Spoiled Only Child

Pain

I have been crying on and off all day. Yet, depression no longer feels like the big issue in my life. The issue is my leg, my leg, nothing but my leg. I know for a fact that, if I could escape this pain, I would be fine. I would embrace my life, my normal life of school pickups and chores and errands, with passion so intense it would probably be inappropriate. You don't realize until these things are taken away what privileges they are. To be upright and mobile and without chronic pain, it is the greatest gift on earth. And it is a gift that I don't know when I will have again. Part of me believes I will never have it, but I have to keep slapping myself across the face and saying, "Shut up, brain. Stop your fucking lies!"

The sciatic pain has not improved. In fact, it has gotten worse. Worse to the point where I can barely walk or be on my feet at all. To say it sucks would be the biggest understatement on the fucking earth. I am not dealing at all well with this. I cry and rage against it. I feel overwhelming guilt for all the things I cannot do, with my child, with my husband. Every holiday event, every school meeting and activity, is another reminder of something I likely won't be able to do. I am just so sad about it. A host of different medical professionals have promised me that I won't be crippled for life, but for some reason my brain and my heart won't believe them. I think it's the not knowing that kills me, not knowing how long I will be crippled or what it will take to get me better.

Mr. SOC doesn't understand my thinking. He doesn't understand why this has to be such a big deal. Yes, it's hard being crippled and in pain. But what reason do I have to believe I won't get better? Why can't I just be hopeful about my chances? Why can't I wait it out and accept what is? He is right. That is the rational way to look at this. But I am not rational right now. Right now, this moment feels like forever. And this moment is not how I want my life to be.

I have to take this space and time to remind myself of the things I know to be true. I am bigger than this pain. My child has all the things that are important: unconditional love, safety, a warm place to sleep, plenty to eat, friends and family to entertain her when I can't. I have a husband who loves me enough to weather this storm with me. I have to believe in my own capacity to heal. Life can't always be what I want it to be; all I can do is stay with it, breathing in and out, knowing that this too shall pass. This, like every hard experience, is a chance to grow.

Just a few days ago, I was mobile enough to cook Thanksgiving dinner and do arts and crafts with my daughter. It wasn't a perfect pain-free day, but it was enough. That was only five days ago. So why is it that I believe I'll never be there again? Yesterday, I had an epidural steroid injection. I know several people who were helped by these. Why do I believe that it's probably going to fail for me? I have to remember that my brain is lying to me right now. Yes, I am hurting right now, but the stories about "the rest of my life" are all made up, all horror stories concocted in my mind. I think I'll go meditate right now. Maybe it will help.

EDITED TO ADD: The meditation did help. I found so much wisdom arising in myself. First, I repeated these phrases that came to me:

• I believe in my intrinsic worth, despite my physical limitations
• I believe in the power of my mind and body to heal
• I believe in my strength in courage

And then I found myself being able to make space for my grief, my impatience and my fear. I was able to simply allow them to be there, which felt so much better than trying to fight against them. Afterward, I took a walk with the dog. Yes, it hurt. But with every step I asked myself, "Can I just feel the pain and not the fear of the pain?" It made the unbearable bearable.

 

Stumbling through

I think the most destructive thing about depression is the way it robs me of my perspective. When I am in the black hole, that is all there is. All good times, past and future, are lost to me. My brain tells me that this is how it's going to be for me now, crying and panicking for no reason, burdening my family with my misery, being constantly exhausted by insomnia, struggling just to hold it together in public. It's that lie that makes it feel so unbearable. That I am permanently crazy now, and that the me who laughed and hiked and sailed and biked is dead. Now I'm just the me who has to fight tears and panic during the Thanksgiving lunch at my daughter's school—for absolutely no fucking reason. The me who limps around on her bad leg, feeling jealous of all the people out there living normal lives without crippling sciatic pain.

To bring you up to speed... After my terrible reaction to Zoloft, which was followed by rapid cycling between feeling fine and feeling overcome with panic and tears, my primary doc suggested that I was bi-polar. Yes, bi-polar! And she put me on a mood stabilizer. It seemed to help, as evidenced by my last post. But there were still hard times, when the panic and tears would descend without my control, and the word bi-polar weighed heavy on my mind. So this week, I went to a psychiatrist. And he said, rather definitively, "You are not bi-polar." Instead, he diagnosed me with major depression, likely triggered by my chronic sciatic pain and the steroids I used to treat it. What a relief! I thought. Not bi-polar! And then I came home and looked up major depression and, hey, that's not really a fun diagnosis either.

What I'm learning first hand is that depression is a real disease, not just a bad mood. It takes over your brain, like an alien being, and sucks out all the hope and happiness. It can completely disable you for months (or even years). It saps my brain power, makes me shaky and woozy with fear, robs me of my already impaired ability to sleep. And it has to be treated just like any other disease. In my case, the doctor tells me my prognosis is good. There was a pretty clear trigger. The steroids are still working their way out of my system. Once my back problem resolves, it will take a major burden off my addled brain. I have a good support system, and I am motivated to get better. But for now, I am dealing with periods of  anxiety and sadness that descend for parts of almost every day, for no good reason at all. They're not moods that I can talk myself out of. They are like electrical storms in my brain, and the best I can do is ride them out.

