A false alarm

Well its early christmas morning and this is take two (a temporary power failure wiped a couple of paragraphs but I should be able to recapture the jist of it). I am currently unable to sleep and am full of pills - sleepers, anti-depressants, paracetamol, nurofen, codeine (all legitmate and recommended doses). Anyway, not bad for someone who hates taking medicine but I had just been feeling so awful. I have just now gone from having chills to breaking out in a sweat and the sweat is literally just dripping off me.

Anyway, I had been looking forward all week to a christmas eve with the inlaws as the food is always amazing (and they're not too bad either). Through the whole week of work my sight had one eye on this festive prize and I arrived feeling a little drained. I had worked hard in my new role yesterday (and the preceeding weeks) and finished all the urgent and important tasks that were needing completion so I could enjoy the Christmas break - including the boxing day holiday test match (a major local sporting event).

For someone in my circumstances feeling a bit flat was only normal but about one hour into the evening I started to break down. My head was weak, I couldn't concentrate, I started to feel physically ill, and every minor thing seemed like a massive chore (even helping myself to a wonderful glass of Australian red wine which I didn't end up finishing).

I soon realised what was happening because the symptoms were so familiar. But before I could isolate myself I had ended up in the centre of a conversation with three other people that I just couldn't politely escape from. With a great Christmas atmosphere the discussion just took on a life of its own and I was fading fast. I could literally feel the life draining out me and as I had some special knowledge on the topic of conversation I was unable to sit politely nodding on the sidelines. I sure didn't want to offend our family guests (as these were nice people).

Anyway, after about 20 minutes of this my head was totally gone. I was putting up a brave effort but couldn't have held out much longer. I was saved by the announcement of the opening of the presents ceremony and was summoned with everyone else to the Christmas tree. In moving to the the area I found the most isolated place to be present.

During this short respite I began to have a minor (non-pathological) panic about what I thought work had done to me. The thoughts of 'here we go again with the depression' were at the forefront of my mind. However, the normal commotion of the gift giving was unbearable and after several minutes I left discreetly and took a walk outside in the fresh air but eventually ended up in a bedroom to lie down.

During this time I just tried to clear my head and I also prayed a desperate prayer. I was pretty scared about where this was heading. Anyway, with this break from the group things did settle down for me and I was able to rejoin the end of the gift giving. I had missed my daughter receiving her presents which was really dissapointing and I also missed my own gifts which alerted people to my absence. Thankfully noone asked me what was up because I would have been a little embarassed.

Anyway, I coped after that and faded in and out of conversation as my head would allow. But I was patchy in my head and irratable inside the whole time and even now a little bit.

The good news is it wasn't the depression. At least I'm really confident it wasn't. Whilst I exhibited all the symptoms of my previous depression I think in the end it was due to some other illness. It became apparent on return home that I was not quite right. I had a headache and a very sore throat and when I took my temperature at home I had a fever. It is likely that I have caught something from my daughter as she had these exact symptoms twice over the last month when she came down with tonsilitis. It seems like the depression symptoms were a flase alarm - for my depression anway.

Finally, I never thought I would be happy the day I had tonsilitis. I never thought I could wish so much to have it either.

A week already

Well things have been flying on the work front and I can hardly believe a week's gone by since I last posted something on here. I've spent the best part of 20 hours on managing and implementing a project for March/April next year - and have stood up to it well. I have also been able to look after my daughter for all the usual time except for one day AND stay a good companion for my wife - so the life balance has been maintained.

Hopefully I will have time very soon to update some of my reflections on my recent episode of depression. A good option would probably be the impact on marraige, companionship, and romance in depression.

I've got so many ideas but no longer as much time to write. Hang in there though - this blog/journal is weighed heavily on my heart and I want to continue updating at every opportunity.

To what can I liken the life of depression?

Consider a merchant vessel on a journey at sea. This ship is by no means a supertanker but is a functional, profitable, sea-worthy vessel. As it happens its current voyage is its first fully laden voyage but this is a ship built well for its purpose. The seas are no more difficult than usual and, having left port some weeks ago, it is apparent that there are prosperous times ahead for this ship.

While out at sea the ship inexplicably begins to take on water. The bilge pumps are manned and keep pace for a while. The intake of water soon increases and outpaces the capacity of the bilge pumps to cope. A crisis looms in the ship. Cargo is thrown overboard. First the heaviest and least expensive objects are discarded and this ship's stability and bouyancy are maintained. But water continues to be taken and more precious cargo now must be discarded. Valuables of all kinds are thrown wastefully overboard to ensure the survival of the ship and its crew. Soon there is no cargo left to discard and the water continues to invade.

