I was dying.

At the beginning of last September, I almost died.  I'm not being dramatic; I almost lost my life.  My mental health had been in a decline for almost two years, and I think my brain and body just gave up.  For reasons I'll explain a little later, I don't remember a lot of the details of what happened, but between my memories and what my husband has told me, I do know a few key things, and I want you to know them, too, so you can better understand psychiatric hospitalization.

For one, I decided it was no longer safe to have my guns in our apartment.  That has never happened to me before.  I grew up with guns; they've always been a part of my life.  They've always been in my house.  I used to keep my home-defense shotgun hidden behind my old prom dresses.  But for the first time, I was afraid of what might happen if I let the guns stick around.  I called my grandpa, who lives a couple of towns over, and I asked if my husband and I could stop by.  When we got there, I wish I could remember better what happened.  I'd imagine he was pretty alarmed.  He has already lost one grandchild to suicide.  I remember him locking the guns in one of his gun safes, I remember we didn't talk much, and then I know we left.

It's important to note that I didn't have a suicide plan.  I didn't have a specific reason to get rid of the guns; I just felt like it was a bad idea to keep them around.

A few days later, things were even worse.  Every hour dragged on and on and on and on and on and on and on.  I remember feeling like every hour felt like an entire day.  I knew I didn't really want to die, but all I could think, over and over, was, "I can't live like this any more."  My mental pain was seeping out my pores.  My will to live was growing dimmer and dimmer, like a firefly glowing its last as the winter frost sets in.  Nothing could distract me from the pain and exhaustion of just existing - not Netflix, not knitting, nothing.  I used every tool I had the energy to try, but nothing alleviated my suffering.  And I couldn't accomplish anything - not even brushing my hair. 

I had my husband come with me to therapy that evening.  We were only there for a few minutes before my therapist told us that if ever there was a time for hospitalization, this was it.  I thought he meant at the end of the session, but he didn't.  He meant now.  And he told us which area hospital was the best.  Since it was an hour away, we headed home to pack a bag for me before driving up there.  We didn't know how long it would be before my husband would be able to visit and bring the things I would need.  Clothes, books, a hairbrush, and the lightsaber travel toothbrush he got me on our honeymoon.  And with that, we were off to the ER.

This post is long enough as it is, and I don't have the energy at the moment to write the rest of the story.  But I will.  Soon.

Learning to let go

I'm just going to be real for this post, no warm and fuzzy advice.  I feel like I've had to let go of a lot of things over the years.

When I was younger, my dream was to be an actress.  I had enough talent to get into a top acting school in New York City on a partial scholarship, but it wasn't meant to be.  I had to do something more 'realistic.'  Even though it was my dream.  I let that go. 

When I was in high school, I was one of the 'smartest' kids around.  My test scores were always high, and I never had to work for it.  I got into a great college, but my mental health tanked and took my plans of finishing a degree in four years with it.  I let that go. 

In fact, to a large degree I've had to let all that super-intelligence go.  I'm pretty average these days. It's part of the price I have to pay to stay sane.  My medication slows my brain down a little.  But I'd die without it, so I let that go. 

I have a great job with a company that I love.  I was a top-notch full-time employee, I was good at my job, and I loved doing it.  But I had a bit of a breakdown and I can only work part time now.  I loved my job.  But I let that go. 

And I have been blessed with so many wonderful friends and family members I can hardly believe it.  But I'm not functioning well enough to stay in touch with all of them.  I have a few good hours a day, but I get exhausted so easily.  I don't get depressed per-se, but I'm just still not capable of doing a lot.  I want to be a best friend, cousin, sister, daughter, niece, granddaughter, and wife to all the people I love.  But I can't juggle it all right now.  I've made peace with a lot of letting-go, but I don't want to let that go.  I just don't know how to hang onto it.

The only pic I could come up with that felt real.

My Medication Journey ~ Worth It!

I've been on psychiatric medication off and on for over half my life. I have treatment-resistant depression, which means that it takes a LOT of work to stay on top of things. Medication is a journey, and it doesn't feel like there is really a destination, only the journey and making that journey as easy as possible.

A story:

When I was a teenager, I wasn't self-aware enough to really pay attention to how my meds were affecting me. I just knew when I was miserable and when I was a little better. My psychiatrist was kind of awful, but he was the only one in town. We tried a few different medications. One day I was reading in the DSM and thought a particular paragraph in the bipolar section might describe something I experienced from time to time. I told him about it and he didn't even ask me more questions, he just let me diagnose myself (at age 14 or so) and gave me a medication for it. That medication caused me to sleep away a couple of years of my life. My record was 22 hours straight, awake for two hours, and then asleep for 13 more. And it was a medication that required regular blood tests to make sure my liver was still functioning. Every single mental health professional I've talked to since then (and there have been upwards of a dozen) has said that there was absolutely no way I have bipolar disorder. Eventually I quit seeing that psychiatrist and quit taking my medication and I was fine for a while. Until I wasn't. 

A story:

My next psychiatrist was fantastic. I had come home from an awful first semester of college and was really devastated, but she really listened to me and talked to me and worked through all my medication concerns with me. By this time I was around 18 and quite a bit more able to monitor how I was feeling and what was helping. I ended up on a combination of two antidepressants (the first one alone made me anxious, but both of them together were a perfect combo), and I took them for a couple of years. They worked pretty well. Until they didn't. 

