depression – Page 8 – Vraxx

Stigma and the “What to do now problem”

Saying you’re going through a divorce is already hard for most people (especially folks who haven’t gone through it) to process let alone deal with. You compound that with saying that you’ve been fighting clinical depression and the deer in headlights things becomes self evident. It’s a one-two punch to the face that for most folks how to give empathy in that situation is alien.

I won’t try to pussy foot around it, when everything first happen to me I felt like a powder keg. I know I pushed away friends, partly because I never felt like I could just say what was on my mind, partly out of fear that the most negative sides of my personality were just going to nuke any friendships I had left. There’s an even worse side that people interacting with someone with depression don’t really quite make the connection to though. Outward stigmatism towards depression starts to show up in small phrases and reactions. The usual platitudes and the ‘I’m so sorry’ are typical but for a lot of folks, I’d get a “Don’t be sad” and they’ll proceed to veer off the conversation.

For me it wasn’t until therapy and mental health groups that I realized the only real thing someone with depression wants to hear is that someone understands you’re in pain. Depression isn’t rational, so the usual platitudes while well meaning often just fall flat. For me the topical shifts were simply a reminder that no one wanted to talk about the elephant in the room, no one felt they could say anything. In some ways I realize looking back that’s not fair to them, they weren’t involved in the process of the divorce, they can’t perceive my depression.

The paradox about seeking out your friends during depression is that you almost have to pre-train your friends to understand how to react to you when you are in a depressive episode. If there was one thing I could get folks to understand it’s that there’s a distinction between being sad, being depressed and clinical depression. Being sad, we all go through those moments. Being depressed is a normal response to loss/grief etc. Clinical depression is a span of time in which your emotions are almost always negative (I won’t delve into bi polar in this case). If you’ve read through this post as someone who knows someone suffering from depression, please understand that your friend or loved one may be experiencing a sense of joylessness that isn’t just recently triggered, it may have been going on for the last year or more. They’ll have heard all the usual “be happy” advice and it hasn’t worked them. 90% of the time they just want you to be ok with hearing them out.

The Double Edged Sword of Work

The first month after my ex-wife made it clear things were done I fell into a major depressive episode. My knee jerk reaction included wanting to change so many things including my job which is by its nature stressful.

Spend enough time on forums or social media groups dedicated to depression and you’ll find some painful patterns. For a lot of folks suffering from depression there’s socioeconomic factors that combine for a one-two punch in the gut. Therapy isn’t always cheap depending on your health care options and people who suffer from severe depression and anxiety often have the hardest time with employment. For me a high stress job compounded by my anxiety and depression made it difficult to insure that I could do my job and still keep my mental health and work/life balance.

Things I found that worked for me included changing my coffee intake to just the mornings and reducing the amount I consumed. Taking short 5-minute meditation breaks where able and hydrating a lot more than I had in the past. Not every job affords the same options but as much as possible you need to look at changes to help you find a release during the work day so that you aren’t burning the candle at both ends.

Routine and The Pros and Cons

Fighting your way out of depression is multilayered and one of the habits I had to form revolved around a few basic things. Among the more ugly side effects of depression is a loss of self worth and often the loss of desire to keep ones self clean. In my case shaving became the last thing I wanted to do. Showering became a chore in itself. I knew I had to shake this and as a result I worked on two specific routines for my morning.

(Photo by Vraxx)

In the past I had been a chronic Keurig user. The routine was the same every morning, wake up, plonk a K-Cup, start my day and log into my PC. Following my divorce I no longer had a Keurig machine and no desire to buy anything that bulky. I turned instead to my old, oft forgotten AeroPress. I switched from an ‘instant’ coffee to going retro, hand grinding my beans and forcing myself to make a proper cup of java.

This started me down reviving another habit, this time centered around grooming. In the past, especially as depression began to take over I’d resort to using my electric razor. While fast and mostly effective much like the Keurig it shortened my ‘active’ time and made me very complacent. Now, I reverted back to the old days of a double edged safety razor and a shaving soap and brush. It didn’t happen overnight, a good month or so and I had gotten used to it. Luckily for me an Art of Shaving had opened up at the nearby mall.

Activity kept me from sinking too far and forced me out of bed. While it may not seem like much even a short 15 minutes of routine that can you make into a positive habit helps a lot more than one might think.

Diet/Health and the Complexity of Depression

Full disclosure, one of the reasons I had a really hard time confronting my depression is that through college I studied psychology and neuroscience. As the saying goes, doctors make the worst patients. I quipped about this during a session that I’m glad my therapist tolerates me. Arrogance and hubris on my part made it difficult for me to recognize the signs of depression I had over the past few years.

The thing is clinical depression is a multilayered problem. There are the psychological aspects but there’s physical manifestations too. I loathe pills and I can’t stand gyms. A combination that really set me up for a pretty easily downward spiral. Immediately following my diagnosis I began trying to revamp my diet. Less fats, more yogurt and fruits. I also began vitamin supplements that targeted getting my neuro chemical health back up to par. As with any supplement be sure to engage your physician.

What’s worked for me thus far has been a combination of Omega-3 (Fish oil), vitamins B6, C, D3, K2 and a serotonin production aid (5-HTP). The overall effects were meant to help stabilize mood and improve serotonin production. 5-HTP is still a hot button item with critics and advocates from both sides. I can say that folks have experienced a slight uptick in heart rate so be mindful if you have extremely high blood pressure.

While I still struggle to really improve my exercise routine (mostly just walking) the supplements helped get me back to a point where I felt my brain could actually cope along with the mechanisms discussed in therapy. If there is one mindset item I hope folks take away from my blog it is this. There’s no such thing as a one-size fits all answer. While I’ve focused mainly on CBT, supplement/diet for folks with severe depression or deeper triggered anxiety a psychiatrist visit may be in order. No matter what no one can really ‘fix’ you it’s a team effort. Therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist can try to get you tools to use, but it still boils down to working through that path and seeing how it goes. While it’s hard sometimes, especially for those of us who suffer from anxiety, when a treatment course isn’t working, you have to provide feedback there too.

Kissing Social Media Goodbye aka Fuck Facebook

One of the first things I realized as I went through my divorce was that the circle of friends my ex-wife and I had gathered over 7 years was going to have to change. For me it wasn’t necessarily because I hated the circle of friends but because I knew that dealing w/the fall out from divorce I couldn’t be around a lot of people.

I’m not particularly sociable to begin with which made things like Facebook almost alien to me. I never really cared that much about what everyone else was up to. I always felt those were the things you asked when you were face to face, not because you felt the need to cyber stalk everyone you ever knew.

I want to say that within the first two months of our separation I formally began closing off my profiles and by January I was essentially gone from social media. The possibility of seeing anything associated with my ex-wife was terrifying. I knew she had moved on and as I had asked for discretion and privacy we didn’t make a huge production of it online. So there went Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in an instant.

To me it was empowering in a way. I had gotten rid of the major things that would remind me of my ex-wife. My world shrank and I had to take a hard look at the things I was doing. Escaping into the lives of others wasn’t an option. Neither was getting caught up in the goings on of other people’s lives. Selfishly that also meant nobody could really peer into mine unless I wanted them to.

I didn’t completely remove contact with people, I just reframed the terms of that communication. I found myself reaching out to specific communities designed around helping people battling with depression/anxiety and grief.

If you’ve found that social media has a whole makes you worse off, I do recommend taking a break and focusing on who you are. You can consider groups such as MyCounterPane created by the amazing Kate Milliken(Her story http://bit.ly/2aEKUfS). Or applications with group chat features like Pacifica.