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Living Off Balance, page 1
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Lachesis Publishing
www.lachesispublishing.com
Copyright ©2007 by Alison Lake
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NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.
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Living Off Balance
Alison Lake
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www.lbfbooks.com
Published Internationally by LBF Books,
Imprint of Lachesis Publishing
1787 Cartier Court, RR 1,
Kingston, Nova Scotia, B0P 1R0
Copyright © 2007 Alison Lake
Exclusive cover © 2007 Teresa Tunaley
Inside artwork © 2007 Giovanna Lagana
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written consent of the publisher, Lachesis Publishing, is an infringement of the copyright law.
ISBN 0-9773082-7-8
Multiple ebook formats are available from
www.lbfbooks.com
Credit: Jeremy Seffens, editor
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Resources: Support and Further Reading
Bibliography
Interviews:
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Dedication
I thank God for my darling children, Brendan and Bethany.
Acknowledgements
This book has been my most difficult writing project to date, and I could not have accomplished it without the lifelong support and love of family and friends. My parents and sister have witnessed my journey with depression and seen both sides. They have loved and supported me through every phase, especially in my down periods and impulsive moments. My extended family has been unwavering in its love and cheerleading. I want to thank Robert Marienau for his friendship and professional guidance. Catherine Tudor of One Woman's Writing Retreat has been a loyal supporter of my writing pursuits, a welcome source of insight on writing and emotion, and a friend. I appreciate the time and candor of the wonderful people who contributed their thoughts and quotes to this project. Tyler Kremp was a bottomless well of insight and empathy. I thank Jacqueline Druga-Johnston, my first editor, for believing in this book, and to Jeremy Seffens for his careful attention to the final product. And, finally, I am eternally grateful for my beautiful children, Brendan and Bethany, for making me smile every day.
Introduction
I write this book as both therapy and a way to share. Many times, I wished I could explain my experiences to someone who knew exactly what I was talking about. Those ‘experiences’ will be found in these pages. People with a lifelong chemical imbalance live with the condition every day, and know that life is somewhat different for them. No more difficult or special than anyone else's challenges. Nevertheless, unless a friend could walk in their shoes one day or witness it firsthand, these people's challenges are rarely understood. Ralph Waldo Emerson's claim that everyone “beholds his human condition with a degree of melancholy” is true. In a depressed person, this melancholy can be exaggerated and harmful.
In Living Off Balance, I speak of clinical depression from my own perspective, while I incorporate other people's experiences and research on mental illness. I dislike the word ‘depression’ because I see it as a misnomer in some ways. For me, what is known medically as depression is more an imbalance or deficiency of the right brain chemicals than a constant sadness. Depression looks slightly different in each unique person. In my case, it has manifest as an imbalance that must be carefully controlled by the right medication and lifestyle. I am not by nature a sad person. In fact, I have more blessings in my life than I ever could have imagined, and often have a smile on my face. Every day, I thank God for my health, my loved ones, my work, and the talents I was born with. Yet, in moments with the right combination of circumstances, I can feel as dark as if I just lost someone I loved. It's horrible. Nighttime and cloudy days worsen the feeling, and I can feel as if my life will never get better. While I go through it, I feel confused, but know intellectually that the cause for my depression is not wholly circumstance but the body and genes I was born with. Thank God I have been able to lessen and often remove these instances completely. On the other hand, their possibility always looms.
Since childhood, chemical imbalance has been part of my life. It always will be, yet it took me thirty years to accept this fact. When I am not depressed, which is most of the time, I often deal with anxiety and a feeling of being ‘wound-up.’ Even as my family accepts this reality and handles it with sympathy and ongoing support, I often feel like an anomaly among family and friends—whether they know it or not. Various people I know have gone on and off medications to deal with rough periods in their lives. But I don't know anyone in my small circle with the same need as I have—to stay on an anti-depressant for the rest of my life. (I don't anticipate a cure!) Although I don't feel sorry for myself, it bothers and frustrates me at times, especially when medication doesn't remove all the symptoms and I have to work so hard to keep balanced.
Of course, not everyone is willing to be open about this experience, and many people with the same problem keep it under wraps. I can't, because keeping poisonous feelings inside prevents me from releasing them. At my worst, depression saps me like the illness it really is, although, thankfully, it no longer lasts more than a couple of days, and that only a handful of times per year. But even if it visits me for just an afternoon, I often need to take a nap and ignore the phone as it rings. I cancel social engagements and stay home from the store. I become a temporary recluse. It's very challenging to avoid crying. Luckily, this doesn't undermine my professional life. My closest family and friends have become accustomed to the occasional hysterical phone call where I can hardly get my words out—I am crying so hard. I have struggled with this since my early teens. I used to hope it would go away completely, but now I know it never will. As for my children, I would rather they not witness those moments.
