living in fear = not save

thanks to discussions with my friend lizzie, I have had some new realizations.

i had known of my dad’s anger and displeasure toward me and my siblings actions. i wanted to avoid those at any cost. i came to know that as flying under the radar. if i could fly under the radar, i could avoid the wrath of dad. this was a continuous and exhausting struggle. those times i would do something wrong, no matter how small, I’d pop up on the radar and be in fear of what ever retribution would come my way. It was never a lesson except through retribution.

how is this fear any different than the fear the wild rabbit feels, afraid of the next time they are to be chased by a wolf or coyote, with in inches of their life? in both instances, there is this living in fear of something that may or may not happen. with this constant fear, the adrenal gland constantly works over time. that’s hard on the body.

all of this came into focus from a simple and obvious statement; living in fear = not safe. it is so obvious, i had never realized it before.

the above and more comes cascading out of that statement. i had this vision of a somewhat idyllic childhood. Sure, i had my struggles, among them my dysfunctional family and the gifts that came from that, but leaving childhood i felt somewhat well adjusted. Also, so does the rabbit but still, when they hear a branch break at 50 feet, their hair trigger response tells them to run.

on this statement alone, living in fear = not safe, causes the crystalline structure of my supposed idyllic childhood to come crashing down. i now sit in the broken shards, in full recognition of my early childhood along with some of the outcomes because of it. i, like the rabbit developed to hair trigger response to run. why run? because i like the bunny, don’t feel save.

sitting in the shards, an answer to a long standing question comes into focus, “how with this supposed idyllic childhood, do i face such emotional and depressive struggles?” the answer comes clear; there was no idyllic childhood. i now have a better understanding of the reasons for the lack of foundation that i hoped would serve as a basis of handling life’s struggles.

will i ever feel safe again? likely not. the early childhood’s experience are pretty difficult to overcome. even if i could, there still exists this safety robbing fear is part of just about any higher life form. even with that, thanks to you and my friends around me, i can learn ways to handle it and hopefully make for a better life. is failure inevitable? sometimes. i will close with a self authored meme, “failure doesn’t make me less of a human…it only makes me human.”

connect the dots

“…Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path, and that will make all the difference…” steve jobs, 2005

that’s the thing about a major depression; it clouds my mind and makes it hard to think. stuff the use to happen without even trying, now become major tasks. important calls that really needed to happen two months ago for my own well being, still remain uncalled. a whole plethora of self care is strewn about like ships on a rocky shore after a major hurricane; it’s all flotsam and jetsam being continuously pounded against the unforgiving shore.

looking back, my dots just seem like a massive jumble of disjointed and discombobulated nebulous mass of something. they almost don’t look like dots. looking forward, if there can be a looking forward while in major depression, it is kind of like 20/400 vision; everything is such a blur to me. nothing seems to be in focus.

and that’s when things are going well. when my depressive life is in on the rocks, looking forward can be a major seemingly unaccomplishable task . the thought runs to there are no dots to look forward to. all hope gets lost. There is no trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever in those moments of hopelessness. questions arise in my head about why even continue if there are no dots. there is no reason to live if there are no dots to potentially look forward to. what was once a unthinkable option, suicide becomes an option.

that’s the challenge for me, and any person in a severe major depression, for that matter; don’t lose hope,  trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever, .  believe that the dots are out there. on a clear night, as i look to the stars, i have to convince myself that the number of dots available to me far out number the stars in the sky. because, “Believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path, and that will make all the difference.”

followup–trip to the psychiatrist

went to see my psychiatrist yesterday. i get started on lamictal tonight. it is an anticonvulsive medication.

the history on anticonvulsive medications is they were originally developed for seizures people with epilepsy. there were enough people with epilepsy and bipolar. while taking the medication they experienced relief from both their convulsions and bipolar symptoms. when that happened, they also started using the medication for bipolar only with similar success.

it is similar to the story on lithium. in the 1880’s lithium had been primarily used for gout. the belief of the day thought bipolar disorder was gout of the brain. for that reason lithium got prescribed for bipolar disorder. it had great success it treating the symptoms.

as research continued, discoveries separated  gout from bipolar disorder. with that discovery, lithium fell out of favor as a treatment for bipolar disorder. in the 1950’s, the world “rediscovered” lithium success with bipolar disorder and it became the primary medicine for bipolar disorder.

my psychiatrist gave me an article that tracked some 450 patients in europe over decades. it kind of pisses me off on the power of marketing. while antidepressants are pushed big time in todays’s day ant time. the long terms study sows how the antidepressant drugs don’t “cure” depression, they only shorten the cycle. the additional problem arise when antidepressants are continued after recovering from the depression. the drug also shortens the period of time between depressive cycles. antidepressants have great short term success but the longterm study showed time and again how they screw up longterm cycles.

i plan to do a complete writeup on the article later this week.

in the meantime, i am thankful for the psychiatrist i have. he came highly recommended from my gp. also got a strong recommendation from our marriage counselor. He is  the psychiatrist that gets used when all other method seemed to fail. and he also had great record of success.

so, i have hope that my stubborn depression might actually see some control.