Many people I know don\u2019t believe in the existence of clinical depression and do not approve the use of medication to treat it. And I grew up in that atmosphere. If I kept myself busy, if I just worked harder, if I just pushed myself to do projects, to do service to others, to do well in all aspects of my life, I wouldn\u2019t feel this way. I had way too great a life to be unhappy.<\/p>\n
But it doesn\u2019t work that way. Sometimes the anxiety and sadness is just overwhelming. It\u2019s that black hole, the moment just before a terrible accident when you realize that there is nothing you can do about it except go along for the ride now. Some days you just wander around in a daze. I feel like I am driving a car in really bad fog where all I see is just a few feet in front of me.\u00a0 It\u2019s all I can do NOT to be a bum–collapse on the couch and just watch TV all day, and some days I do that anyways, even though I KNOW that I have a pile of work to finish up and the quality will be a lot better if I don\u2019t procrastinate.<\/p>\n
I drop the ball on a couple of things, even though I have the best intentions of doing whatever it was that I offered\/was given to do. And of course, then I feel even worse for doing that, and then it adds to the guilt I feel for being a \u201chorrible person.\u201d<\/p>\n
No matter what is said to me in those worst moments, no matter what people might be trying to do to help me out, NOTHING helps. I just try not to crumple into a heap of wrinkled, wet misery on the bed. And sometimes I do anyways.<\/p>\n
This is where I\u2019d like to mention how wonderful my husband is. He has known me for a long time, and even through periods of blah that were in our relationship, he still married me, and still supports me daily. I know it\u2019s not easy for him when he\u2019s come home from a long day of work and I was \u201cwiped out\u201d by merely doing a load of laundry and didn\u2019t get dinner done.\u00a0 And yet, he would never say it. And even in those moments where I am beating myself up because I feel like I am the most worthless person in existence and I just want to be all alone in my misery, Jared\u2019s there, saying any positive yet logical thing that comes to mind to try and ease the load of hate and loathing I have for myself. Even though I shoot down every one. Or discredit it with other examples. Even though I know I must be making his life THISMUCH harder and therefore making me feel even more like a horrible person for letting him see my pathetic condition.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been on medication specifically for depression and anxiety since December. (I am not going to mention which one, because I\u2019ve tried others that haven\u2019t worked nearly as well\u2014made me even physically sicker\u2014and I\u2019ve researched even more.) I\u2019ve also started working with a counselor as well.<\/p>\n
I have been thinking about putting this confession up on my blog for awhile. I composed a bit here and there in my mind, but today my \u201cmental doctor\u201d suggested I get into journaling again. So I thought about doing private entries in my blog. Then I wondered why I was going to do that. This is a part of who I am. I have been suppressing it for so long that I had really only made things worse. And maybe there are other people out there who feel the same way and aren\u2019t getting the help they need, because living a depressed life isn\u2019t really living. I don\u2019t even think I could call it existing. You may have all the reason in the world to be happy, but you can\u2019t enjoy it. You aren\u2019t living life to the fullest.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t believe how much better I am feeling from the person I was a year ago, or even 6 months ago. And I still have bad days. Logically I know I shouldn\u2019t feel this way, but I spiral down and get caught in a rut. But I have more good days now than bad days, and I can see past the fog a little further.<\/p>\n
And for all that, I was embarrassed to say, but it\u2019s a part of me, and I should not be ashamed because I am trying to be better. I am making the effort to be happier and healthier. And to me and those of you who may know what I am talking about, that\u2019s what really matters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yeah, I know what you all were thinking when you read THAT title. But come on, we all need a little humor in our lives. I feel like it is time for me to write about my \u201celephant in the room\u201d. I don\u2019t know why it\u2019s taken me so long to say something about this, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anxiety","category-depression","category-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elisabethboothe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elisabethboothe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elisabethboothe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elisabethboothe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elisabethboothe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.elisabethboothe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elisabethboothe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elisabethboothe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elisabethboothe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}