Folic acid? Really?

Folic acid is one of those things about which I know nothing. I've often seen bottles of it on the dietary supplement shelves in drug stores and grocery stores but I never really bothered to try to figure out its use.

Turns out it might be the solution that some of us depressives are looking for. This doesn't seem to be a widely broadcast aspect of the supplement. I just did a Google news search for folic acid and found articles about it being linked with improved grades among Swedish school children, its importance to pregnant women and its potential for preventing colorectal cancer. No headlines about folic acid and depression.

I wouldn't know about it but for a reader and fellow blogger, Melanie. She sent me an email explaining how she discovered folic acid and that it has done great things for her. She encouraged me to check out her blog and consider trying folic acid. So, I did and, as an atheist I gotta say, there's a whole lot Jesus over there! Melanie an enthusiastic blogger, energetic, engaging and eager to share. If you get something out of my blog then I'd say her Methodical Musings of an Unbalanced Woman is definitely worth checking out.

That aside, she has some very interesting information about folic acid and MTHFR. MTHFR is the problem that folic acid corrects. (By the way, my juvenile mind can't let me look at that acronym without filling in letters to make it a rude, two word phrase.) I'll let you check out the link for a fuller description of the disorder but, basically it's a fairly common genetic variation that blocks the body's ability to extract a particular enzyme from the foods we eat. This shortage has quite a lot of nasty side-effects, depression being one of them. Folic acid corrects the problem.

Melanie had her blood tested and discovered she had this shortage before starting the supplement. But, based on what I've been able to find, taking folic acid is quite safe so I'm skipping the blood test and going straight to the pill. I ordered a bottle yesterday. I'll keep you updated.

I was about to publish this post but, I wanted to add, this is the most optimistic I've been about my depression for quite a while. The anticipation of shedding the dank skin of continual depression has me actually excited about my future and its been very, very long since I've been there.

Tension Tamer from Celestial Seasonings

A few years ago I whipped up a tea from all the herbs in my garden that, according to Rodales herb book, were supposed to relax a person or otherwise produce a feeling of well being. I can't remember everything that was in it. I think there was some lavender and rosemary and maybe some lemon balm and other stuff. It tasted terrible, something like dirty feet but damn it was effective. I wish I'd written the recipe down because that tea was the best stuff I've ever taken for my depression.

Anyway, I thought I'd see if there was a commercial version out there and Tension Tamer is my first one to try. It's not bad. It tastes kind of weedy and lemony, not the best tasting tea in my cabinet but tolerable. The effect, however, is disappointing. It might bring a small hint of relaxation but nothing like the punch to my mood that my homemade tea gave me. Listening to a George Winston album is better for me than this tea.

I'm still going to drink my way through the box in the hope that there is a cumulative effect.

The inertia of depression

I once asked if I was lazy or depressed. I still can't answer that question completely but I think I have a better understanding of why it's so tough to answer.

A great deal of my depression manifests in self-doubt and often strong self-hate. Any activity I engage in - this blog, a good paying gig with a popular magazine, dinner with a friend, a big party - I approach with fear and self-doubt. My depression tells me that there's no way I've got the stuff to pull of this activity without making a fool of myself.

I call it inertia because it builds on itself. Let's talk about a party. It starts with in invitation to, let's say, an event built around my industry with important people attending. At first I'm pleased to have been invited and excited about making new connections, seeing old friends and generally having a good time.

Then some tiny little kernel of doubt creeps into my mind. Either it's about my ever expanding waistline and how people I haven't seen in a long time will surely notice or it's about an article I recently wrote which I sure somebody there will have read and found completely idiotic and can't wait to tell me why. Or any other of a thousand little quibbling bits of self-doubt. The kernel grows and grows in my mind until it's all I can think about.

This is how I regularly cancel lunches, find excuses not to write articles even though I might need to the money, and generally prove myself completely unreliable. And, in doing so, I create one more very real way to doubt myself. Now, when the next thing comes up, I've got one more piece of evidence to show myself how I'll fail at that, too. It's an inertial cycle of failure.

So, the easiest thing to do - no, the only thing to do that won't further prove to me what I failure I am - is nothing. Outwardly, I appear lazy but inwardly I'm very actively doing nothing. Right now I can point to three things that I'm very specifically not doing.

Somehow, I thought that this argument would be clearer and more convincing. Having written it out, though, it still just seems like a very elaborate excuse for being lazy.

Maybe I should take a nap.