Like any other chronic, yet manageable, illness—diabetes, thyroid imbalance, arthritis—depression does not have to impair or preclude a normal life. In my case, it's time to express, in full, its impact on my existence. I hope my words can reach out to other readers with a similar experience, and possibly bring comfort and friendship to those who are in the process of acknowledging or treating a mental illness, whether it is depression, anxiety, or both.
I am not as familiar with other mental conditions, such as schizophrenia or mania, although at times, I have noticed slight manic feelings. Usually, it manifests in impulsive behavior and unfounded optimism. Thankfully, I have never been hospitalized; I have never tried to commit suicide. I was fortunate to grow up in an extremely loving, supportive family. However, I have a window into the experiences of people whose experiences have been different and/or more severe, and can empathize with the sense of having no control over one's emotions and reactions. I am thankful that most conditions of depression and anxiety are treatable with a combination of medication, therapy, lifestyle changes, and a good support system. There is still so much to learn about mental illness, which has been recognized in people since early times. Every day is a step toward better understanding its effect on our quality of life and behavior, and the lives of people around us.
In this book, I try to address depression's effects from a personal perspective and relate those experiences to other people in a similar situation. I also include perspectives and quotes from people who either suffer from depression/anxiety or who have witnessed this condition with someone in their family or a close friend. In addition, you will find suggestions and tools for coping—things that have worked for me and for others. Finally, I include data, real-life examples, and input from doctors and professionals familiar with mental illness, whether it is caused by genetics, trauma, or even injury.
Here you will also read how depression can have a draining effect on family, and things families can do to help loved ones through the dark moments. In addition, I explore how the dynamic of mental illness affects parents as they work and raise a young family. Millions of people, many of them parents, suffer from mood disorders, and many more struggle with high levels of stress. People with depression often do not discuss their battles freely. Today, everyone works and juggles more demands and activities than ever. Most of us experience what I describe to some degree, yet people with depression, anxiety, or mania have a tougher time than most with these routines of life.
Everyday challenges sharpen in intensity for a mentally ill person. Whether you keep an even keel in your home and career makes or breaks your quality of life. Too many people with mental illness are ashamed of seeing their moods go out of control. They worry about the effects on their children, marriages, and careers. They are reluctant to mention the truth to their friends and family. Sharing, encouragement, and knowledge are needed for people like me, not just therapy and medica tion. For further reading, and for medically informed discussions of depression, see the resources at the end of this book, and check your local bookstore.
I hope that, with this book, I will be able to support others in a productive way by sharing my own stories, and those of the wonderful people who have volunteered their stories. There is a great need for more support and acknowledgment of the loneliness and frustration felt by otherwise-functioning individuals with mental illness. There is no reason for us, and the people who love us, to deal with this entirely alone and without tools that can make life a little easier.
Living Off Balance
Chapter 1
When the Unexplained is Everyday
In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant ... My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known—no wonder, then, that I return the love.
—Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher (1813-1855)
My despair has always been out of place, like a beast that wandered into my yard at random and stayed because he liked the shade and couldn't think of anywhere else to go. Why it chose me and bypassed my sister, parents, and cousins never made any sense. People sometimes have trouble believing the extent of my depression until or unless they witness it by chance. When I try to explain an episode to anyone, what I explain just sounds like anyone else's low point. “So what? Everyone has down days,” I tell myself. “Cheer up. Just try again. Don't worry.” These are also sentiments I have heard from people who may not be familiar with the intensity of depression.
As a child in second or third grade, I recall spending a weekend with friends of the family. Being at their home reminded me of the comfort of my grandparents’ houses. I remember eating homemade tapioca pudding and exploring the nooks and crannies of the old house with its secrets and wonders of past childhoods. On a rainy Sunday, we piled into the car to make the long drive home. I cried as if my heart would break to say goodbye to these friends. As rain tapped the windows, I sobbed in the back seat. This was a true and deep sadness, disproportionate to its cause and on the level of mourning someone's death. Even then, I sensed it was incongruous. I have never grown out of the mental challenge brought by rainy days and persistent clouds, and I continue to feel things very deeply—with great sadness and anxiety. Like a sponge, I have always soaked up any energies or ‘auras’ surrounding me as they emanate from people or the environment, whether positive or negative.
