Still Pursuing

It’s been a while…again.

A lot has changed in my life since I last published an honest post; although, to be honest, none of these posts are entirely honest. They may be more or less true chunks of my reality but to call them honest is probably a stretch.

But you already knew that, I’d wager.

Okay, to summarize: I lost my job, twice; I got divorced; I moved four(?) times; my car blew out its engine and the truck I bought to replace it was stolen a few weeks ago.

In other words, I now have legitimate real-life reasons to be depressed. No longer am I a guy with a chemical imbalance; I’m a guy with real problems and I honestly don’t know what to do about them.

For a while there St. John’s Wort was doing the trick. Regular doses kept my keel more or less even. When the ship started to list, however, it didn’t seem to be enough.

Well, hang on. There are a few positives I forgot to mention. Most significantly, a few months after the divorce I met a beautiful woman. We hit it off and got married way too soon, but we’re in our forties and we know what we want and what we’re doing. So far, so good. And, one of those moves I mentioned took me out of the backwater village that I endured for over 20 years for my ex to a proper city where I’m much happier.

Anyway, back to the listing ship. When I was laid off from my first job I started to slip. I managed to hang on for a bit but after about six months of job searching it got bad. I went to the doctor and, for the first time in my life I went on prescription antidepressants. Prozac, to be specific, and it was a disaster – wouldn’t be the last. It completely put me on my back. For a week I couldn’t wake up, much less get out of bed.

That’s where it started…again. Looking back, some of the best therapy I got was from writing this blog. Maybe it can help me again so I’m going to try to pick it back up. I know I’ve made a lot of vague allusions here. We’ll get into to some of them later. Some of them, I’m just going to let drift. You’re welcome to take the ride with me.

First week on folic acid

Although it is supposed to take anywhere from a few weeks to four months, I thought I'd weigh in weekly so here's the first installment.

I don't discuss my depression much with my wife because it worries her quite a lot. When she was in her early twenties a boyfriend killed himself and blamed her in his note. She doesn't talk about it much but I'm sure it comes to mind when I bring up my depression. I hate reminding her of such a terrible time. But, I felt I needed to warn her that I was trying a new supplement. Other things that I've tried, most specifically St. John's Wort, initially make all my emotions rawer. It takes a week or two for me to stabilize. I suppose this is because they address the mood directly. Whatever the reason, it's not fun for me and even less fun, I'm sure, to be around me.

"I'm not going to come home one day and find you hanging from the rafters, am I?" she asked.

I told her that's what I'm trying to prevent.

Anyway, the mood shock never came. The up and down swings I was expecting never happened. In fact, I really felt nothing.

Then I noticed two things. First, I'm waking up earlier. Being unable to get out of bed is one of the markers of depression and I've become the king of staying in bed. Some days I don't get out of bed until 9a, one of the dangerous side effects of working at home! But, starting a couple of days after I started FA I've been getting up between 6 and 7, even when I don't get that good of a night's sleep.

Another completely unexpected development has been an increased sex drive. I've never had a problem in this area but for the past week or so I've really not had a problem with it. Odd.

So, that's my folic acid update for week one.

A couple of other things have been going on. Melanie, the blogger who suggest FA to me, and I have been corresponding. She's an interesting person although I think if I knew her in person her enthusiasm would overwhelm me. She blogged about me, focusing on my atheism as much as my depression or this blog. Her emails have come pretty close to witnessing which doesn't really bother me, I just find it a little curious.

I'd never really thought about it but I suppose that there might be a few people out there who would be similarly interested in my atheism and how it does or does not affect my depression. I've been turning a potential blog entry about that over in my head for a few days so look for that.

A couple of other people have also emailed. One is a kid with depression who's headed for college this fall. He wants help and is willing to seek out a pro. But, he's reluctant to tell his mom, which kinda breaks my heart for both him and her. This creates a big obstacle for him since he's on her insurance. I suggested that he look see if there's a Community Counseling Center nearby that might be willing to work with him on payments or he can check with the school nurse when he gets to college.

What a burden to take with you to college, that time when the world is supposed to be bright, shiny and full of possibilities. I really hope he finds a way through. If you want to check out his blog it's here.

Finally, another reader emailed. She is working through depression like the rest of us with the added bonus of a dear friend who actually loved life recently having died. He was healthy, in his early thirties and had a fantastic outlook on life. I didn't know what to offer her except commiseration.

We're a raggedy lot, aren't we?

Back on the SJW

Black days engulfed me right after that last post. There was no real trigger - is there ever? - I just suddenly found myself back at the bottom. If this is mild depression I can't imagine what those with right proper depression go through.

