On getting well:

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
-- Confucius

I do not know where this post will go. In all honesty I was seriously considering starting a new blog with this post. I have a thing about ceremony, about turning a new leaf, about starting over. It is a mental block, and it is an impediment. It is an impediment because if I do not feel that all of the stars are aligned properly I often will not begin something that is within my heart to accomplish. Thus, my heart is unwell. My mind is unwell. My spirit is unwell.
Over these past few weeks I have allowed myself to accept those three aforementioned statements. While I was not in complete denial over the idea that I am not living a life of wellness, I was pretty actively ignoring those feelings and I was definitely self-medicating against them. I was in a pattern of using pot, alcohol, food, entertainment, and pontification to avoid dealing with the fact that the way I have come to interact with my environment is in a depressed manner. I have allowed myself to recede into a hard casing that keeps me from true, honest interaction with the world around me.
In this space I have mentioned different times my struggles with depression. My views on the disorder have varied over time, and even still, as I write this, I cannot fully encapsulate what I understand about this term. Yet, I believe that I can say honestly, in these past months, I was in a depressed state.
As I think back it is unclear to me when this disorder began. As I said, I have struggled with depression before, I might even venture to say that the majority of my life has been spent coping with the world around me in depressed way (this is a whole another section of this unwinding story). There are a couple key developments concerning the disorder that sticks out in my life’s timeline. One being when I was 20 years old going through my divorce. At that time I accepted depression as a disease. I sought medical help, which was the right decision I believe, as I was struggling with thoughts of hurting myself. During that time I allowed my physician to prescribe an anti-depressant for me. I took Lexapro diligently for two years.
The second development that sticks out is when, over this last cold, harsh, winter I decided to slowly wean myself off of the drug. I made this decision for a few reasons. The first reason I decided to explore a life without psychotropic drugs was because I read the book Cunt and it opened my eyes to the ideas of holistic health and naturopathy. The second reason was that I had begun to experience some side effects from the drug and the doctor decided to up my dosage. I went through this leg of the journey pretty much alone, except for Josh who encouraged me the whole time through. My parent’s were not very supportive of my decision, and I did not discuss it with a doctor because I was pretty sure that they would try to talk me out of it. I was able to glean some information off of the internet that helped guide me. I wrote a bit to deal with it, mostly in letters to Josh keeping our communication open and our relationship safe. Choosing to go off anti-depressants was one of the most challenging things I have ever done. The withdraw symptoms alone were hell, and the time of year (the dead of winter, in a house with no heat) made things even harsher. And yet I got through it with my life.
Things were different when I came off the drug. Life was more blatant, my response to certain stimuli more emotional. I found myself dealing more and more with angry feelings; sometimes the smallest instance would fill my chest with a rage so fierce I would have mental flashes of throwing things or lashing out. Yet, not knowing properly how to deal with these newly felt emotions I often repressed them, or distracted myself through them (which is how I have dealt with things my whole life through). This coping mechanism of repression and distraction, I see now, is one of the things what has caused this disorder (I believe).
Furthermore, the things I chose to distract myself with aggravated the situation even more. While I had in the past smoked pot for recreation purposes, I began to use the drug more habitually and for different reasons. I found that it brought me to a state of numb bliss that allowed me to forget about the uncomfortable things I would be feeling. I liked the drug because it made me feel more inspired, more creative and free, it also sped up my mind. Eventually my use became iffier; there would be certain highs that were plagued with severe anxiety and paranoia. Thus, began my abuse of alcohol.
Shortly after my 21^st birthday I began drinking alcohol recreationally. Nights out at the bar, concerts, weekends away drinking with friends, these things were all part of me and Josh’s lifestyle as a couple. Drinking was fun, especially in social situations where, being an introvert, I tended to clam up. A few drinks and I would feel looser, happier, and more comfortable in my own skin. This social aspect of alcohol use was never really a problem as it did not translate into our everyday lives. Seldom did we drink during the week, or at home unless we had company. This slowly began to change for me as my emotional/mental landscape became more treacherous.
