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Health, Personal Growth, Self love

Depression…

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Depression, by definition, is a mental condition characterized by feelings of severe despondency and dejection, typically also with feelings of inadequacy and guilt, often accompanied by lack of energy and disturbance of appetite and sleep. There are many different types of depression, and it is often stigmatized. It isn’t discussed openly and without judgment. To say that at some point in our lives, everyone experiences some form of depression would be fair. Life is unfair and hard. Sometimes it kicks us when we’re down, and it takes us a little bit to get back up.

Some people have an easier time breaking through depression. Some people are able to develop healthy coping mechanisms, get on medicine, or go to therapy. They are able to overcome that fight against their mind. But for some of us, we suffer from clinical depression. Clinical depression can be managed, but no one ever really talks about how hard it actually is to manage.

Every day I battle my brain. I battle the thoughts that my depression brings to the surface. Some days my brain wins and some days I win. On the days when my brain wins I don’t typically spend my time in bed with an unhealthy appetite. My depression is more of a high- functioning depression. My working constantly, some of my humor, my constantly pouring myself into others, and my “toughness” aren’t always what they seem. My coping mechanisms aren’t always healthy and I am becoming well aware of that and them. All of these mechanisms have been beneficial to me and got me through some of the darkest times in my life. I fought tooth and nail, I battled my body and my mind, and I overcame it all. I refuse to be ashamed of them, but I am working on healthier ways to cope.

But those days when my brain and the depression win, those days are hard. I have people who are here for me when I need to talk, but sometimes the idea of talking is easier said than done. Talking openly and freely about depression is hard. The fear of getting judged is always there or the fear of not being understood. The emotions that come with depression can be overwhelming, especially when you’re trying to explain it to someone else. Every time I talk about the days when my brain wins I can hear how ridiculous it all sounds, but yet I still believe what my mind feeds me.

Recently, my brain has been winning a lot. I can’t seem to communicate what it is I am feeling appropriately with anyone around me. I have always done better with writing things and emotions. Maybe because I was conditioned to always be strong and not show my emotions in front of those who care about me, because it was too hard. That’s why I hate crying in front of anyone. I feel weak and for me being weak or vulnerable wasn’t an option. I had to be resilient, but guess what? I am not as resilient as every one thinks. I haven’t written much of anything the last 14 months or so, and it’s because I haven’t felt my words were worthy or important enough. But I am going to write about my depression lately here, maybe just maybe it can help someone else.

When my depression gets bad, I isolate myself. I push everyone away. I don’t know how to tell them what is going on and I tend to think it is easier to deal with by myself. I keep myself busy because my mind is constantly racing. It races with thoughts of failure, body dysmorphia, sadness, and inadequacy. I feel a million miles away from everyone in my life. I feel like I am not good at anything, jack of all trades but master of none. I beat myself up for not being happy and feeling bad about myself. I view myself in a light that is so negative its embarrassing to tell anyone. I get uncomfortable in my own skin and dislike my body. I view every blemish, wrinkle, and any jiggle as something to be ashamed of. I hide my tears, cry silently alone in the shower or while I lay in bed thinking of all the things I have done wrong. I resent myself for living paycheck to paycheck and tell myself I bring nothing to the table. I fear resentment from my loved ones because I think they’re going to view me in the light I am viewing myself. I doubt myself and I hate my brain. I get angry at myself for not being able to win the fight against my brain. I feel lost and all the while I put on a brave face and continue to work and pour myself into others. I suffer in silence and feel hopeless. Depression makes you feel hopeless, unworthy, inadequate, ugly, and little. It is dark place and it is hard. Sometimes I get to the point where I feel like I could explode with sadness and anger.

I am in therapy and I am learning healthy ways to overcome my depression. Most days I win and my self talk is positive, but like many other things in life, I get in a rut. The only thing that usually helps when I am in a rut is making some drastic change in my life and let’s be honest that doesn’t always help in the long run. So this time I decided I was going to write about it. I was going to openly and freely discuss it.

I appreciate when friends reach out and tell me they’re there for me, I really do. However, it isn’t easy for me to talk. I tend to just cry because it all floods to the surface. It gets too overwhelming to talk and makes me feel worse. I never share these aspects of my life or mental health for sympathy. I share them to help others find the courage to talk about what is going on in their life, or to make sure someone doesn’t feel alone, or to help people understand what they don’t know. I may feel bad about myself a lot with my depression and tend to feel lost. But if I can help de-stigmatize mental health for others then I can be proud of something.

