Tag Archives: depression

Update about my son’s mental health ordeal.

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This is just a quick update about my son, who started suffering severe panic attacks/dissociation episodes and a week later, from near-suicidal depression.

He is doing much better.   It turned out the medication the Emergency Room gave him to control the panic attacks (lorazepam — commercially known as Ativan) had an adverse effect on him and caused the depression.   Since he stopped taking them, he has not been depressed.

He’s been a lot less anxious too, but that may have been job-related.   He was transferred to a different location which is closer to his home, and is less stressful, and he has not had another attack.

He still plans to find a therapist, since he is an anxious person who has OCD and ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which my daughter also has).  Having these disorders together makes a person likely to suffer sudden panic attacks.

Thanks for everyone’s thoughts and prayers!  I do think that helped too.

Anxiety spiraling into major depression?

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Last week I wrote about my son’s dissociation episodes and panic attacks.   He got some anti-anxiety medication there, but they put him to sleep so they haven’t been useful to him, and the panic has not gone away.  He’s been able to manage it a little better, using some mindfulness tricks, but has not been able to see a doctor yet (he will tomorrow).  His two trips to the emergency room just told him what he already knew and gave him a few pills for the panic.

Since last Monday, he says he has had 14 panic attacks.  Today he tweeted this:

the last 2 weeks ive been in a very dark place. im constantly afraid, never happy. ive lost all hope and happiness. i feel broken. I’m only able to focus on my faults. making choices triggers panic attacks. im so fucking scared of life itself. help me.

This rose alarm bells so I called him right away.  He sounded alright but sad/down.   I asked him if he was having suicidal thoughts.  He said no, but he thinks about death a lot (suicidal ideation).   He also said it feels like someone else has taken over his mind and this isn’t him.   He can’t think of a specific trigger that would have set off the panic attacks.  It seems to me the attacks were and are part of a depressive disorder, possibly major depression, which is what it sounds like.

I made him promise not to do anything crazy.  He said he wouldn’t.   He did say he appreciates me calling him so much (it used to annoy him) and staying on top of the situation.   I’m glad he tells me everything, but I’m still really scared.   I can’t be near him right now, and that makes it worse.

At least he’s opening up and being honest instead of keeping everything inside.   I think opening up and talking about it is a good first step.   He also said he’s been thinking about checking himself into the hospital for a week or a few days.  I think that is probably a good idea, even though he will lose pay.

I’m asking everyone to send your prayers his way (or positive thoughts, if you aren’t religious).     I hate seeing him like this.

Guest Post (by Anonymous): Thoughts About Suicide and Selfishness.

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The following is a guest post from another blogger who kindly asked me if I would post this.  She is hesitant to link to her blog here, since her blog tends to focus on much lighter content, but still wanted to share her thoughts about this dark subject that’s a real issue for so many people who feel like all hope has been lost, as well as the people who love and care for them.     This blogger is not suicidal, but has been in the past.  I think most of us have considered it as an option at some point in our lives.   We need to stop judging them for it!   It isn’t helpful.

Thoughts about Suicide and Selfishness.

By Anonymous.

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The word itself can be quite triggering to some people… It is taboo and disturbing. What better proof of that, than the fact that I didn’t find the courage to speak out loud in my own blog?

Suicide is something that makes people uncomfortable. One shouldn’t even think about it. It scares, especially if you’ve had depressive episodes in the past. Doesn’t thinking about taking your own life mean you might be thinking about actually doing it?

I don’t think so. I don’t think you have to be a professional, working on serious research to give it a thought or two. I know a lot of people think about it, but just don’t share their thoughts. I am willing to open that door today. But I don’t encourage you to keep reading if you are not comfortable with the subject.

I’d like to point out that I am no professional about the matter. I am not a doctor, or a psychiatrist. I’m just a woman, who went through severe depression at some point in her life, and who had to deal with the idea of ending her days. I’m just the close friend of a good man who did take that step while he was living “The Life.”  But I think my view is worth being shared all the same. The following are just opinions, that you might agree with, or not.

From my experience, most people seem to see suicide as a cowardly act. You’ll often hear the classic “He chose an irreversible solution to a temporary problem”. But when you talk to someone who has just lost a loved one to suicide, the first thought resembles more “How could he do this to me?”

As a society, we tend to blame people who commit suicide of robbing us from someone we cherish. How dare that person be so selfish, that they would choose to leave their family and friends mourning them behind?

When I look back those dark days when I struggled between staying one more day or putting an end to my misery, I see things quite differently. I remember how much I thought about all the people that love me. Going through depression doesn’t mean forgetting your surroundings. If anything, those people were the only reason I hesitated. Had I been truly alone, I would have jumped in a second.

imfine

But I didn’t want my mother, my father and my brother to have to mourn me. Even if I seriously thought living without me would be a good thing in the long run. I knew no letter, no matter how long or how well penned would get them to understand I was right. No matter what I’d leave behind, they would end up suffering. And I could not stomach that.