I can’t say when I began having a problem with drinking. Sometime earlier in this year I believe. Life began to look more and more unbearable and drinking in the evenings began to creep into my lifestyle. It was not uncommon to for me to begin with a drink at dinnertime and then continue into the night until I fell into a dizzy sleep. Alcohol had the opposite affect of pot. It slowed me down, made things more fluid and goofy. When the pot would make me anxious I depended on alcohol to slow me down.
My drinking began to take a toll on my daily life; I would find myself not wanting to get out of bed in the morning and then greeting life with a less that cheerful manner. Often the only way I would feel halfway awake was if I would consume copious amounts of caffeine and sugar. While those two chemical would make me feel more alert I would be left with anxiety and jitteriness, and in their wake a terrible crash with would render me into a deeper state of depression. And thus the cycle would continue—pot, alcohol, caffeine, sugar.
I began to despair. While I did not want to look closely enough at my lifestyle to see the problems, I could not quite get away from the nagging intuition that my life was not right. I would cry out to my Goddess for mercy and grace and help. I would lay in bed sleeplessly begging for guidance. I would sit by my altar and scribble requests on tiny sheets of paper and tuck them into my miniature wailing wall. I would read and read about peace and contentment.
Slowly my Mother began to allow me to see bits of real truth through my tightly, chemically controlled mental landscape. She was merciful with her prodding; my conviction did not overwhelm me or leave me filled with negativity or guilt. She just gently began to allow me to see that my life could be more than this scrabbled searching on the outside for peace. That I could find peace within myself and within Her love for me and our love together.
My first real action toward healing happened one hazy day at the library about a week and a half ago, where I went high and searching for answers. I didn’t have an agenda for visiting, I merely felt the longing to learn and so I wandered the shelves looking. The thought came into my head to look for alternative treatments for depression and I went to the computer to look. I found the right section and began leafing through certain books. I wanted to be selective about what information I chose, as there are many different types of treatments for depression. I sought something that would not just introduce a new chemical to my mind, but one that would take my whole being—body, mind and spirit—and treat the whole of my person. I found one such book and one section particularly caught my eye. It spoke of a syndrome called candidiasis and how this disorder affects not only the body but also the mind. I looked my lifestyle and the symptoms it outlined and saw that there was a very strong likelihood that this could be part of my problem. From there I went on to find another book that delved deeper into the syndrome itself. I brought both of these books home with me along with a cookbook and began my study.
On August 8^th I changed my diet drastically at the suggestion of the literature I was reading. I have since been abstaining from all sugars, yeasts, gluten, caffeine (with the exclusion of green and yerba mate teas), and alcohol. This is a rather drastic change for me seeing as the large majority of my diet has consisted of sugars and bread related products. I also must closely watch my carbohydrate intake, which can be rather tricky being a vegetarian. I have had to edit my vegetarian state to pescetarian (adding fish to my diet).
When I first began this diet I was riddled with doubts, fears, and insecurities about my abilities to abstain from so many different foods. Moreover, I was very concerned about getting sober, as our lifestyle has promoted alcohol use for quite awhile. I found in the first few days of the diet that my biggest craving was not for alcohol though, but for sugar. There would be times that I would be trying to relax and meditate and the only thing I could think about was an ice cream cone.
Also, at the beginning of this transition I had no intention of giving up my pot use. I felt it was my one last vice. I mean, come on! No sugar, no coffee, no breads, hadn’t I given up enough? Yet, as always, in Her utmost gentleness my Mother guided me into another leg of this journey by placing in my heart the desire to get clean as well. The decision to stop smoking pot was a very difficult one, and I still struggle with it daily. I often question if I will be able to keep it up, or if I will smoke occasionally still, for special occasions per say. In my heart I do not know the answer to this yet, but I’m sure that it is there and I will find peace about it. And as for right now, in the present moment on my fourth day of being clean, I have peace in that and that is enough.
If you have persevered long enough to read this offering of honesty I do thank you with my utmost gratitude. I decided to write about these things in this spot because I feel that this part of my journey is important to what this space has been about. I did not feel it was possible to continue to write here without offering up in the barest, most honest way where I am at on my life path. These words are not here to present any type of judgment, but merely to share what is going on in my heart and life at this time. Please be patient with me.

