Endurance

So I got depressed after the surgery I had in March. I felt teary every day. Ordinary levels of stress made me feel overwhelmed and unable to cope. It got to the point where I felt like I was walking around with a large and heavy stone on each shoulder. I used to feel like this a lot on and off (basically throughout most of my teens and 20s) until I started taking antidepressants. SSRIs changed my life so much for the better. Once I found the right ones and they kicked in it was like I had been sitting in a room while dusk had fallen and hadn't noticed how dark it had gotten until someone turned on the light. Some people say that antidepressants flatten out their feelings but it wasn't like that for me. My feelings were already flatlining and because of the drugs I suddenly felt a much broader spectrum of emotion than I had for years. Previously my main emotions had been anxiety and despair.

Since I started on the SSRIs back in 2003 I have only been depressed twice. (Thats not to say that I haven't been unhappy, but unhappy is different from depressed and I would say a normal and healthy part of anyone's emotional life.) The first time was in late 2006/early 2007 when I stopped taking the drugs in preparation for trying to conceive. I took about 6 weeks to taper off the drugs and it was all looking good but then shit happened - in an 8 week period I had a big dramatic fight with some close family members on Christmas day, a had a painful run-in with a work colleague that shattered a lot illusions I'd had about my job, my job was seemingly disestablished and I was told by email, L's stepmother died. My mood crashed. I couldn't even cope with simple things like ringing the electricity company to query a bill. I wanted so badly to have a drug free pregnancy but when my GP suggested I go back on the medication, at least temporarily, I was relieved. I decided that the risk to my mental health of being off the meds (which was high) outweighed the risk to a future child of being on them (which was low).

The second time I got depressed was last month. In some ways this time was scarier because this time it happened while I was on the meds. I don't know why the surgery was the trigger for depression when there have been so many other more stressful life events happening over the last year. Maybe it was just culmulative.

As luck would have it this bout of depression got pinged pretty early on and it pretty much gone now. The great saviour this time was traditional chinese medicine. I know lots of people don't hold much stock in TCM , L being one of them. And while TCM has been proven effective for a limited number of medical conditions depression is not one of them. On the day that I felt weighed down by heavy stones I happened to have one of my regular acupuncture appointments. When I told my acupuncturist about the depression she treated me for it through both needles and herbs and I felt better straight away and pretty much a lot better within about 3 days. Now you can say thats a placebo effect but I have to say that its the best damned placebo effect I've ever come across.

Still, here I am now not depressed but I would have to say that I'm not so happy either. I remember being happy and excited about my life and the future and the last times I can remember feeling this way is right before I got married in 2007 and then again in mid 2008 when I got pregnant for the second time before I miscarried. I know that life goes in phases and I have to say that 2003 to 2007 were pretty happy times for me. Lots of stuff went right, I found a job I loved, I got promoted, I got together with L, I bought a property, I got a car and learned to drive. All long held goals that suddenly all came together. Now I am in a phase where it feels like my long term goals are being thwarted and where there has been a lot of loss and sadness. I guess when I take the long term view I see that I will at some point move from this phase and into a happier one but in the meantime I am learning endurance.