My biggest fear
I may have mentioned this before, but my biggest fear is depression. It scares the absolute shit out of me. For so long, I didn’t consider depression much, and I thought I was that way because of something I was doing wrong. I felt like I had let myself down. At first, I wanted to hide it, but after moving back home, I couldn’t hide it anymore. I was living in Germany when I first remember it being really bad. I was doing my PhD and working from home, but my boyfriend would leave the house early and come back in the afternoon. I spent the days in bed- staring at the wall. I blamed myself for running out of drugs. I thought it was self-inflicted. I would crawl (literally) to the shower before he got home and then I’d prop myself up on the couch like it hadn’t happened. I’d pretend and lie about what I had done that day. It was my first taste of misery and loneliness. But then COVID hit, and I went home to Chicago.
I arrived in Chicago in a manic episode, and it would take some time for my family to see the depressive ones. I always thought with bipolar disorder, the episodes come and end after two weeks but that was not my experience. I’d have episodes for months, and a good amount of the time, manic and depressive episodes happened at the same time. These are called mixed-episodes. Honestly, it was so chaotic that I never really thought “oh this is an episode”. It’s just how I was. Getting my bipolar disorder diagnosis did bring some joy. I finally knew what was happening, but that was just the beginning. It took me years to get stable and I seriously worked my ass off the entire time. It never felt like I was making progress, but now, I would do anything to thank that version of myself.
Depression felt like my entire personality was robbed. I am hard-working, passionate, and get my energy by pushing myself more and more. But with depression? That was gone. I was completely numb, and I didn’t feel any emotion when I was depressed. I also feel like I became depressed in the beginning, and it just never really went away after that. It was a constant. My heart breaks for myself when I think about it. I have never been able to describe how manic depression feels and it doesn’t do it justice when I say it just sucked. At some point, I wasn’t showering or brushing my teeth or doing anything. I laid in bed all day, feeling nothing. That’s when the thoughts crept in, and I knew I was at a breaking point.
Most of the time, depression comes with suicidal ideation and suicidal thoughts. It’s scary. You want to want to live, but that feels so unrealistic when you can’t even get out of bed. My family was on guard. They moved and locked up their guns. They would show up at my house if I didn’t answer. How could I explain that I couldn’t even pick up their calls? My brain told me to kill myself, but something in me wouldn’t do it. I think deep down, I had a little hope. One episode lasted for so long and the thoughts got so bad that I checked myself into the psych ward. I didn’t want to die. But my brain was broken.
After the psych ward, my psychiatrist suggested ECT treatment. This is basically a surgery where you go under and get an electric shock to the brain. I did it almost twelve times. And you know what? It actually worked. I came out of the episode, and I haven’t had a bad one like that since. But depression was still there. I think because it had been so bad before, I underestimated the lighter version I dealt with every day. It was still hard to do things and I spent all my spare time lying down or sleeping. I thought it was just me, but recently, I have felt the depression disappear. It’s actually going away, and I am starting to feel real happiness. I still get terrified that it will happen again, but I was able to dig myself out of it, and I know you can to.
xoxo
