It would seem obvious that someone who has a long history of depression and gets mildly depressed every winter suffers from seasonal affect disorder. And yet, I only realized this year that this was the case.
I use many approaches when I experience a bout of depression: medication adjustments, talk therapy, cardiovascular exercise, yoga, massage, meditation, and beginning this year, bright light therapy. Something is bound to work, even if I never know exactly what. So although I have no evidence that light therapy is doing me any good, I quickly became enamored of it. Short of damning evidence linking it to a rare form of face cancer, nothing will get me to stop.
Light therapy has given me back the one thing that motherhood robbed me of: my breasts an opportunity to sit on my ass undisturbed.
Bright light therapy provides a bonafide medical excuse for my morning coffee ritual. The recommended dosage of light therapy is thirty minutes, so every morning I brew my coffee and settle in with my lamp. I set a timer and wrap my hands around my warm mug reading the news in the undisturbed quiet. Halfway through, David brings me a second cup of coffee; I especially appreciate this unanticipated perk of being served while sitting around doing nothing. Children might need helping, the cat could shit on the rug, but somebody else must take care of it when I am in treatment.
So if you are longing for some quiet contemplative time, I suggest you try faking mild depressive symptoms; feign an existential air of despair or adopt a mien of sadness, pour yourself a cup of coffee, and settle in.
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
Showing posts with label depression. Show all posts
18 February 2011
20 January 2011
happy
Happiness has been eluding me lately, as it often does at this time of year. Most years, in the late fall, as we move deeper into darkness, I feel something heavy settle upon me. A touch of seasonal affect disorder and a predisposition toward depression coupled with the mania of the Christmas season combine to create a noxious cocktail for my psyche, leaving me with a strong desire to hunker down indoors, not emerge until the new year.
This is not a full blown depression, but a slow plummeting arc. I grow more existential. Everything seems damp and muted, as if covered in gauze. I perceive myself at an acute angle to the world, shrunken and contracted. I’m not my best, most scintillating self; conversation feels labored, and my wit deserts me. I’m more self-absorbed, less patient, more brittle. I sigh more, I cry more, I vacuum more.
My season of despair reaches its nadir on January 2, which is my wedding anniversary. Our engagement was fraught, with our families behaving badly throughout. One date was set and cancelled, leaving David and I bewildered, with many empty bottles of bourbon and a strong desire to elope. The whole affair culminated in fisticuffs and a visit from the police the night before our wedding at our rehearsal dinner. They were exciting times, and when the wedding was over, we were more than happy to be left the fuck alone to the comparatively dull business of marriage.
As good as the intervening years have been to me, I am a ruminative type. The past is like an old injury; although it healed long ago, when the weather gets damp, I feel a familiar dull, nagging ache, and every year afresh, I’m left to confront my upper-middle white trash family history.
So when I woke on January 3 I felt a tiny shiver of something, a slight shift, so subtle as to possibly a figment of my imagination. I quieted myself down to listen carefully, there it was, faint but audible, like a threading pulse: joy. I savored it until it dissipated.
My mood moves along an unsteady trajectory. Some days I have stretches of contentment, or even elation, and others these feelings elude me entirely. I’ve grown adept at riding these waves and being patient with myself. Like the seasons, this too will pass.
This is not a full blown depression, but a slow plummeting arc. I grow more existential. Everything seems damp and muted, as if covered in gauze. I perceive myself at an acute angle to the world, shrunken and contracted. I’m not my best, most scintillating self; conversation feels labored, and my wit deserts me. I’m more self-absorbed, less patient, more brittle. I sigh more, I cry more, I vacuum more.
My season of despair reaches its nadir on January 2, which is my wedding anniversary. Our engagement was fraught, with our families behaving badly throughout. One date was set and cancelled, leaving David and I bewildered, with many empty bottles of bourbon and a strong desire to elope. The whole affair culminated in fisticuffs and a visit from the police the night before our wedding at our rehearsal dinner. They were exciting times, and when the wedding was over, we were more than happy to be left the fuck alone to the comparatively dull business of marriage.
As good as the intervening years have been to me, I am a ruminative type. The past is like an old injury; although it healed long ago, when the weather gets damp, I feel a familiar dull, nagging ache, and every year afresh, I’m left to confront my upper-middle white trash family history.
So when I woke on January 3 I felt a tiny shiver of something, a slight shift, so subtle as to possibly a figment of my imagination. I quieted myself down to listen carefully, there it was, faint but audible, like a threading pulse: joy. I savored it until it dissipated.