I lived so they wouldn’t suffer. As simple as that. I ached and fought my demons, day by day, night by night, just so they wouldn’t have to wonder why I chose to rest, at last. Even to this day, I sometimes wish there were words that could explain the pain that rips my very soul when depression hits.

Mental distress is as painful if not worse than physical pain. People who haven’t felt it can’t imagine how real the hurt is. It is not “just” a matter of dark thoughts you can chase away or wait to see go away. And although some people can go through therapy or use medication to make the pain lessen, I believe some others will suffer all their lives.

In some countries, laws give the possibility to people suffering from chronic physical diseases that leave them with no quality of life to choose to end their life with doctors’ help. It is even considered an honorable way to leave this world. I agree that people shouldn’t be forced to live, when the suffering is too much to take. We put down our pets so they won’t have to go through unbearable pain, why should we force people to put up with agony?

I am not encouraging suicide. I think it is a terrible way to die. To hurt so much that you’d rather face mankind’s worst fear is horrible. But I don’t understand why we still tend to blame those who get to that point. No one would blame a cancer patient for losing their fight against that illness. Why do we do so, with mentally ill people?

“They should have asked for help!” you might think…. Which doesn’t make sense to me either. Would you blame your mom for dying from an undiagnosed heart failure?

Some people struggling with mental pain do seek help. But from my experience, a lot of doctors don’t measure the depth of the problem. They can’t see it on a scan, a physical exam, or on an X ray. It is not really their fault, but treatment is often lacking, even if people reach out for help.

I think my point here is just that maybe we should consider suicide a loss like that of any other disease. Families and friends shouldn’t have to deal with shame, and shouldn’t have to play the blaming game. The deceased should be able to rest in peace…

Just rest in peace.

Some days I feel like everything’s hopeless.

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Some days it seems like they are winning.    Now we even have State TV.    The reason we had regulations were to keep something like that from happening.    I feel like a character in Orwell’s 1984 and we are creeping closer to fascism every day.

Most days I feel hopeful.  I want to think that goodness will always trump evil.   I want to think most people have good hearts and can tell the difference between truth and lies.  I want to believe there is a way out of this darkness and justice will prevail.

Other days I’m not so sure.   They have so much power, so much money, and are taking over everything like a cancer.    Today is one of those days.   On days like this I feel like giving up.   I feel like nothing will change and will only grow worse.    I feel like I’ll never live to see my country as it used to be ever again.

I know that’s exactly what their intention is.  To wear us down, exhaust us, make us give up, make us buckle under and become sheep who never complain, and just do as we’re told because we know there is no better choice.

I know I have to fight this malaise and negativity, but on days like this it’s so hard. I just feel so depressed and tired.  I want to succumb to it, to let the darkness engulf me and take me down with it.

Maybe I should just ignore what’s going on, not read the news, but I can’t do that either. They want us to be ignorant.  To ignore what’s going on is to become ignorant.

We are being threatened from the outside, and also from our own government. There is no safe place to retreat to, nowhere to run.

Somehow I have to maintain my desire to resist and push back against this assault on the people — their assault on me and everything and everyone I know and love feels so personal.  But it’s getting so hard, and today I feel like nothing can be done and hope is gone.   My C-PTSD has been retriggered by this president.    It’s traumatizing to a lot of people, but especially those who have been through this kind of abuse on the personal  level.

It’s only been 7 months and I feel numb.   I feel like a prisoner on death row who is innocent of any crime but can’t get a fair trial, can’t get an appeal, so I just sit in my cell counting the days until they come to walk me down the green mile.

Please stop calling suicide victims ‘selfish’ or ‘weak.’ (reblog)

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One of the best blogs I’ve recently discovered is John Pavlovitz’s blog “Stuff That Needs to Be Said.”  Pavlovitz is a Christian pastor, but he is different because he abhors what has become “conservatism” and is an active member of the resistance.  Like Jesus himself, he is compassionate and bravely defends all those who are vulnerable or “different,” including groups many fake Christians hate and fear, such as the LGBTQ population and Muslim immigrants.

Every day, Mr. Pavlovitz writes impassioned, brutally honest posts calling out the darkness and evil so many of us see in the new White House and in the greater society.   I love what he has to say and I love the way he writes.  But he doesn’t write exclusively about the political situation.   In this post, he calls out those who accuse Linkin Park’s frontman Chester Bennington as weak and selfish for killing himself on Friday — and in so doing, defends all people who have sunk into such despair and hopelessness that they think suicide is their only way out.

Please Stop Calling Suicide Victims “Weak” and “Selfish”

By John Pavlovitz

Chester

Soon after news broke about the death of Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington, amid the flood of condolences and the raw expressions of grief and shock—came the others; the ones who are never far, always hiding just out of view, ever ready to crawl from out from the cracks.

