Depression: Never Say Never

I said I'd never to it... that I was better now and the past was behind me.  

Then I looked in those 2 innocent faces that call me mama,

 and I realize I'm doing it for them.  

I fought depression as a teenager and thought I'd won the battle forever.  I put that painful chapter behind me.  I had defeated it and it was gone.  That is until the last year, when we slowly realized the depression was back.  On a good day I was able to function and on a bad day Bob would cover for me and I hid in our bedroom.  Getting some assistance from medication was looking like a better idea every day.  I needed the medicine to help reset my brain chemistry so I could better function.

I owed it to my kids.  They deserved a patient mom who could deal with the interruptions of motherhood, who wanted to sit on the floor and play with them instead of insisting on a movie to babysit them.  A mom who didn't get anxious about taking them to the store alone.  I did it for my kids.

I tried medication to see if it would help because my kids deserved a healthy mom.  I now take my medication because I see the person I had become and I'm glad I'm back to being me.  I want to stay me, I forgot that I once enjoyed playing with my kids and they aren't always in the way.  I want enjoy and thrive in my life and not survive.  And right now, my brain needs some help to process everything.

I'm thankful everyday that the first medicine I tried had a huge positive impact on my health.  I'm thankful that this week as my husband returned to a full time job away from home I was able to enjoy the little moments with my kids every day.  The smiles seemed bigger and the laughter was louder than it has been for a long time.  I'm thankful I tried medication again.

Depression: What Colors Can You See?

Over the past few months when Cynthia has been battling depression, it has affected our whole family. It has definitely changed the way I view depression: before I had personal experience with it, I didn't think much about it but subconsciously assumed that anything that a person thought could be "un-thought". Any thinking pattern that wasn't desirable just needed to be replaced by a thinking pattern that fit the direction you wanted to go, and after that was done then you'd feel better.
I've learned, though, that when Cynthia is in a low time (her incidents of depression are very irregular and unpredictable, so the difference between her "up" days and her "down" days are very dramatic), her whole thinking process changes. The best analogy I've thought of is that it's as if a person has a disease that periodically affects their brain so that they can no longer see the color green. When the person is "normal", they can see fine, but when the disease affects them they can't see the same. They even know mentally that green still exists, but that knowledge isn't helping them because, as I've heard said, "perception is reality". They're not comforted by someone assuring them that green objects still exist the same as ever, they're not encouraged by pressures to "meditate on green objects", and they're not helped by advice to "just concentrate on the green that you can see". In that moment, until something changes, green doesn't exist for them.
In my analogy, green is encouragement, or hope. When Cynthia is in a "down time", the same motivations, encouragements, and passions that drive her when she's "up" don't even exist for her, and encouraging her in the same way that I could encourage her normally just doesn't work. That's why most depression advice I've read (and I'm no expert, I'm just generalizing) doesn't help much: most of them are the same ways that we can all encourage ourselves when we feel discouraged. Those ways work great when the problem is just that the green we can see is getting crowded out temporarily by all the blue and red objects in our lives. The problem is that depression fundamentally changes a person's perception: if it's impossible to see green anymore, you have to get back to normal sight some other way, other than just "seeing different". Just like that, depression requires more than just "thinking different".

Depression: It's Our Problem

Cynthia was dealing with depression for months before we realized what it was. At first it just seemed like Cynthia would get in a mood where she was unreasonably touchy, couldn't be satisfied and was too tired to do the things that used to excite her. Then the next day she would be dramatically better. It was a roller-coaster for awhile, but we started to finally see that it was a noticeable pattern, and we started to realize that maybe it wasn't just "moods", maybe it was something physiological.

I can understand the temptations as a spouse to draw away. I didn't know when we got married that I was agreeing to having to be a single parent one day every couple weeks, or to spending late nights trying to encourage Cynthia when nothing I say helps, or to having her attack me unfairly. As we've slowly come to realize more of what it is, however, I'm realizing that when I was married this is what I signed up for. I'm very thankful that when the pendulum swings back and Cynthia's back to "normal" she's still the same wonderful person I married. Since this is the case I know that in the "down" times she's not herself, and part of serving her "for better or for worse" is taking care of her through tough times as well as enjoying the happy times. I know some people have to deal with a spouse who always treats them like I was describing, and I feel for them, but I thank God that I'm not dealing with that. I'm still married to an amazing, delightful woman, and I'm helping her through something she's being attacked by periodically, like a disease.

Depression isn't just her problem to deal with on her own. I don't make her feel guilty when she can't do what she usually does and I pick up the slack. I try to not argue or get angry with her when she's down and says things that feel unfair, untrue, or hurtful. I'm seeking to help her, reading about how I can assist her, encouraging her and sticking with her when she needs it. That's what I agreed to when I said those vows on our wedding day. If it meant staying by her bedside if she got cancer I would do it, and so I'm going to do the equivalent in this situation, when she being attacked by a different, but in some ways very similar, affliction.

What's Next: Dealing with Depression

We shared with our January newsletter that we aren't heading to Nigeria because we have realized I have moderate depression.  We have tried to fight this unwanted roadblock for several months without even realizing what we were fighting.  In October we remembered the member care department at Wycliffe and I started talking to someone.  She had me take a survey to see where I fell on the scale.  1 being not depressed and 5 being severe, I was a 4.  That was a surprise.

We worked at it and I had someone to talk to who could help me process everything that was going on.  At Christmas my counselor sought some other opinions from colleagues and they unanimously agreed talking wasn't enough and I needed some stronger help to win this battle.  This made Bob and I reexamine the plans that we had been building our life on.  But most important we decided we wanted to fight together.  So we are beginning to make plans for a different kind of life, one where first I can be whole, and second where we can all enjoy life again.

One sleepless night not so long ago I stumbled upon a blog that has brought much comfort and support over the last few weeks.  Post-Partum Progress.  It started as one woman's battle with PPD, but it has grown to being a place for information and hope for all women with Post-Partum Depression.