My mood moves along an unsteady trajectory. Some days I have stretches of contentment, or even elation, and others these feelings elude me entirely. I’ve grown adept at riding these waves and being patient with myself. Like the seasons, this too will pass.
23 May 2009
Happy Pills
It is true that we all inevitably, to some extent, become our mothers, in ways both great and small. To give a trivial example, I have on occasion found myself transferring leftovers into smaller containers to make space in the fridge, which for my mother, was something of a hobby.
In my case, I find that I am also finding that I am becoming my grandmothers. Specifically, I am referring to the pills. Both of my grandmothers were great pill poppers. I'm sure my my maternal grandmother was taking her share of mother's little helpers, because she was plum loco.
While my paternal grandmother may have been taking tranquilizers as well, what I remember was the nutritional supplements. She was an early adopter health-food advocate. She had spring water delivery service before that was common practice, read Prevention Magazine (which, regarding the dissemination of dubious medical advice to laypeople, one of my doctors calls the Internet of the twentieth century), and adored listening to Carlton Fredericks, host of the nutrition program Design for Living, on WOR.
I find myself falling somewhere between these two extremes. I take my psychoactive medications to keep me from becoming certifiable, but as I've hit 40, I also find myself taking my share of nutritional supplements as well.
One morning last week, as I laid out my arsenal, Sarah, my 10-year old, asked me what were all those pills, and why was I taking them? I started by explaining the nutritional stuff: the multi-vitamin, calcium, fish oil, niacin and Co Enzyme Q-10, hoping we could leave it at that.
But she is nothing if not a sharp observer, and knew there were more pills than that, and so she asked me, pointing right at the Wellbutrin and Lexapro "And what about those?"
My parenting philosophy is that when faced with a direct question, give an honest answer, with only as much information as is necessary. (AVOID TMI!) If your children are not satisfied with your answer, they will let you know, and I feel I owe it to them, as a matter of respect, and trust, to answer their questions as best I can in an age-appropriate way.
And so here I was with my back to the wall, so to speak, about to have a TALK about my mental health issues. I tried to explain as best I could that I have something called depression, which means that my body is wired to get stuck feeling bad, or sad, sometimes for no good reason. But luckily, I said, I can take these medicines that help me feel the way I am supposed to feel.
Sarah nodded, satisfied with this explanation.
But now, every morning, she asks me, "Mom, are you taking your happy pills now?"
In my case, I find that I am also finding that I am becoming my grandmothers. Specifically, I am referring to the pills. Both of my grandmothers were great pill poppers. I'm sure my my maternal grandmother was taking her share of mother's little helpers, because she was plum loco.
While my paternal grandmother may have been taking tranquilizers as well, what I remember was the nutritional supplements. She was an early adopter health-food advocate. She had spring water delivery service before that was common practice, read Prevention Magazine (which, regarding the dissemination of dubious medical advice to laypeople, one of my doctors calls the Internet of the twentieth century), and adored listening to Carlton Fredericks, host of the nutrition program Design for Living, on WOR.
I find myself falling somewhere between these two extremes. I take my psychoactive medications to keep me from becoming certifiable, but as I've hit 40, I also find myself taking my share of nutritional supplements as well.
One morning last week, as I laid out my arsenal, Sarah, my 10-year old, asked me what were all those pills, and why was I taking them? I started by explaining the nutritional stuff: the multi-vitamin, calcium, fish oil, niacin and Co Enzyme Q-10, hoping we could leave it at that.
But she is nothing if not a sharp observer, and knew there were more pills than that, and so she asked me, pointing right at the Wellbutrin and Lexapro "And what about those?"
My parenting philosophy is that when faced with a direct question, give an honest answer, with only as much information as is necessary. (AVOID TMI!) If your children are not satisfied with your answer, they will let you know, and I feel I owe it to them, as a matter of respect, and trust, to answer their questions as best I can in an age-appropriate way.
And so here I was with my back to the wall, so to speak, about to have a TALK about my mental health issues. I tried to explain as best I could that I have something called depression, which means that my body is wired to get stuck feeling bad, or sad, sometimes for no good reason. But luckily, I said, I can take these medicines that help me feel the way I am supposed to feel.
Sarah nodded, satisfied with this explanation.
But now, every morning, she asks me, "Mom, are you taking your happy pills now?"
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