Health, Personal Growth, Self love

Home

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After I got out of a toxic relationship and had nowhere to go, I moved back into my mother’s house. I thought, “oh, I’ll move home and heal myself.” That whole you can’t go home again, is completely accurate. The place I grew up that was once a sanctuary for my soul felt foreign to me. I found myself desperately searching for a place that felt like home.

I soon realized that I could continue to search for “home” in a million places or people, and I would always be disappointed. That feeling of home, that sanctuary for my soul, would only be able to be found within myself. I had lost myself, and that’s why nowhere and no one felt like home.

I started the steps to finding myself again. To rediscover who I was after such a toxic relationship and life-altering events that I chose not to deal or cope with properly. I had a lot of healing to do. I put myself in therapy and began to face all the trauma that happened throughout my life. Some of that childhood trauma I had already healed from without realizing I was doing it. All of that medical trauma that my body held on to and my mind protected me from was my most significant feat. The relationship that left me with severe self-esteem and intimacy issues was a cakewalk to heal from compared to the damage living with heart disease has caused.

I started to set boundaries and work on processing the dark thoughts and emotions that came from the bad news. I began to truly understand who I was as an adult and after a lifetime of chronic medical issues. I found a sanctuary within myself. I found my sense of home. It took three-plus years and a fantastic therapist, but I was genuinely comfortable with myself. I had a strong sense of self. I was happy and content. I did not want to disturb it either. I wanted to ignore anything medical-wise that was going on because it threatened my peace. I was also against letting anyone in that could disrupt my home. I was heavily guarded and selective. Then things changed.

After multiple ER visits and failed medications, I could not ignore my health and the disturbance it was creating. While I felt like things were starting to collapse, I worked feverishly on keeping what peace I could within my home and sanctuary. I worked on what I could control. Then came along a guy. One that caught me completely off guard. Someone who had been right in front of me and I didn’t think twice about. I honestly wouldn’t have even given him a chance had he not shown he was interested in me. I was adamant on not wanting to be in a relationship.

Shortly after we started to date and moved more toward the serious side of things, my health started to implode. Heart surgery. A minor surgery but nonetheless another trauma-inducing situation. I was still guarded and working avidly on trying to let him in. Trying to be open about my mental state and my fears, but it felt like I was swimming against the current. I was trying to navigate familiar but rough waters and let someone help me swim. I only knew how to swim by myself.

Things started to calm down and return to our “normal,” and then the beeping happened. Late one night on the couch, I heard it. It’s crazy to think how a rhythmic beeping can completely derail someone, but it did derail me. Once I realized that beeping was coming from within my chest, I completely panicked. I was paralyzed with fear because no one told me what happened after the beeping. I was expecting to get shocked again, and I laid on the couch trying to prepare myself to be shocked again with tears soaking my face. That beeping lead to yet another surgery. Again a minor surgery, but it left me with more trauma. This trauma was my final push over the edge. This trauma and that damn beeping triggered my flight or fight mode. I haven’t been able to turn that flight or fight mode off since surgery. My nervous system is in a constant heightened state, causing me to be on edge ALL of the time. This is also known as PTSD.

Chronic PTSD is common when someone suffers constant medical trauma. I’d say ten surgeries in total could be considered constant medical trauma. Needless to say that my home and sanctuary I worked so hard to build has been absolutely demolished. I have been an absolute disaster since February. I have been on edge, filled with anger and rage. Things that would have never bothered me before are now setting me off. Then I have days when I can barely keep myself from falling apart. All the while, I’m trying to figure out my relationship and how to let someone else in, how to communicate what’s going on with my body and in my head. How to have a normal functioning relationship when right now nothing about me is normal and functioning. Anytime I’ve let someone, who wasn’t biologically programmed to love and care for me, see this extremely vulnerable side of me, I’ve been disappointed. As much as I loved them and wanted them there at that moment, after the surgery, when things got really tough for me, I was always let down. I was shown that it was easier to depend on myself. Creating a sense of hyper-independency.

Hyper-independence with the inability to ask for help and PTSD makes being sick and in a relationship so easy 🙄. And now my health is getting worse. Memorial Day weekend, I ended up in the ER. On my way to work, I had to pull over because my heart was going crazy, and I was so lightheaded I thought I would pass out. Then I ended up in the ER again a week later. No real answers and a ton of questions. Multiple conversations with multiple doctors later, I had an echocardiogram, wore a heart monitor, had a tilt table test, and downloaded the data from my new pacemaker. In the meantime, I had done my own research and could already tell from my symptoms what was going on. Then I got the call of, “you have decreased function in your right ventricle,” on my birthday with no further explanation. I had to wait a week for the final confirmation that my pulmonary valve was leaking again and causing all my issues, well, I think most of my issues.

