I have experienced a constant feeling of ‘grief’ as it were. Not wanting to talk to anyone, and that had nothing to do with them, but all to do with me; I didn’t want to talk, afraid I would express how I was truly feeling. Therefore I would rather not talk at all, so I didn’t. I isolated and slept every chance I could get, to escape the uncontrollable symptoms that were starting to flood my mind with fear. Fear that I was sinking, fear that I was loosing control of myself, fear of just wanting this constant torment to end.
So tired of this ever recurring nightmare called depression. When will this ever end? Ever? The little task that come so natural and easy for everyone else to do, are so difficult for me. Just making my bed requires self-talk, unloading the dishwasher; so simple but yet so hard. And yet here I am struggling with the littlest tasks but yet facing the greatest challenges of my life. Challenges that I won’t get into but are not just the everyday challenges that everyone has to face on a day to day bases. Much bigger then that and those I try to entrust to my Heavenly Father, who is much bigger and stronger then anything I could do. And live in hope that He’s going to take care of things for me, when I can’t do it myself.
I think when I start having ‘not so good’ days, I become a little anxious or fearful that I’m going to relapse or spiral into a not so nice place; an ugly place where I don’t want to visit anymore. I read a book recently, that was written by an American author, who suffers from bipolar disorder but was doing well with various treatments and medication. And she felt that if she did relapse, she wasn’t overly fearful because there was ‘so much help out there’. Ironic, because my greatest fear of a relapse is knowing the lack of help that is out there. I have used every form of therapy and medication that is available in NL. My trust and faith in ‘OUR’ Mental Health Care System in NL is at a minimal. I cannot say, ‘there is so much help out there’, because I honestly don’t feel that way.
There are new treatments and medications that are available out of Province but are not available here in NL. If these were available to me, I would most certainly participate in availing of these. One promising medication for depression is ketamine. Increasingly, this dissociative anethetic is being examined as a potential treatment in depression cases where other drugs have failed. Sounds hopeful and promising to me, especially since I was diagnosed as treatment resistant. Researchers have called it the most exciting breakthrough in the field of depression research in the past half-century. Some other non-medication therapies (I won’t elaborate on each one but they are treatments that are available outside the Province) transcranial direct current stimulation, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, vagus nerve stimulation and deep brain stimulation. But none of these are available to me. And when you feel so hopeless and exhausted from fighting; you would try anything to make the pain go away. Any improvement would be better then none at all. If I lived in an area where these treatments were offered, I’m sure I would avail of them. At least they would give you some hope, some relief because living in NL, I cannot say like the American author that ‘there is so much help out there’. If it’s here, I can’t find it!
So where does that leave me? I have to work with what I have, with what’s available and hope for the best. The best being that I will never relapse to the acute stage of my illness ever again. But there are some days that are so bad, I fear that I could be headed that way. And the best I can do is hope and pray that God will look down on me and in His mercy and grace, He won’t let that happen again. So basically, I pray, trust His promises and fight with all I have, to not let it happen. Sometimes I wonder, do I have to wait until this life is over to escape my pain and suffering. I hope not. I was reminded of this verse in Revelations 21:4 “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, no crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away”.