Afternoon:

Hello. Its been a long while since I've written words to this space. To be blatantly honest, which I find more and more is not the easiest, but it ultimately the best policy, I have not been doing well. Even now as I write I am feeling the symptoms of overwhelming anxiety-- shortness of breath, muscle tension, and chest pain. These symptoms, among other, have been my constant companion as of late. I feel ashamed of them, and have not really gone into great detail with anyone about how they are affecting me. Physically, it seems, my body is dealing with something my mind cannot. There is a separation between the two, a definite dichotomy and I worry about this. I understand mentally that something is not all right, and my body is coping the best it knows how. I have been enduring a constant state of anxiety, which as I have read is a constant state of fight or flight. It seems action would be a logical response to this, but I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO. To be blunt.
I am lost, I think. It seems that I have reached a point in my life where certain decision need to be made, a turning point of sorts. And yet, I am immobilized with fear and I don't know where to go to find sanctuary, it seems that these overwhelming emotions of displacement follow me wherever, through whatever I am doing. The need for solitude has been overwhelming here lately. I can feel it in ever molecule in my body. The need to be alone. All alone. Just me and the space I abide in. And I feel guilty for this as well. Society, as it stands, does not offer much grace. And the need to be alone is something that is frowned upon. You are shirking responsibilities if you need to be alone, you are running away, you are letting someone who needs you down. And yet, I feel that I may go crazy if I do not find some solitude soon, because I need to be with myself, I need to take responsibility for myself, I need to run to myself.
So, now I see, I have been in a sort of denial. I have had that answer of sanctuary all along-- solitude. But what do I do with that, how do I act upon that responsibly? I can't just run away. I do have those responsibilities that cannot be shirked, I do have people to care for. What do I do? Has anyone out there felt these things before. Does anyone have any advice? I am hurting, and this has been hard to admit, and I believe the depth of this pain is something I cannot fully come to terms with at the moment. I am asking for help.

Some sort of sadness.

From the beginning of this blog I have spoken of, or alluded to, my struggle with depression. It is a disease that I have dealt with for as long as I can remember. Even as a child I remember having feelings of utter insecurity in who I was and thinking that no one loved me, not even my white cat Snowball. It seems funny to say that now, thinking back to a day when I was approximately 9 or 10. My brother and I were home during the days, because we were homeschooled, and there was one day when some sort of sadness descended on me and I felt quite alone amidst a family who absolutely loved me unconditionally. I sought refuge in my cat, Snowball, who was quite a moody feline. She snubbed me and I began to cry. I remember being overwhelmed with a sense of low self-worth. But mostly I remember feeling lost.
I believe in my struggle with this disease the most prominent feeling I experience is that of being lost. It was almost two years ago when my depression was at its worst. I remember the time vividly, but through a different lens. At the time I was so utterly out of sync with reality that I could not begin to see any hope of ever thinking or feeling normal again. There would be times of confusion and emotional chaos that would leave me gasping for breath and grasping for any thread of sanity I could have possibly had left. Many nights I found myself in my car driving somewhere, anywhere, trying to get away from the rampant thoughts that debilitated me. I felt small, like a little child. I felt fragile and raw. I felt lost. I was lost.
During that time reality was no more than the minute world I had created in my head. A world where nothing, absolutely nothing made any sense. A world where the pain, of not understanding anything about the world around me or myself, would grow so intense the only thoughts I would have were those of hurting myself to release some of it. At times I would press my fingernail so deeply in my palms that they would leave marks that lasted longer than they should have.
The lack of reality that results from depression still amazes and astounds me. On her personal website, dervala.net, Dervala writes:

My mind plunged into pointless, terrifying rants that came packaged as reality, revealed at last. Life is ugly. No one will help. No one could help. Help with what?
Like rheumatoid arthritis, depression turns your own body against itself. It chews not on your cartilage, but on your brain cells and your sense of reality. It’s as seductive as a wife-beater, shutting out other voices to turn itself into your only friend. The only one who tells the truth about the bleakness of the world. All your energy goes towards getting through whatever stands in your way—struggling, slogging, pushing, through work and small talk and getting food—whatever it is you have to get through until you can be alone again with the voice who can be trusted.