At this point the bilge pumps are working flat out. The ship is losing bouyancy and stability with the more water it takes. Soon the flood is overwhelming and the over-taxed bilge pumps begin to fail, one by one, until all break down and there is no outlet for the invading sea.

The ship is now entirely awash. Power fails, steering is dead, and the once proud ship is in danger of capsizing and sinking listlessly to the bottom of the sea. By some sroke of fortune the ship remains afloat but its deck is on the waterline. All stability in the vessel is gone and it bobs like a cork in the sea. And it continues to bob with decks all awash, in storm and in calm weather, in typhoon and in gale. The ship hangs on to the surface but there is no source of rescue for the ship and its crew within sight.

Quick update

Currently I am teetering on the boarder of illness and well being. I am fairly active at the moment and I continue to push the limits of my energy. I can sustain a low level normal paced life with only having the side effect of exhaustion - which isn't bad comparitively with what I have been used to.

Things have ramped up with work. I completed 10 hours in the last week alone which is unheard of for me these days. I think last time I gave detail of work I had done nine hours in three weeks. It seems as though I am coming on in leaps and bounds. My tolerance for pushing the boundaries of my health has risen dramatically.

This current comeback has left me unusually busy and I am struggling to put the time I wish into my blog. I am prioritising my management business above my writing but I long to write and hope to keep a similar pace to what has been the norm these last couple of months.

General update - health and career

I can say that I did bounce back as expected on Thursday and have not looked back. A few points of interest in my health and career are worth noting.

Health
Although I crashed on Monday afternoon/evening through to the end of Wednesday it was not the same crash in health that I had been accustomed to. I was certainly immobilised by the crash but I did not suffer healthwise in my mind as previously. It is hard to explain the distinction I am trying to make but perhaps I can best explain it by suggesting the crash was more like an immobilisation through tiredness/exhaustion. Previously when I crashed it also impacted my zest for life, my motivation, and my head would get more than just a little hazy - it would often include a level of agitation and I would be unable to think clearly or concentrate.

Hopefully all this is a sign that my health is improving. It's sure taken long enough to get to this point. I feel more in control of my health outcomes as I seem to be well enough that I can manage the amount of activity at a near normal level and just back off when I need to. I think the improvement in my health means I can operate my life on a sustainably productive level although still with some significant constraints on my activity. Time will tell but I am feeling more confident of this than at any other time throughout this second major episode.

Career
Things have taken a very interesting turn here. The contract work with my client has been consolidated with an additional role in a large project he is undertaking. This naturally means I need to be able to put in more time and energy to his business and whilst nervous about this I am confident that I may be able to manage this reasonably competently. I have been able to negotiate a downgraded priority on the contract work I was doing so I am sure I will be able to engage the project with the necessary time and energy putting time into the contract work where there are lulls in the project.

The great thing has been that we are both on the same page where my role is concerned. Our expectations for each other are also well grounded. We have agreed in principle to the type or role to play and to financial terms, and whilst we have both taken on a certain level of risk in this arrangement (he with my health, me financially) there is an excellent opportunity for this to prosper for both of us.


So I'll leave my update at that except to put in a little teaser about what reflections on my depression I will work on next. I have addressed boredom and humiliation fairly well and will leave those topics there for now. I have touched briefly on anger and frustration but would like to say a little more on these. I have barely addressed grief, despair or hate in the way I would like to. Also, I want to address the impact on, and role of, my spirituality throughout depression as well as my fleeting encounter with panic attack and psychosomatic (imaginary) pain. So hopefully I can become particualry inspired about one of these topics and provide an update on them soon.

Humiliation - the final insult

I have to admit I have been a little reluctant to write this final installment of my humiliation trilogy because I still feel pretty embarrassed about it. Many things I write about in this blog I have already struggled with and resolved in my heart or mind and can relate with little personal discomfort. Not so this final section on humiliation. It's not that it is such a big deal, or that my soul is still broken up over it, it's simply one of those humiliating circumstances that I remain embarrassed about even on reflection. I think there is a certain dignity or pride in a person that when circumstances advance in a particular direction it is only natural to feel humiliated even on reflection. So, with some trepidation, here goes.

I often wonder what people think happens to depressed persons when they are in one of their lows. I still wonder sometimes myself what happens to others facing depression even though I have lived many of the awful experiences that becomes the lot of the clinically depressed. I can't speak for anybody but myself in this blog but depression's effect on my life is not totally unique. When in depths of a major depressive episode, or when having a serious relapse, I personally lose all interest in, and motivation towards, my life and can not get out of bed. In those moments when I'm not quite at my lowest I might get to the toilet toilet or the loungeroom. If I have competing instincts flare up, like thirst or hunger, and they become less bearable than the state of depression I am in I find I get a motivational kick and I am able to address these appetites with a quick trip to the kitchen or pantry. But almost immediately afterwards, when the thirst or hunger is appeased, I am thrown back in the state demotivation and am all the more exhausted by the recently taken journey. And getting out of the house, even to the letterbox, isn't a remote consideration at these times.