Still, I refuse to become a helpless victim. In the spirit of determination, I make these declarations:

• It's OK to be fucked up right now. No, I am not myself at the moment — and I don't have to feel guilty about that. For now, this is my journey. I will give myself this time free of the expectation that I should be "normal." It's no different from having mono, or some other disease that takes months to heal.
• I will not believe my brain's lies that this is permanent. Millions of people go through periods of clinical depression every year. They find medications and therapies that work, and they get to the other side. They live happy lives, they parent their children, they hold down jobs, they have sex with their husbands. I am going to get there too.
• I will do whatever it takes to heal myself. I will spend whatever money is required. I will assemble a team of doctors and therapists that I trust. I will try a dozen different medications if I have to. I will ask for help when I need it. I will remember that I deserve to get better.
• I will fix this fucking leg! The pain, the inability to exercise, all the limitations that come with being hardly able to walk, sit or stand are the biggest contributing factors to my depression. Oh, how I long to go to the gym, to take a long walk in the sunshine, to take a step without thinking of the knife sticking into my calf. I have just started with a physical therapist that I trust. She told me to give this therapy two weeks. If it doesn't work, I will go to a specialist. I will not balk at my $2500 deductible. I will keep going, I will do what it takes to get myself mobile and physically healthy again. Everyone has promised me that I'm not going to be disabled for life by this, and I'm going to believe them. It may take some time, but I will fix this leg.
• I will come through this stronger and more compassionate. I will know when this is over that, if I walked through this hellish journey, I can walk through anything. I will not let it close me down with fear or shame. I will let it transform me.

So that is my story for right now. I am stumbling through the hardest time of my life, but even though it may not feel like it, I am moving forward. I am headed toward the other shore, and I am going to get there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hero's Journey

It is so bizarre, when I am sitting here with the sun shining and the birds chirping, feeling like a perfectly normal person, to think about those moments — those days — when I thought my life was crumbling to pieces. It was only three days ago that I was sobbing in the doctor’s office, gripped by the most powerful fear and grief I have ever felt. And now here I am, sitting in my parents’ sunroom and wondering what the problem was. Maybe the new meds are working. (Yes, there was another downward spiral after that last post, and I started a different drug. The suffering was so great that I felt like I had no choice.) Or maybe the strange and horrible feelings will return tomorrow. Who knows. But I do know that, since I started this new drug, all the Zoloft-y feelings have disappeared, the stabbing pains in my head, chest and stomach, the disconcerting lump in my throat, and the feeling that my brain was jangled and malfunctioning. Today, even the problems regulating my body temperature — the freezing hands and feet, alternating with sweaty hot flashes — seem to have gone. And while I have certainly felt anxiety over the past few days, it didn’t feel so overwhelming that it might kill me.

This morning, I took a short walk through my parents’ neighborhood, and looked at the changing leaves. The day was sunny and golden, and everything seemed to sparkle in the fall light. I stopped to touch a purple berry glistening on a bare branch. And I realized that, for the past two months, all of this has been unavailable to me. I haven’t been able to see the beauty around me. I have been so absorbed in my own misery, and in my made-up story that no one liked me and my life was a failure, that I couldn’t see or hear anything outside that drama. I was immune to the fall leaves, to the sunlight, to the taste of good food, to the pleasure of opening a cold beer in the evening, to everything that usually brings me happiness.

When you see everything collapsing around you and then emerge from the rubble, it gives you a new perspective. Here are some things that I perseverated about for weeks that I now realize mean absolutely nothing: 

• That I outgrew my new work pants (before I even wore them once)
• That I don’t yet feel I truly belong at my new workplace 
• That my house is not clean enough
• That my basement is filled with junk and sawdust and mouse poop
• That the neighbors might judge me
• That my child does not want to practice piano, or do homework, or clean up her many messes
• That my child is having trouble with word problems
• That I sometimes don’t use every vegetable in our CSA box
• That I can’t think of anything interesting to cook for dinner

All of a sudden, I can see how much I have to be grateful for. A husband who will make me tea at 3 a.m. while I sob into the pillow. A mother who will drop everything to help me when I need it. A child full of love and laughter. Health insurance that allows me to get treatment when I am sick. The meditation practice I believe will help me to the other side of this experience, and allow it to open me up rather than close me down with fear. 

I am also grateful for myself, for my strength and endurance, for my big heart, for my determination to do whatever it takes to heal myself and protect my family. It would have been a lot easier for me to curl into the fetal position and give up. But instead I dragged myself to chiropractors and doctors and therapists. I did my work, even when I had to do it from bed. I went to the grocery store and cooked dinner and tried my best to carry on, even when I was sure I was crazy and that my future held nothing but disaster and heartbreak. Most of all, I struggled with everything I had to love and nurture my daughter, even in my darkest moments. I took her to piano lessons when I felt woozy with panic. I hosted a Halloween potluck for her friends when I could barely walk with my sciatica and had felt crazed and on the verge of tears for days. I read her stories and packed her lunches and helped her with homework even when I felt terror rising in my throat. 

