Depression – Page 8 – Vraxx

Holiday Cheer and Fear

One of the difficult things about trying to get used to my anxiety and depression is dealing with the holidays. More specifically getting used to a time where everyone expects you to smile, to be jolly. Spent years doing so for my ex-wife, my family. I’m not trying to do so anymore.

These days I will be myself. Oh I’ll be polite and appropriate but I’m tired of trying to fake a smile, trying to meet the expectations of the world. Nobody likes a Grinch but sometimes you have to be honest to yourself rather than trying to please others because ’tis the season’.

My family has never really been big on celebrating the holidays. Maybe it’s because my mother is Vietnamese and for her, the holidays were more about church and a simple family meal than gift giving. For me most of Christmas’ have always been tempered by some kind of tragedy or sadness. With the divorce I have even more reasons to dislike the season. For me I just want to live through Christmas and be allowed to welcome the New Year with my truest face. Whether or not the holidays appeal to you, I do hope that everyone finds what they are looking for and are able to bring in the new year as best as they see fit.

Unusual Drug Studies

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/01/magic-mushroom-ingredient-psilocybin-can-lift-depression-studies-show

An unusual treatment course being tested, though the context of this article needs to be considered, that being cancer patients. There’s so much we don’t fully have mapped out and understand about the interaction of elements of the mind and conditions such as depression, anxiety and other more severe mental health issues.

I’ve tried basic improvements with fitness, meditation and some supplements to help re-balance my vitamin levels and serotonin. At least in my case my persistent depressive disorder seems manageable within reason but I am worried that if I fall into a major depressive episode I may need to look at more in depth psychiatric care and medication.

Divorce and Birthdays/Anniversaries

December has always been a difficult time for me, moreso now post divorce. Today (12/2) is my ex-wife’s birthday. It’s weird thinking that in my head. That it is a date that in some ways it’s better if I forget it.

I can only hope that she’s found happiness where she is now with her new boyfriend. Me, I can’t say that I’ve found happiness but I know the direction I have to work towards and that’s something at least. My family never really celebrated the holidays much. Perhaps because i’m part Vietnamese and the holidays were mostly about church and simple meals with family, not about the presents etc.

Around this time last year my ex and I had our worst fight and the decision that divorce was the only option more or less agreed upon. If I had a Christmas wish it’s that this time next year I won’t remember as much. It seems a bit cruel to think it, but I know each day I drive memories further down so that I can take those painful steps forward and away.

We Don’t All Get Happy Endings

Holidays always push my self-reflective side into overdrive. Not necessarily in a good way. Much like Thanksgiving last year, I had to get used to the changes in my life. The end of my marriage, the battle with depression. Shower-thoughts got me thinking about a number of aspects of how we frame life and how much depression causes that to go askew.

We all grow up with stories, fairy tales where the prince finds his princess and they live happily every after. Reality is of course not that plain and simple. Sometimes you find your princess and discover that life is difficult, that happiness isn’t always easy to come by.

The last few days of self reflection have me looking at myself in a most negative light. I sort of feel like I’m not meant to have a happy ending. I’m a background character set to toil and eek out his living. It isn’t rational, I know that but the feeling hangs on me like a dour blanket. I know I have to fight, I know I will lose friends along the way, these are all realities of the changes I’ve been a part of and some I’ve set in motion myself. If you’re in the same situation as I am, know that I understand what you’re going through. Sometimes the fight seems like the last thing you want to do and you just want things to ‘end’, but as long as you’re fighting you’re living.

Holidays and Anhedonia

One of the things I’m really learning is how to cope with the holidays when I feel next to nothing. I wouldn’t even really say that I have the holiday blues, it’s different. It’s almost the holiday ‘indifference’.

Anhedonia has been a word I have come to loathe. I find small things that still bring me a sliver of feeling but by and large the holidays are numb to me. I don’t have any real sense of wanting to see friends or family. The prospect of a big meal is just sort of there without the fan fare. Wish it were possible to explain what it’s like to feel next to nothing at times like this.

Hopefully making some panna cotta will keep my head in the ‘holiday’ mode but to be honest it’s just another day for me. One I would gladly skip.

Close Friends and Coffee

My circle of friends shrank exponentially following my divorce and depression diagnosis. A good portion of it was a direct decision by me to cut ties where I felt the conflict of friendships was too high. I’m sure some felt this was just me giving up, but sometimes you have to come to a decision to take yourself out of a situation where your mental health comes at the cost of trying to act like nothing has changed.

Having said that, I still maintain a small group of friends that I still interact with, some local, some from far away (ish). I’ve never really been a social butterfly, I’ve always felt that it wasn’t the proximity of your friends or how many of them you had, it’s the closeness of them that counted the most. I would gladly rather have ten tried and true friends than a hundred trivial ones.