Here I am, sitting in my house on my couch, three dogs and a boyfriend sleeping on me, and I’m happy. I’m happy at this moment. Happy that I have someone who is willing to be there when things are bad, to be patient with me when I’m an emotional basket case, and to ask questions to do his best to understand. I’m letting someone into a home that I no longer have. My body and my mind are out of my control. I’m once again in medical limbo. I know what’s to come, and I think that makes it worse this time. I know how bad things will get before they get better, and I know how hard the recovery is, not just the physical but the mental recovery. I’m going to have to rebuild my home, my sanctuary, and figure out life with a new valve and a new scar.

Trauma changes you. It re-wires your brain. Recognizing your trauma and working actually to heal also changes you. The amount I have changed and the person I’ve become is astonishing. Mental health is so essential for a taboo subject. Your trauma can spill over into your relationships. Identifying it so you can communicate it properly is equally important. Remember that you can look for that feeling of home in another person or different places, but you’ll never truly find it until you realize you are your home.

Health

What do I need…

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Yesterday during my weekly therapy session, my therapist and I talked about my health. This is usually the topic of discussion and one of the main reasons I put myself in therapy. I finally opened up a little deeper yesterday. See, I have a tough time truly opening up and letting people in. I’ve got these large walls I’ve built when it comes to certain parts of me, and my health is one of them. I talk about it lightly with others because if you get too “real,” it frightens people.

I see the fear and sympathy in everyone’s eyes when I don’t talk about it lightly. When I start to talk about the heavy stuff, people rearrange their faces, so I can’t see their discomfort, but it’s all in the eyes. Your eyes reveal all the things your face isn’t saying. That’s one of the reasons I focus on someone’s eyes when I first meet them. I digress, I can see the sadness in their eyes. I can see my friends and family getting upset. When I see this, my tough exterior goes into effect, and I stop talking.

I know that those who care about me are allowed to feel a certain type of way. They’re allowed to be upset and think things are unfair. Lord knows I do. I’ve cried what I could only imagine the amount of tears that could make up a large body of water. But herein lies the problem. Majority of them are thinking about how it effects them if something happens, not how this truly effects me. The problem with this is a dynamic has been created that’s even more unfair. I always have to be the strong one. I can’t show too much emotion because it triggers fear in those that care. If I stay collected and calm about it, then it must be okay, right? Wrong! Instead, it makes it very lonely for me. Those first few moments I’m alone after these exchanges, I break down. I get in my car, get to the end of the street and sob into my steering wheel. Or I wait until I’m home, then I sit in the shower holding myself while sobbing.

I’m starting to reach the end of my rope with this dynamic. I’m finally beginning to be brutally honest. When asked if I’m okay, I’m finally admitting the answer is no. I’m talking about my health more matter of fact and not sugar coating it. Maybe this is my way of coping or maybe it’s because I’m tired of feeling so alone in this. What I’ve learned over the last 5 years, is that people don’t want to know the truth. They want a version of the truth. For years I’ve been giving everyone a version of the truth and hiding this huge part of myself.

I’ve written about how I resent my health and heart about how I never wanted it to define me and how I’ve fought so hard to be someone outside of my heart conditions. Yet they consume me. If you’re ever with me and I’m looking off into space with my mind racing, you can bet that 98% of the time, I’m thinking about my heart and all it entails. It creates fear and anxiety that is hard to describe. It eats at me from the inside out. I don’t want it to define me or be my whole life, but it is what makes me, me.

Lately, I’ve been wholly consumed, overwhelmed, and distracted by my health. Every skipped or extra beat creates panic. Anytime something feels off, my mind immediately goes to the worst-case scenario. I’ve been trying not to get my hopes up because I’m yet again in a situation where everything in my life is barreling forward except my health. So, for the last few weeks, my therapy sessions have been all about my health. Yesterday my therapist asked me what I needed from others, and I honestly couldn’t answer the question. I don’t know what I need because, on a deep level, I always deal with this on my own. I don’t let anyone help me with the deepest darkest parts of it. I get told, “you’re so strong,” but honestly, what other choice do I have?

