Treatment Resistant, but Resilient

Just something more lighthearted than I tend to post. Because this is just as much my life as the trauma, anxiety, depression, and other craziness. These kids, and their older siblings, are my universe. I fight the darkness for them. I push through the hardest days for them. I live for them. Emily, 2nd grade DLI                                                                                      TJ, 4th grade DLI TJ just wanted to show off his backpack, and Emily wanted to show of her lunch bag. TJ is really into Snoopy right now, Emily loves all things girly like unicorns, ponies, rainbows, glitter, and sparkly things. I love these kiddos.  

 I think there is some trauma from the night I lost my mom, which I will need to work through. I keep telling myself I have dealt with it, and maybe the so-called trauma is just grief. Anyway, here is a short "story" I wrote about that night. It keeps getting misplaced and had some soda spilled on it so I figured this is a more permanent place to keep it.     Friday, April 14, 2023, is a date etched in my mind. Exactly one month before my 43rd birthday. My sister called "hey, sis. I'm at Mom and Dad's. Are you ready to go?"     "Be right over" I reply.     We're riding together with our parents to Aunt Jeneal's viewing. Jeneal was Mom's oldest sister. Most of her kids were old enough to be my parents, so I never felt close to her. But she is my Aunt and I do love her.     Only a few months before, her son and daughter died just days apart due to complications from Covid. Mom mentions how she's sure they are together. Mom is also env...

 Recently, I started doing Ketamine assisted psychotherapy. I go into the office, dissolve a ketamine troche in my mouth, and lay down for an hour, then talk to my therapist for an hour. Every other treatment I do it at home and write down or record my thoughts.  The first one was kind of interesting but uneventful. My psychiatrist suggested I set goals for what I hope to accomplish or work through before I put the troche in my mouth. I did another one at home, and it wasn't helpful at all. The 3rd one, my psychiatrist raised the dose and it did seem to help a little. The 4th one was in-office, and I cried about my ECT past, how nobody seems to want to hear it or show any empathy after all this time. But it is still painful for me. It still challenges me and shakes me to the core some days. I talked about how I thought I could work on forgiving the doctors and nurses and other staff at the clinic. I've done several more since then. Once, I cried because I wanted my mom with me...

 I've heard the saying "comparison is the thief of joy" SO many times. I don't know if it's always  a symptom of depression, but it is definitely common among the friends I have discussed it with. This is one of the reasons that social media is such a problem, and why it is immediately blocked in all mental health hospitals and facilities. I used to compare the number of likes I would get vs someone else in the same circle. I don't do this anymore, but it was a big deal. One of the few memories I have of being admitted to the hospital in 2019 was them asking how serious my suicidal thoughts and ideations were and asking me about social media. I remember feeling validated, knowing this was common enough of a problem that it had to be asked during check-in. The biggest comparison I hear about, and probably the biggest one I struggle with myself, is comparing the support given to those with mental illness vs those with physical illness. I don't 100% agree wit...

I just need to post a little bit about what's going on currently. Get it out of my head and onto the paper, or blog. In the past 17 months I've had 4 surgeries. Every time, I pray that I will not wake up. I look for little things that I can do to "increase the risk" of surgery. I have hit lows that should probably have been talked about, but I didn't want to. I didn't want to admit it aloud. I didn't want someone to stop me if I made a good suicide plan. After the 3rd surgery, I tried to give myself lithium toxicity and overdosed for several days. I don't know what I expected or wanted. I just knew that it was going to hurt me and I wanted to hurt. When I changed antidepressants between the first two surgeries,and was told never to mix the several different medications, I held on to every single pill bottle in case I "needed" to take them later. The latest surgery was unnecessary; I had a tubal ligation. I didn't need it; I have an IUD th...

 

 When I was in Junior High, 2 classmates died by suicide. I didn't know either of them well, didn't even really know what suicide was. I learned a lot at that time. Tom Eschler died first, he lived about 2 blocks away, and I knew who he was, and we had mutual friends but never interacted. Tim Wright died exactly one month later; there were rumors the two boys (best friends) had made a suicide pact. I am not sure if that was true or not. I only knew Tim's name. As you can imagine there was a lot of talk at school. Everyone was devastated by the news, even if we didn't know the boys personally, it was a difficult thing to have happen, especially in Junior High. I remember being afraid to ask questions, hoping someone else would ask the questions I wanted answers to. I wanted to know how they did it, (perhaps I could try that?) where they did it? did they leave a note? Was it really a sin to kill yourself? I did find out that one died by gunshot and one died by overdose. A...