I've always suffered from a certain level of depression. It stays away for long periods of time and lurks around waiting for an opportune time to hit. Usually it's when I get tired. Then Wham!
I can remember times in my past where it hit so hard and so fast that I just didn't have the strength to battle it. I can remember telling myself, "I am too tired to fight it today. I'll do it on Monday." I would spend the weekend in bed, doing lots of crying, being completely exhausted. Then I'd pull up my bootstraps on Monday morning and send my depression packing.
My depression has never been the suicidal thought/pack up and leave my husband/drown my kids in a bathtub kind of depression. I just describe it as a major case of the glums. I cry at the drop of a hat. I am angry at nothing. I am extremely agitated at touch, sound and light.
As I have said a hundred times, this has been a situationally difficult year. Finally around the holidays I gave into what I have fought for years, and let my doctor put me on a mild anti-depressive. Life this year has been great! I didn't attribute it to the medication, however. I just knew that our situations had improved 100% and I just felt naturally more positive.
My prescription this month ran out and because I had been feeling so good, I decided not to refill it. I just didn't need it anymore. Seriously, within 48 hours I noticed that I was really agitated. Hearing the music to Super Mario Brothers was really annoying me. I was angry at the puppies if they were under my feet. I wasn't talking to anybody. I really wanted to be alone. I was having trouble going to sleep at night.
Last Saturday was a beautiful day! Rick and I had plans to take Eli and Brynne to the zoo. On the drive there Rick asked me what was wrong. I told him I didn't know. Because, honestly, I didn't. He could tell, too. I seriously burst into tears right there in the car, right in the middle of a sentence. It was so startling and unexpected that Rick even started laughing. I said "Don't laugh at me!" And then I started laughing. I had absolutely no reason to be down ... None!
That is what is so aggravating about depression. You can't stop it even when you know it's completely ridiculous!
I told Rick that I had stopped taking the medication and he asked me if I could link up the change in my feelings to that. I honestly had to say, "Yes."
So I refilled my prescription on Sunday.
Here's the thing. Depression hurts. (Just like the commercial says.) But, do you know who it hurts the most? It hurts those around you. (I really could be in a commercial.) Your husband and children can't understand what is wrong, so they naturally assume they are doing something to cause it. Your poor puppies just look at you with sadness when you push them away and yell at them.
It's not worth it.
The other thing depression does is make you completely incapable of having positive responses to situations when they do arise. You try to look through the cloud, but you can't. That happened to me this week. A situation that I might have been able to handle with clarity practically put me in the bed.
If a small, inexpensive medication can keep my husband, children and pets from feeling sad and lonely because of my depression, and make me able to respond with an ounce of positiveness to situations that arise, then it's worth it to me to take it.
I have learned that my depression is not as situational as I once thought.
It's true depression. It must be handled.