After that, I don't even remember how the journey worked out. Over the course of the years, I tried a LOT of different medications in a lot of different combos. Paxil, Prozac, Lexapro, Celexa, Wellbutrin, Depakote, Adderall, Stratera, Lamictal, Xanax, Clonazapam, Gabapentin, Remiron, Ambien, and Abilify. And I've probably forgotten some. There have been a lot of times where things were great. Until they weren't.

See, what you need to know is that the medication journey will never end for me. We find something that works for a few years, and then it becomes less and less effective until some sort of major stress hits and I'm back at square one. But I can not survive without medication. I need you to understand that. I need you to understand that I would be dead without medication. I am being completely serious and very literal here. My brain has a disease, and it just doesn't function without treatment. It's like how a diabetic needs insulin to stay alive. I need medication to stay alive. And I'm ok with that. 

It can be a really frustrating journey. It is devastating every time my medication stops working, because I know how long it takes to get back on track. It is weeks, sometimes months before things get better. And I'm always scared that we won't find the next magic combo. At one point a few years ago my doctor told me that we were on our last option. You see, there are only so many classes of drugs and combinations you can try and we have tried them all. We're still on that final option with dosage tweaks and supporting medications along the way. It's really scary. But it's worth the fight. 

The moral of the story is this: medication is hard. It's not the magic fix you hope it's going to be, and it can get discouraging when it takes a long time to find what works. But it's so worth it. It's worth the struggle every time I hear my nieces laugh or share a dorky moment with my husband. I'm writing this for me too, because it really doesn't feel like it's worth it sometimes and I need a reminder. Looking back from a healthier place, I assure you; it's worth it.

The duality of living.

I could write two posts about my life right now, and both would be true. I could tell you about getting all settled in to our new apartment. I could tell you about the blessing of finding new furniture that fits just right in the space and is right within our tiny budget. I could tell you about how grateful we are that Dad and Stu braved the avalanches to bring us the rest of our kitchen supplies and how grateful we are to friends and family who have helped us move and get organized. I could tell you about the sunny weather and sleeping with the windows open in February. I could tell you about weekly family dinners with good food and great company.

I could also tell you that I've been to see two new psychiatrists and a new psychologist. I could tell you that I haven't been able to work for a week and a half because I've temporarily (I hope) lost the ability to perform basic tasks I used to be able to do in my sleep. I could tell you how I have to choose between showering and having dinner with my husband because I don't have the energy to do both.  I could tell you that I can only make it to about twenty minutes of church each week before I have to go lay down. I could tell you about all the tears of frustration I've shed because I'm so off my game and I so desperately don't want to be. 

I could write both of these posts. I could pick which one to share. I could pick which me I want you to see. But I think it's important to share both because they are both true. There is no good without the hard, and the hard is bearable because of the good. None of us are just one or the other. You are not alone. 

So long, Carrie, and thanks for all the fish!

In trying to fulfill my New Years resolution to write more in my blog, I stumbled across this unfinished post. The timing seems uncanny- Carrie has been gone for just a few weeks now. But I'm going to publish what I had two years ago and then officially finish it off. The interesting thing is it starts like this:

For some reason this post is being difficult and I'm having trouble making the writing flow.  Bear with me.  Or just scroll down and look at the pictures :)

When I was a little girl, Princess Leia was my hero.  She was awesome.  Her main motivation wasn't finding a boyfriend.  It was freedom.  She fought for what she believed in.  (She found love anyways though, which was cool.)  And she was sarcastic and hilarious and held her own with all the men running around the Star Wars universe.  Eventually, she even became a mom (I loved the Star Wars books as a kid... ok, I still love them), but she kept fighting for freedom and family and wielding a blaster (and occasionally a lightsaber!).

Now fast-forward twenty or so years.

I still love Princess Leia.  But Carrie Fisher is my hero now.  I've been suffering from mental illness for over half my life.  I have severe depression and anxiety that sometimes makes me have to put my life on hold for months at a time.  Well, Carrie Fisher suffers from mental illness too, and....

And that's all I wrote back then. The experience was too hard to capture. So I'll say it now: 

Two years ago this month, I met Carrie, and I gave her a medal. I made a matching one for me, too. They're cheap plastic medals that say "MENTALLY ILL" in crooked, glued-on stickers on the back. 

 

         Carrie with Gary, her partner in crime

She mentioned in one of her books that everyone living with mental illness deserved a medal, and I wanted to make sure someone got her one. Anyways, I gave it to her, and then I talked to her for a few minutes and thanked her for helping me learn to talk about my illness. I never thought in a million years I'd get the chance to do that. And she wrote on the title page of my copy of The Best Awful, my favorite book of hers, "For Ashleigh, my heroine and fellow tribe-member, Love Carrie." And now she's gone. 

 

                 This means SO much to me  

My tribe member is gone, and I am grieving. I never would have learned to talk about mental illness if it wasn't for her; even the other author who helped inspire me was herself inspired by Carrie. Carrie's courage changed my perception of myself and of my illness.  I now proudly proclaim it. I shout it from the mountain tops, because I now have the power to climb that high. The freedom from stigma. The strength to stand. I owe it to Carrie, and she's gone. 

So I'm going to stop feeling awkward about grieving someone I only met once. I grieve for my tribe member and am humbly grateful that I got the chance to tell her what she meant to me. 

 

                  Thanks, Carrie. Give 'em hell!