In moments like these, they surface to offer flippant, callous, armchair sermons about how selfish suicide is, about how cowardly the dead person was, about why he or she should have thought of their children, spouses, loved ones.
They add insult to fatal injury by heaping shame upon a suffering that had already proven to be too much to bear for someone.
These people somehow feel fine critiquing dead strangers, before they’ve even been buried.

I’ve come to realize that there is only one kind of person who says things like this about those who take their own lives: a person who has never been where Chester Bennington was in his final moments, or where Chris Cornell was, or where 121 people in the US are every single day—where many are in the seconds it takes for you to read these words. The people who say such things, are those who’ve never (because of mental illness or acute trauma or severe addiction), been pushed to the precipice of their very will to live. They are people who (fortunately for them) have the luxury of their ignorance, who’ve never walked through this unrivaled internal Hell and wanted nothing more than to get out.

Read the rest of John’s post here. 

And follow his amazing blog!

 

 

Eeyore wisdom.

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Kneeling down…

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Cyranny writes so beautifully about those inexplicable “bad days” all of us have, whether we want to admit we have them or not. They just sort of come out of nowhere sometimes!
Please follow Cyranny’s Cove for more of her wonderful writing and poetry.
Comments are disabled here; please comment on the original post.

Cyranny's Cove

Depression

Today was not a good day.

It happens. It is just life… We all have bad days, right? Right. Only, depression leftovers make my bad days B.A.D.

It often doesn’t really show. I just won’t think about eating, and spend all day concentrating on not letting show what goes on in my brain. Doesn’t sound too bad? Of course not.

I am aware I am not the only one having those post-depression random bad days. But not many people know about them. My parents don’t, my friends don’t…. Heck, Chéri doesn’t know about them. Not because I want to lie to them, but because of two simple things:

1- I don’t want them to worry everytime I frown.

2- It is so dang difficult to explain.

I don’t know why “bad days” happen. I don’t know if they are triggered by specific factors. (if so, I can’t wait to find…

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Looking for a Scapegoat (comments allowed)

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I think a lot of us can relate to this post right now. I know I can relate to it. The season really gets me down, but it’s more than that. I can’t pinpoint what it is though. I’ve also been noticing how many others seem to feel like they’re losing their minds or the world’s about to end. Linda Lee has always been there for me when I need her; I know I can’t do much but she needs big hugs and support from her WordPress friends right now, so that’s why I’m reblogging her post.

Since she’s allowing comments for this post, I’m disabling comments here.

A Blog About Healing From PTSD

I am not doing well. In fact, emotionally speaking, this is the worst I have been in a long time.

It’s embarrassing…. humiliating…. and humbling to admit this.  I thought  I was so much healthier than this!  I had healed so much. I had learned, and grown, and blossomed, spreading my wings and flying so far…. all those happy, la la land metaphors.

My blog is about HEALING from PTSD, for heaven’s sake!  I have a page posted at the top of my blog entitled “How to Heal  PTSD,” which lists all the different therapeutic methods and self-help books that have helped me immeasurably. And I really, truly have come incredibly far from where I was when I was in my worst, most crazy-broken-shattered-insane condition.

My tablet wants to know if crazy-broken-shattered-insane needs to be added to the dictionary. Uhm….no.

You know what’s weird? You can’t tell by looking at…

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The worst thing about depression.

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A meme I just made to express how I feel right now.

Can you have too much empathy?

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Believe it or not, the answer is “Yes”! But it really shouldn’t be too surprising, since people with high empathy are also highly sensitive, and since they feel everything so keenly, sometimes the negative emotions surrounding them can drag them into a depressive state.

A friend who reads this blog sent me this article, thinking it could possibly explain the depressive state I’ve been in. While I’m not sure that’s the reason I’ve been so down, it’s still an interesting article and should bring some clarity to HSPs and empaths who are feeling inexplicably depressed. If you are an HSP or an empath, think about whether you’ve been exposed to negative people or people who are going through bad experiences or suffering depression. You might have picked up on the emotions of others.

Empathy is a wonderful trait to have but having too much of it can hurt its bearer. At some point, you can even suffer from “empathy burnout,” which basically means you shut off your ability to feel empathy after you’ve been drained emotionally by giving too much of yourself to others. Empathy burnout is common in people in the helping professions, many who are naturally empathetic. After a few years, they may find themselves no longer able to empathize with the people they help, and even beginning to resent them. That’s why there’s so much attrition in these professions.

I think practicing mindfulness is a good skill, not only for people with C-PTSD and personality disorders, but also for empaths and HSPs who may have too much of a good thing!

Here is the article she sent me.   It also explains the differences between empathy and sympathy.  (They are not the same thing!)  Sympathy is more detached and cognitive; even narcissists can feel sympathy, though they might have a limited capacity to feel emotional empathy.

Exploring Hyper-Empathy Syndrome