What do I need from others? I could use a conversation with someone where I can’t see the discomfort in their eyes. I could use an emotionless discussion—one where I don’t have to sugar coat it. I want not to have to worry about how this is affecting the other person for just one conversation. I wish not to feel a level of loneliness that consumes me even in a crowd of people. I want for someone actually to understand what it’s like for me. I wish for my therapy sessions to be about the common problems of a newly 30-year-old, like dating and developing relationships, making good career choices, or nonsensical problems.

Health

Sick and tired of being sick and tired…

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I would like to know what it is like to not be complicated. To not be so completely complex that you feel like you have no control over your own body. To be genuinely healthy and to not live in fear. I was asked the other day what my main concern was with all of the electrical issues going on with my heart. My answer was simple. I fear that I’m going to go into V-fib and be shocked and hurt myself or someone else. I’m afraid it’ll happen when I’m driving and I’ll cause an accident. I’m afraid it’ll happen when I’m awake and alone and I’ll fall hitting my head or hurt myself worse. Most of all I am afraid that there is no solution to my particular perplexing issue and that it could be my demise.

My whole life I’ve been rather challenging. The punishment was always worth the crime as a child. I always pushed my limits with my parents. I tend to tell the truth when people aren’t ready or used to it. I’ve been an ever-evolving person. I’ve had many stages in my life and I’ve only recently really come to know who I am as a person. My emotions have always been complex and so has my personality. I now appreciate my peculiarities and obscurity. Besides my challenging and evolving personality, my health has been a whole other beast.

While I have made it well known my heart has always been far from normal. It’s been something I’ve fought against and resented my whole life. I didn’t want it to define me and that’s exactly what it has done. It’s what makes me who I am. It’s consuming. While all of my friends and family would describe me as strong because of it I feel completely at its mercy. It started out abnormal, which to me is kind of ironic because I feel like I’m a little anomalous as a person, but it’s grown to be quite literally one of a kind. My particular malfunction in the heart is not a structural problem anymore. I’d kill to go back to my valve being the only serious issue. An easy answer and an easy fix. Structural issues of the heart are simpler, but no, I have to continue to be challenging.

A lot of you are not in the medical field and don’t know medical terminology and don’t exactly understand how it all works. Your heart has an electrical system that makes it beat correctly. That lub dub you’re supposed to hear occurs because of the electricity flowing through your heart. My heart, however, likes to have premature ventricular contractions(also known as skipped beats) at an abnormal rate. It also likes to go into ventricular tachycardia, which means my heart beats WAY too fast. I just learned the other day that one area of my heart was beating at 300 beats per minute during one of these spells. When this happens my heart feels like it’s beating out of my chest. Also when this happens my heart gets stuck in this rhythm of beating too fast to actually pump. When this occurs I am not getting oxygenated blood throughout my body because my heart can’t efficiently pump it out. When it’s stuck like this the muscle then begins to spasm and not beat all. That is known as ventricular arrhythmia and ventricular fibrillation. My pacemaker is designed to try to pace my heart back into a normal rhythm and when it cannot my defibrillator kicks in. If I didn’t have my pacemaker/defibrillator I wouldn’t be here today. I have had at least one spell of ventricular tachycardia and arrhythmia every month this year. I’ve had more but there hasn’t been one month without. I could have died at least once every month this year without my ICD(implantable cardiac device).

Finding this out and being told just how severe and serious of a case I am has been absolutely overwhelming. Honestly, there isn’t a word to describe the emotion I am feeling. I knew it was serious and I know that I downplay it to everyone else, but I can’t anymore. I can’t pretend I am okay and that I am normal anymore. I can’t mask my fear and uncertainty anymore. It is so exhausting physically because of the arrhythmia and the high number of PVCs I have regularly. I am extremely symptomatic with it all and it physically drains me. Also, being so emotionally concealed and strong for everyone else is beginning to take a toll. Completely relinquishing myself to the fact that I am not healthy and will never be medically “normal” is proving to be difficult and incredibly depressing. I’ve got a lot of uncertainty ahead and it’s not going to be easy. From starting a medicine with a black box warning label and severe side effects to accepting that there may never be a solution. It’s going to be a tough journey with a lot of ups and downs.

To everyone that has reached out and to everyone that has respected the fact that I am not ready to talk, I thank you. I have a lot I need to process still. Emotions are all over the place right now. But I appreciate every one of you that is in my corner, thoughts, prayers, positive vibes and listening ears, you all mean a lot. I have some of the BEST friends and even better family.