Thankfully for me these extreme depths of depression last only a few days at a time now but I can still remember when it would last for weeks on end. Even now I can languish somewhere near the bottom for weeks at a time (just as I did in September and October) but I only tend to rest in the lower depths for three or four days at most. These last few days were not quite at the depths I am talking about here but it was still quite low.

Humiliation in these depths is personal. It has little to do with the illness or the soul (although these have their small place in it). It has more to do with human dignity and hygeine. Being stuck in one room of the house for most of a day, or for an entire week, is awful. In my September-October relapse I made it out of the house three times in two weeks (at the beginning and the end of the depths I had sunk in). I showered only three times in that period and felt clammy and sweaty for almost the entire time. A big day for me in that time, one that I could almost feel proud of given the state I was in, was spending time in the loungeroom as well as the bedroom and perhaps fixing my lunch before the drive to eat grew so much it compelled me to act against my underlying feelings. But it didn't extend to leaving the house or jumping in the shower - that was just too much activity to contemplate.

Being so helpless in my health that I conduct my life based on the most pressing drive or instinct - like an animal - is degrading. As a human I am capable of much more and need much more to be satisfied with my life than the bestial qualities the predominate when I am in the depths. As part of the humiliation I face in my depression this is the final insult as I can not reason away the shame I face because of it. This humiliation goes to the core of being human and I cannot avoid its sting.

An excercise for you:

• IMAGINE, lying helpless on your bed, waiting for thirst or hunger or the need to relieve yourself to outweigh the the need to lie uselessly on your bed. And the new drive comes, it builds, and you wait until you can bear it less than the drive to keep you where you lay and reluctantly you choose the path of least resistance and you make it to the bathroom, or the kitchen. Then what? You do what you have to and return to the bed glad the experience of activity is over. Now you can return to the nothing that you were unhappily (but satisfactorily) absorbed with before the drive to move you arose. And you lay there with your mind mostly blank (perhaps snoozing on and off which helps pass the time). And this continues for days on end, and then weeks.

Humiliation has been a key factor in my experience of depression. Whether it is the shame of the illness, the war on against soul, or the stripping of my human dignity, it is always there lurking in the darkness of depression.

Update - bouncing back tomorrow

Today has gone pretty much like yesterday. I have spent most of it sleeping interspersed with reading and I am only starting to come good now (about 8pm).

I have not really dwelled on what is happening with me today but have attempted to just ride it out. This has been good becuase it becomes easy to fall into the type of ruminating that is destructuve to my soul (as I explained yesterday). So far so good but it's even more significant today because I am under a bit of pressure to complete some more work for my client by next week and it is tempting to get frustrated and impatient with how things are. But I have not yet succumbed (perhaps because I am still hopeful of getting through the work even if didn't happen yesterday or today when I had planned for it).

Despite the current drama I am still feeling not too bad. My body is broken and my mind isn't quite there but I feel like I am only a day away from being well. I thought today might be the day when I bounced back but it wasn't to be. When I am worse it is my mind that really suffers. It goes from fine, to hazy, to completely fogged over, then through increasing levels of agitation. At its worst the agitiation can take weeks to clear but recently I have been mostly in the fog with only small overtones of agitiation when it has been bad. Crashes or down times have been limited to a few days in a row at most. I think tomorrow I will be better but I'll be happier when it is not just speculation.

The precipice

After all the anticipation of finally celebrating an anniversary it was done energetically and in style. Even the mornings went well and after a few early coffees you wouldn't have known anything was wrong with me at all. We had a great time relaxing and indulging ourselves and it was sad that it had to end. But I suppose reality is tough even when it does not reach the extremes I have become accustomed to recently.

Monday was a tougher assignment. I started to come down from the caffeinated high but was still able to make a morning party I was hosting for my daughter's birthday. After hosting the party, and having a full day of activity besides this, I started to run out of steam before dinner. It was becoming very difficult just to get the job done but I got there in the end - just.

Today was worse. I slept for most of the afternoon and only came back to life (after living in a wakeful haze) at about 9pm. Now I feel almost ready to go on with life but the day is over. I've slept most of it so am not tired. I feel like doing something, perhaps anything, but just can't be bothered with any notion that comes to mind (from reading, writing, watching a DVD, going for a walk, visiting the 24 hour department store, chatting with my wife). It all just seems a bit too hard. I know it's the depression because I am so familiar with it yet still some part of me asks that nagging question about laziness and lack of discipline.