The person I was when I was depressed was not me. I resent the person who says that depression is a natural aspect of humanity, that it is natural to have highs and lows. It is natural to have ebb and flow, but it is not natural to be that low. It is not natural to nurse yourself with thoughts of escape or death. The person I was when I was depressed was me being controlled by a disease, a disease so deceptive you are not aware you are in fact suffering and in many ways dying.
After almost a year of a losing struggle with the disease I began to slowly emerge from the suffocating cloud of sadness and hopelessness that was choking me. Slowly I crawled from the intense isolation that made me feel alone and different. I began to talk to my mother about how I was feeling and she shared with me about her experiences with the disease. Through her honesty I found the courage to speak to someone about it, someone who could help me. I visited the doctor, a wonderful doctor that hugged me and was able to hear my heart through garbled words and tears, a doctor who herself had experienced this disease. She shared with me her experiences and slowly my isolation began to melt and I began to see that others have suffered like me. I was not alone. I was able to hear past the voices that tried to claim depression was natural, the voices that yelled that this was because of me and my decisions, the voices that disregarded the medical breakthroughs concerning brain chemistry. I was able to finally hear a voice of reason, a voice from the other side-- the side of true reality. And although it is hard to admit it on this website where I do not know who reads these words, I started taking medication for my disease.
The transformation my mind has undergone in the past year, after getting help, is amazing. I finally feel that I am the person I was meant to be. It cannot express it better than what Dervala goes on to say later in her essay:

When I was eight years old I got glasses for the first time. I put them on in the living room, and when I looked out the window, I could see each blade of grass, crisp and bright and distinct, where before there had been a soft green blur. I looked at everything that day, and said hello to all the small things. It was amazing, that all this had been there all along.
Getting better from depression was like that. Missing dimensions popped back up. Plain old normal days tasted crisp and delicious. And then there were the bittersweet replays, when I traveled through the previous months and years, and counted all I’d misheard, misfelt, and missed. Depression isn’t noble or interesting; it’s monotonous, self-absorbed misery that leaves little room for art or kindness or other people.

It scares me when I think about the person I am now and the person I was then. It scares me to think that there is the possibility of going back to that state of mind, of becoming that person again, living in that reality. Here lately I have been slipping. Be it due to the changing seasons, life's stressors, or a change in lifestyle, something in my brain has begun to slip and I catch myself thinking that old way, sliding down into that pseudo-reality. This is terrifying. I am not going to let that happen. I have already caught myself on many occasions isolating myself in my insecurity. It is these moments of lucidity in retrospection that lets me know that I have not slipped too far yet, that there is still time to grab hold of something and begin the fight to pull myself up. And that is what I am doing.

In brief...

While time is limiting me at the moment, I wanted to get something down before I have to head off to work. Seeing as this is the first day of NaBloPoMo, and I'm not sure that I will have time to get a post in before 11:59pm tonight.
I'm rather excited about this month. I would like to use it as a reason to explore different subject matter that I have rarely written about in the past. Push myself beyond my current boundaries. In the forefront of my mind is writing about my experiences with depression, or The Black Headed Beast. While I have mentioned or eluded to my experiences with this disease I have not gone into much detail or explored it as much as I would like to, therefore expect to see something come up about it this month. I am in a stage currently where I am interested in writing about things that make me uncomfortable. I believe this is because I am beginning to understand that if I am going to get anywhere with my writing I am going to have to get beyond my comfort zone. This is not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination, because I am a very passive aggressive, non-confrontational person.