This awareness of my sensitivity stayed with me as I got older. I often felt like an outsider. As an adolescent, I tried angst on for size like an outfit I thought I should wear. In a twisted way, I envied the angst-ridden—as seen in literature and films—without knowing depression had already settled within me, especially in my early teens. This depression was neutral and tasteless. Its presence asked to be painted with fire, madness, and despair that pushes one to scream down a well or walk into a river until water streams in to the eardrums. I only remember sitting alone in my bedroom and thinking that instead of numbness, there should have been raw, directed emotion. That came soon after, and never left.
In the books I loved—Jane Eyre, The Secret Garden, A Little Princess—lonely, abandoned girls lived in dank houses with dusty, close attics and spent days alone in gardens you could lock with a key. These heroines were all lonely, imaginative, and too smart for their own good. At the same time, they were trapped, figuratively and physically. In my bookish daydreams, I entered these lives. These girls wandered the adult worlds they'd been forced into, and slowly began to find light on their own. I envied what I thought was their freedom to explore, to observe, and to practice being adult. Somehow, the freedom to rhapsodize on a subject at length in one's imagination called me.
Unfortunately, the literary romance of melancholy took hold of me and became something I aspired. The deep love and madness of romantic literature of the 19th century permeated my consciousness. I looked for an equivalent in my own life and found little; thus, I have always sought it in romantic fancy, nighttime dreams, and real-life romances.
Another dynamic has played a significant role in carving the less desirable facets of my emotional development: The pressure, probably self-inflicted, of wanting and needing to be perfect sunk in at an early age—more out of a strange need for self-flagellation than from arrogance. I was, and have been until recently, extremely critical of myself. I still find myself self-judging. As a girl, I wanted to be Beth of Little Women—the ‘perfect’ martyr who succumbed to illness—and scolded myself when I didn't achieve her perfection. She was so selfless and good, and deserved all the attention she got for being frail and sickly. In truth, I disliked her, but thought I should be the same—morally upright, without nasty thoughts of people and lazy habits, and always the optimist. I'd tell a lie or forget a task, and figuratively slap myself on the wrist and start all over again in the drive to be perfect. I was always wiping the slate clean and saying, I'll start over tomorrow. Somehow, I wasn't good enough today. In a way, making a fresh start excused me from anything I'd done in the past. This practice also made it easy to give in to temptation—just this once—because I could always start over tomorrow.
While exerting these pressures on myself, I worked myself up until anxiety became a part of me. I thought I should be ‘mad,’ in the traditional sense, and I became so. Rationally thinking, I know this was born with me, rather than created. When I was young, I must have known it was coming, and thought I should start practicing the behavior ahead of time. Who knows? When I was a child, I actually thought I was one of God's chosen people, blessed with an intuition and looked upon by God with special care (today, I realize the childish egoism of this, and that I am no better than anyone else. My strong intuition remains).
As an adult, when I was in a relationship that was unhealthy for me, my moods and brain chemicals got in the way of the life I wanted to live. When I became upset, I felt toxins soar through my body, and I experienced an intense knee-jerk compulsion to react or cry. In those moments, self-control was a Herculean effort. I alternated between anger and despondence.
Other times, I was not (and am not) equipped for stress. My neck throbbed and I burst into tears. Afraid to let it out, I felt hysterical inside. My chest tightened and my head got that crazy feeling. The blood and chemicals swelled my brain tissue and pushed against my skull. I could tell which part of my brain is whacked. The front right side of my head tingled. I felt the need to shake my head, as if there were dust inside. Once this passed, all I wanted to do was sleep. I still have an addiction to picking the skin on my thumbs, and constantly have knots in my neck and shoulders.
Having said that, I do believe depression can become synonymous with self-absorption. How can you possibly separate the two unless you are able to forget the depression is there? It's a selfish, inward state of being, although not blameworthy. Famed Renaissance essayist Michel de Montaigne, also an astute commentator on the human condition, noted, “There is a certain amount of purpose, acquiescence, and satisfaction in nursing one's melancholy."
When depressed, my conscious brain constantly works to explain the state of affairs. Why the sadness, when there is nothing wrong? Why the numbness, when the moon is bright and everyone else is happy? For me, depression brings guilt. I become ashamed of my behavior and of my consummate focus on myself.
When I was depressed, forgetting it was not an option except during sleep. Sleep is truly a therapy for me. I am able to reset the clock and ‘start over’ again after a nap or a good night's sleep. Yet, even then my brain is on overdrive. Thoughts of the day, of last week, three years ago, and back into time swirl in the air and then dive back into the drawers they came from. My molars grind back and forth for hours, working and powering the machines that process images, thoughts, sounds, smells, and any other input to the nervous system. Although my jaw works hard and thinks it has an important job to do, its activity is nothing but the product of a churning brain. I wake, my forehead is wet and cold, and I've soaked through the covers. My mind doesn't stop when my body cries, “Rest!"