Sometimes it is hard accepting I have depression and that the symptoms are not in my control. I often feel discouraged about the ongoing uncertainties and wasted days too. It's also hard to convince myself that it's not worth dwelling on even when I know it couldn't be helped. It is far too easy to be drawn towards that dark precipice in my mind and to fall over and then free fall into ruminating on things that kill my soul. It's such an alluring prospect to seek solace in self pity, self deprecation, and catastrophising about life. There is a definite sparkle at the edge of that precipice to every sordid object of my thoughts even though I know it's only fool's gold.

I am beginning to think that my mind is just like an adventurer. When it's idle it gets edgy and looks for excitment and activities to fulfill it. It wanders searchingly, looking for danger and conquest on its path, and finds comfort not simply in fulfilling its mental wanderlust by journeying through the darkest recesses but moreso when it confronts real dangers of the mind and soul. When it reaches that precipice in my mind where it knows there is a danger to my soul if I stand to near the edge and topple over - or dive off.

Unlike most things in my life at least the path of my mind is in my control. Whichever way I go I know I have chosen it. The path I choose determines whether I suffer from my illness alone or confront groanings of my soul that numb and sour all other contemplation in my life.

Anniversary of Hope

Dark are the years of our recent life
With love tested to its ultimate.
We have learned to survive on the smallest spark;
But its floodlights we seek,
Or the Sun,
Or galaxies of Light
To warm us and show us through.

A first in three years

This weekend will be mine and my wife's 11th wedding anniversay. It will be the first time in three years we will have properly celebrated the occasion. We actually had plans two years ago but we had a surprise special delivery with our daughter who arrived two months early and spoiled the plans. I did bring Indian take-away and a bottle of fine Australian red wine to the hospital for the occasion but it really didn't count as we were more concerned with the health of our premmie little girl who was placed in the NICU (Neonatal intensive Care Unit) at the time. My wife wasn't too flash anyway only having had an emergency caesarean section 24 hours earlier. Besides, who in their right mind would take a date to the hospital and expect to enjoy it - talk about romantic!

Last year we organised a celebration for our daughter's first birthday (because we didn't get a chance to celebrate her birth properly with all the premmie drama) and I was too sick to organise and celebrate our anniversary as well. This was a great event but I crashed pretty hard for the following six weeks. I think my wife was too exhausted to celebrate our anniversary anyway because she did much of the preparation in the final days.

This year we'll be doing both! So things have improved on last year. I am looking forward to a weekend away with just the two of us. I am absolutely thrilled with the propsect of this celebratory weekend as I am in the best health I have been in since this major episode of depression. It means my wife is pretty much guaranteed to have enjoyable company on our special occasion (at least for the afternoons and evenings because I am still a bit slow in the mornings) and not have to worry about, or be reminded of, the difficulties we have experienced with my depression - at least for a weekend.

I definitely overcooked it

Well it's now heading in to the wee hours of the morning and I am still unable to sleep even with my sedatives on board. It just goes to show that there is such a fine line between having a great day and overcooking it.

Still unwinding

Well today was a huge day for family, business, and career! After crashing yesterday (about a 7/10 on the 'I've done a bit too much and have to crash' scale) I was fired up and raring to go this morning. I made final preparations at home for my afternoon business meeting; I had lunch, a chat, and did some shopping with my wife; I decided to make some career decisions; and I had a meeting with my current client (that was really two meetings that lasted a total of 3.5 hours). I must have been active for the best part of 8 hours today - that's almost normal!

For those interested in what decisions I made I came to the conclusion that I will concentrate on my existing client, I will increase my hours of service where necessary, and I will develop my writing concepts and projects in the meanwhile (see earlier blog for context). This fit in beautifully with my client's desire for me to be involved in the planning, management and admin of a major project he is undertaking in March next year (if we can come to suitable terms on remuneration and defined role). It looks like I am beginning to fall on my feet again.

More big news: - since we were looking at developing the business relationship further I told my client about my depression and that there was potential of it impacting my reliability at times. You know what he said ... "no problem, we'll just have to have a back up plan in case it happens" - talk about amazing!

So it was a big day in my life today. I again made a confession about having depression (and wasn't the slightest bit humiliated), I defined the short-medium term path of my current business/career, I had lunch with my wife (and made plans about family, home renovations, and career - I forgot to mention those other two earlier) and had a hair cut, wrote a blog, etc... Who could have thought after yesterday being confined to the house all day I would have the strength and drive to do all this just 24 hours later. Perhaps the depression really is breaking?

The only downside for me today is that after all the excitment I find myself unable to sleep because I am still unwinding.