Red Cedar

after much thinking about this i’ve decided to “come out” and admit to the fact that i, woman of positive strength and forthrightness – righteousness and angst…. suffer from mental illness in the form of clinical depression and have done since sometime in my teenaged years (diagnosed at age 15 when i was hospitalised for a suicide attempt).

i have had 3 major depressive episodes in my life – at the age of 15, again at the age of 20, and one i have emerged from very recently. by “major” episodes, i mean an acute phase lasting from 1-3 months (characterized by paralytic sadness, total diminishment of self-worth, and suicidal impulses) followed by a year or more of low-level depression that leaves me angstful, angry, tired, giving my life an uninspired flatness. over my lifetime, i have gained better control over these time periods so that suicidal ideation, something i once acted on, is now relegated to the realm of escapist fantasy (every depressive needs an escape hatch even if it’s never accessed).

depression runs in my family on my mother’s side. as a child growing up, stories told in hushed tones were imparted about relatives literally cracking up and being carted out of their small cabin-fevered community to the local sanatorium for a spell of “rest” (a particularly striking story is the one about my great-aunt mary running through the woods in her nightgown, screaming at the top of her lungs back in her younger years). from the stories i have heard about her, i suspect my grandmother likely suffered from an undiagnosed bipolar disorder, my grandfather and his brothers suffered from various depressive and psychotic ailments, and i have at least one cousin with schizophrenia, and another who did in fact commit suicide.

and of course, there is my mother. from about middle-childhood, memories of my mother are infused with her ongoing struggles with depression, medication, and her abusive marriage – a triumvirate combined to create one very unhappy mom who was prone to short-term memory blocks from the medications. i have only recently realized the childhood futility of trying to please someone who is never happy, who just can’t be happy for any length of time – and the more i think about it now, have a thought that this (along with our very angry father) might be at the core the intense self-esteem problems both my brother and i have faced as we have grown to adults.

i do not blame my mother for her illness, though i always thought it would be infinitely more manageable if she was not in an abusive marriage as well – but those were her choices, borne out of her own crippled sense of self-worth – and thus sadness was an emotion familiar in our household. also familiar was the concept that mental illness was hereditary and there was a good chance i had caught it from the family gene-pool (according to my mother – i was “an angry child and no one knew why” (if you want to know why, see the part about my mother being depressive and my father being a man unafraid to express rage, i suspect this had something to do with it)). i was raised to believe i was emotionally “wrong” in my expression, too intense, too volatile, to expansive in my emotions (both positive and negative – if i was happy i talked to much, if i was angry i was out of control). at 15, when i was hospitalized for an overdose of pills, it was obvious to everyone i suffered from the same genetic malformation that had struck every known generation of my maternal family.

in the beginning, i was glad to be diagnosed and medicated. the diagnosis of depression made me feel good because it validated me as being ill and not just a fuck-up. it was like “see, it’s not my fault – i have a medical condition.” i was put on one course of drugs that gave me nightmares, then another that made me throw-up continually, until finally they found a dosage of something i would take for the next year of my life. i also had a psychiatrist assigned to see me weekly and who sometimes saw the family together. i really don’t remember much about these sessions except that i didn’t want to go to therapy, didn’t understand the point of it, and didn’t trust the doctor (who i’m sure was just fine, i never knew what i was supposed to say to him really – so i just said nothing). then the drugs started to dull me – i mean, really flatten me out – and make me violently ill once again… so that after about a year i stopped them altogether.

i decided then, not only was i better (looking back it is clear i was not), but i was cured for good – and since that time have steadfastly refused any diagnosis of my mental state as being that of one who is clinically depressed – even when i have been fairly obviously symptomatic. mainly this refusal stems from two places – 1) a fear of becoming my mother, locked in eternal sadness and self-esteem problems and 2) a fear of treatment involving pharmaceutical medication.

as a result, i have faced down intense depressions while rejecting a name for them, preferring instead to wander in the wilderness of my mentalscape refusing a map to ground myself in.

this, i’ve learned, is not a particularly healthy way of dealing with depression, and it is only on the emergence from my most recent bout i can see that. in fact, it is only upon the emergence from my most recent round of depression that i can even admit i was depressed, and acknowledge the profound impact that state was having on every area of my life. the acute period this last time spanned about 2 months in the fall of 2003 and carried forward until january 2005 when a timely intervention of homeopathic st. john’s wort kicked out the last lingering despair. even though i started seeing a naturopath in january 2004 every two weeks for counselling, i never was able to appropriately identify myself as “depressed”, preferring instead to think that my symptoms were all a result of ptsd, or some astrological misalignment – and thus only was treated with the st. john’s wort accidentally for another malady – when i could have been treated with it much sooner in the process (or even taken an herbal remedy). my shame, and my refusal to “allow” myself this mental illness which clearly belongs to me, meant i wasn’t able to get appropriate treatement to end that depressive state sooner.