One of my friends, I’ll call her M, was kind enough of to send me a care package.

The manual labor of doing a pour-over (or hand-pour) coffee has been a coping tool for me. It’s that kick start of physical activity to get my blood moving and to get my mind focusing on something other than nightmares or depressive thoughts. I grind my coffee by hand so it’s a whole experience. Gone are the days of a push button Keurig for me. Call it coffee snobbery if you want, for me it’s a way of getting active, even if only in a small measure. What’s nice though is that I found ways to gradually expand from my coffee habit to things like making desserts (Coffee Panna Cotta — Dwallops of Happy Panna Cotta)

If you’re faced with the same challenges as I’ve been. Try to find something even if it’s small. Every little bit helps if it gets you up and moving. It’s painful and easy to get trapped by depression and the physical ‘drag’ that entails. Small things can help in the long term, even if they don’t seem like it at first.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) — It’s that time again

http://news.hamlethub.com/brewster/life/3296-5-of-americans-suffer-from-seasonal-affective-disorder

There’s a certain cruel irony that the acronym for this disorder is literally SAD. It is a very real thing and one that I suspect affects more than just the 5% quoted in this article.

When I lived in Oakland, CA the winter months were a bit of a shift for me. I grew up in Hawaii and winters there just meant more rain and a bit of wind, nothing as face-biting as the cold nights of the Bay Area. It’s nice that they list some quick coping mechanisms like getting more light exposure, but I’ll be honest winter is when I have the hardest time getting out there or harder still trying to be physically active.

My marriage came to a close in Dec of 2015 with the legal dissolution a few months later in April. The double whammy of the seasonal change and my dysthymia was rough and I can only imagine it’s even more of a challenge to folks with severe depression. I hope to keep myself busy in the kitchen for the winter months, trying to focus on eating healthy and not so much on what’s outside (gray skies, and people I’d rather not engage). Whatever your tool is try to keep yourself active, get out if you’re able, even if it’s just solitary activity to get some sun light.

Observation Happy Animals vs. Happy Humans

Rather surprised it’s taken me this long to notice this particular aspect of my depression. My social anxiety increased considerably over the last three years to the point where crowds raise my stress levels a lot. Yet there was something interesting that I realized when I took a closer look at my few social media accounts.

I don’t really react well these days to happy people. Families, couples, sometimes even kids. Seeing happy people in the world makes me feel oddly ‘misplaced’. I don’t feel like I should be around them. On the other hand, watching happy animals I feel just fine and in fact probably feel better.

Case in point:

Happy Cows skipping out to grass for the first time

This simple GIF of cows experiencing grass. I’m not a vegan or anything but there is a simplicity to seeing these animals who have been penned up their whole lives getting to see nature.

Animals don’t have much in the way of motivations other than to live their lives, maybe that’s why seeing them experience happiness feels pure and unfiltered. Humans on the other hand can feign happiness. Whatever the case, it was a small realization I had this morning while browing Reddit (which is where the Cow-gif was posted).

The Culture Change of America and Suicides

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/11/04/more-us-middle-school-students-dying-suicide-than-car-crashes.html

I came across the following article and it really struck a nerve with me. I was certainly an awkward kid, didn’t find my way until well into college. Todays figures though with suicides outpacing vehicular deaths is truly disheartening.

I would never contend that there is a singular cause to this painful upward trend in middle schooler deaths, but I often wonder if the pressures of a connected society and bullying have created a more hostile environment for children today than decades past. I can’t imagine how my life would have been if the attention of bullies didn’t end when I got back home. People having save-havens somewhere they feel they can be themselves is becoming more and more a rarity and it’s something that I think parents, teachers and other students need to start paying more attention to.

Depression strikes anyone at any age. Keeping an eye on various depression support groups I’ve seen the gradual increase. It used to be mostly college students, people in their 20’s and 30’s. These days we see reports of kids as young as 12 who have been diagnosed and are on medication. When i was 12 I was worried about the school lunch, not what anti-depressants I was going to be on.

Post-Halloween Thoughts

I’m grateful that the condo I live in has a strict policy of only allowing trick or treaters in the lobby area. As a result all the residents simply donate to a bigger collection of candy downstairs.

The relative silence and time away from the Halloween festivities made me think about what I’d even want to be. The reality is the costume that would make the most sense is someone who isn’t battling depression.

Never had much in the way of holiday spirit, used to go along with it till things were over and I could resume my usual flatline moods. It’s difficult to be happy at events when you feel like at any moment you’re going to crawl out of your skin. It’s irrational certainly but there’s no accounting for the sense of unease and anxiety that permeates in social situations for me. I push through as is needed or expected by cultural norms but sometimes I feel like every time I have to fake it to survive I lose a little something in the process. Hopefully I can gradually reclaim what I’ve lost, but for now I think it’s more an attrition phase than a rebuilding one.