When I arrived at my therapist’s office just a few days ago, sobbing uncontrollably, telling her that I was certain my life was over, she told me about something called the Hero’s Journey. It is a story about what it means to be human. It starts when you get the call. The call is not something you expected or asked for or wanted. It is often something that feels like the worst kind of misfortune, but it launches you on your journey. Along the way, you have to go through is the abyss, the place where there is no light and that you fear you will never find your way out of. When you finally emerge into the light, there are still mountains to cross. Gruelling mountains that will test your endurance. But you keep going because you know that, waiting for you at the end, is transformation. I hope and pray that, at least for this cycle of the journey, I have emerged from the abyss. But if I have to go back there, I know now that I can survive it, and that the mountains are on the other side, and that I have what it takes to climb them.

Back from hell

I have to put some words out into the world. That’s the only way to start the healing. This I know. The last few weeks/months have been like a trip to hell and back. But today I feel like I’m back, and I hope and pray that I can stay here, anchored in what is true: That the sun rises every day no matter what, that I have a beautiful daughter and a lovely life, that I am safe, that my failures are no more spectacular than anyone else’s, and that all the little shit really doesn’t matter that much.

Here is where it started. This is an unpublished post I started on Oct. 3:

For the last few weeks, I have felt so depressed that it has taken most of my energy just to walk around and try to look halfway normal. I don't have any good reason to feel this way. But suddenly, I am absolutely convinced that no one likes me, that my house is a disgusting hovel, that my career is pointless, that I have failed as a parent, that I can't do one single goddamn thing right. It's extremely isolating, because I find myself with absolutely nothing to say to anyone. When another mom on the playground asks how I am, it's not exactly socially acceptable to say, "Actually, I'm feeling acute despair and hopelessness, and it is scaring the shit out of me." I haven't wanted to write about it, because I feel so messy and disoriented that I don't know what to say about it all. It doesn't make any sense.

Since writing that post, I went to Mexico on a freelance assignment, developed crippling sciatica and completely lost my mind. When I returned from Mexico hardly able to walk, my mental state spiraled downward into a very dark place. I became convinced, in some primal way, that my life was over. That I was going to be crippled for life. That I had a devastating disease. That I was on the verge of losing everything. That all hope was lost. Nothing in the world looked or felt the way it used to. I felt strange and disconnected from reality. I cried constantly. I had to run out of Mia’s piano lesson because I started sobbing and hyperventilating. Decisions as simple as what to have for lunch felt overwhelming, never mind figuring out what to do about my crippled leg and mental health. I spent part of one night crying in a heap on the closet floor.

I know now that all these things are fairly typical symptoms of anxiety and depression, things that lots of people have experienced at one time or another. But in those moments, I felt like I had invented a whole new brand of crazy. I couldn’t imagine that anyone else had ever, ever felt this nuts. I went back to the doctor, knowing full well that she was going to suggest Zoloft again. And I was ready to take it. I had to do something, and I did not feel capable of handling this myself. All the meditation and coping strategies I had spent years working on now sounded like a complete joke. They were no match for this darkness I felt taking over.

I took my first pill and by the next day I was experiencing chest pains, stomach pains, panic, wooziness and a complete inability to think straight. I skipped a day, and then tried again. After two pills in a row, I was non-functional. That was yesterday. I spent most of the day in bed. I felt raw and terrified, like my body was somehow being turned inside out. I had an awful feeling in the back of my throat, stabbing pains in my chest, stomach and head. I tried to get out of bed and do something normal, cook dinner, and I picked up the knife and thought, “What if I use this to slit my wrists?” I didn’t want to, but I was terrified that it was inevitable. Finally, I called the doctor, and she told me not to take any more.

All of a sudden, I felt like I had my life back. I was so relieved not to have to take any more of that stuff. All my other problems suddenly felt so much smaller. So your leg is killing you? Who cares! At least you don’t have to take those pills anymore. You can join the land of the living again, the people who don’t feel like they’re on some sort of bad acid trip while they try to play Chutes & Ladders with their kid and pretend everything is normal.

Today I am detoxing, and trying to remember what’s real again. I can’t deny, I’m a little nervous that I’m going to go back to that bad place of depression and anxiety. But for now I’m going to work on getting my leg better. I'm going to make an appointment with a therapist. And I'm going to try my damndest to remember what’s real: That the sun rises every day no matter what, that I have a beautiful daughter and a lovely life, that I am safe, that my failures are no more spectacular than anyone else’s, and that all the little shit really doesn’t matter that much. I'm also going to remember that I'm not alone. That almost everyone feels crazy or out of control at some point in their life, and we somehow make it to the other side.