coming out of depression for the first time in many months, is like having a window opened inside of onself, allowing fresh air and light to pour in for the first time after a dark winter. it’s having everything taste better, and having more energy, and wanting to make changes (rather than making them because you feel some obligation to), and also being able to find more compassion and love for other people. it’s like remembering who you are all of a sudden, as opposed to who you have been for the lost time of the depression. in all honesty – coming out of depression feels nothing short of miraculous and i am greatly thankful to have been released from that state.

i am acknowledging this now, not because i need to put a label on everything in my life, but because according to statistics, without treatment i can expect at least one or two more of these episodes in my lifetime. i’m pretty sure i know the things i need to do to avoid or at least minimize this in the future – and that starts with a name, and then a map, and probably a good compass to avoid getting lost in this wilderness again.

it has been noted by others that i have not been blogging so much lately upon my return from vacation…. which is true and owing to several factors:

1. i have gotten strangely self-conscious about my writing (as in – who really wants to read about my life anyway?)
2. work has been swamping me, and i have not been finding the normal “free” time in a day i regularly use to write in
3. a conscious effort to spend little if no time on my computer at night after work – i spend far too much time around machines as it is
4. a shift from the cerebral to the physical where i am focused more on my bodily, rooted state than my mental-processing state.

having said that – i do want to re-integrate blogging into regular life because i do very much value daily practice of all kinds – and writing is one of those areas i would like to focus more over time (i figure when i get older, i’ll actually have something useful to say, and then maybe use these skills to write a book 🙂

so to summarize my return from vacation – i am feeling really very good at the moment, and really very focused on some areas of my life neglected over the past year or so. since coming home, i have reaffirmed my decision to stay on the sunshine coast for the next forseeable future, engaged a mortgage broker and a real estate agent to look for a house, been hiking twice (found a good “work-out” hike on monday), booked an appointment with a physiotherapist to get down to dealing with my ankle once and for all (that’s today), went to see my lover in the valley who gave me three steelheads to take home (one fresh-caught that i helped net, and two fish from the smoker), and started regular qi gong practice in the evenings after work.

my emphasis right now is on core work of all kinds – body, mind, and heart – and the practice is mindfulness and self-care in the context of continuing to move forward in other more earthly ways. how’s that for big goals? i am feeling energized with myself at the moment, which is great after what (i have now realized) was an extended depressive period…. i’ll write more about that later.

so there it is – the quick and dirty update – i’m going to get back on regular posting….. pronto!

coming home from time off is always a blur…. i’ve been trying to get back to my sleep schedule, have been finding no time to blog, and work pressures have been making me a little stressed this week – but i’m getting through it and tomorrow is friday – so huzzah!

although i am plagued by the feeling i am “doing nothing” these days, looking at my calendar for the next few months i am quickly reminded that is not the case. i am trying to figure out where i can fit regular work-outs into my schedule as i have had a strong need to re-focus on my physical being in the last few weeks and i want to get my ankle stronger and the rest of me re-strengthened in preparation for a canoe trip i have planned for july (not to mention the rest of the summer’s hiking and kayaking and so forth). even though it has been a year and a half since i broke it, my ankle is still screwed up and my body-compensation has caused problems in my knee and hip as well – so i have made an appointment with a physiotherapist for next week to find out what i can do to start correcting it and strengthening things properly.

besides wanting to get back some sort of regular physical activity, i’ve got a number of things coming up in april and may including a regional union convention in vancouver, a flying folk army gig in seattle…. and possibly a trip to victoria at the end of march to visit some of my favourite friends. i have also been asked to speak at a colloquium being held in the memory of bob everton in may – about community-driven media and how resist! fits into that vision… i don’t think i’ve done a talk about radical communications in a long time, and i’m a bit nervous given that this was a topic so close to his heart and academic work….. this is something i actually have to prepare for.

i have also committed to start house-hunting next weekend (this one already being scheduled full)….. and am hoping to find something to buy before it gets too far into summer. okay – so scratch that part about feeling like i’m doing nothing – now that i’ve written it all out i’m overwhelmed with how much i have to do!

phew! thankfully there is plenty of relaxation and social time in my life too!