Money is part of it and it might have been what started down the slide but I really can't blame my middle-class poverty. I think it was probably more of where I put my focus rather than the actual cause. Money's been tight now for, well, over a year but I've been up and down plenty in that time. But it's always good to have an excuse for the negative thoughts, isn't it? Gives one the idea that if it weren't for this one thing everything would be roses.

Besides, what better thing than money to focus on? It is the measuring stick of our culture, isn't it? If I'm going to be depressed and plop on a healthy dollop of low self esteem then there's hardly a better way to justify those feelings than to concentrate on the thing about which society agrees with me - I have no money and colossal debt therefore I am a mean little man.

The amazing thing about my depression - and many others' I'm sure - is that it creeps up on me so subtlety, so stealthy that I don't even know it's there. I can't say when for sure that it started, just that for the last week and a half it's had me under its control. But at the time I simply believed that I was worthless and deserved nothing. Depression didn't occur to me.

The tip off came yesterday. I had two night terror dreams two nights ago. Twice in the pre-dawn hours of the morning I woke up shouting and in a panic. Both times I managed to go back to sleep. And then I slept very late into the morning. I had no reason to - I'm no more or less rested these days than usual I just couldn't stop sleeping. Then once I'd finally rousted myself and was thinking about my chores for the day I thought, 'wouldn't it just be easier to put a gun in my mouth?' I thought about where I could do it that would a) cause the least amount of mess and b) cause my wife the least amount of shock.

Then I realized that I was ticking through the symptoms of depression. The big D was back. So, I took a St. John's Wort capsule at lunch but forgot to at dinner. That's because I fell asleep AGAIN at 6p and slept right up until my wife came home at 8. I was too groggy and distracted by the fact that I'd missed making dinner for us to remember my pill.

Got it in this morning though and, as much as I can, plan to three times a day from here on.

It's so hard but at the same time so comically predictable. I'll get to that herbal week I promised soon but for now I need to climb out of this hole.

An Herbal Week

For the third or fourth time since launching The Pursuit of Happiness I'm going to try to take this blog in a new direction. On a more or less weekly basis I'm going to pick a ______ and Depression theme and produce four or five entries about it. Why? I'll get into that at the bottom of this post.

This week I'm going to get into herbs and depression. Obviously the big herb in depression therapy is St. John's Wort. I have discussed SJW, especially my experiences with it, ad nauseam in the past. Tomorrow I'll cover it a bit more thoughtfully. Then later in the week I'll get into other herbs that directly or peripherally can be helpful for those suffering from depression.

Personally, I'm a big fan of herbs. I first got into them when I a) fell in love with pesto and b) priced fresh basil in the grocery store. Suddenly an herb garden with lots and lots of basil made a lot of sense. Now I keep a fair sized herb garden with oregano, chives, sage, arugula, rosemary, three types of basil (sweet or Genovese, columnar and African blue), mint and a few various others that change from season to season.

This all began a few years before my diagnosis of mild depression. When that happened and my therapist tried to take me straight to medication I instead turned to my herb garden. I knew about St. John's Wort but had never grown it nor did I want to. I thought that I probably couldn't produce a consistent enough dosage for it to be effective.

But my diagnosis specifically was mild depression brought on by social anxiety. I still wonder if that is BS b/c the drug she wanted me to take was actually for social anxiety and I'm the suspicious type. However it felt right because I was pretty sure I was depressed and I've been socially anxious my whole life; don't need a diagnosis to know that!

So I read up on the herbs that I already happened to have and made a list of the ones that were said to be helpful against depression as well as relaxing or useful against anxiousness. Anyone who's suffered from depression knows that even temporary relief is blessed, one reason that I think depression can lead to a lot of addictions.

Anywho…
I harvested all of the herbs on my list - five or six, I think it was - and mixed them with about an equal amount of green tea. The stuff tasted like muddy feet but it really did make me feel better. I was working at an office at the time and would come home and lunch to a cup of the tea. It always left me feeling relaxed and, not happy, but content. The effect usually lasted two or three hours.

So that plus the previous entries about SJW have been my experience with herbs and depression. We'll get into more specific discussion about this through the rest of the week.

Why am I doing this?
OK, for anyone still reading and for my regular readers who are probably the only people interested in the why of my new _______ and Depression series.

I'm doing it specifically because I'm out of money. I've been working at home, freelancing for three and a half years now. As everyone else in the world is saying, the economy finally got me. I'm having a much harder time finding clients, my savings have dried up and my taxes were a lot more than I expected.

So I'm trying to turn some of my hobby and navel-gazing sites, like this one, into money makers.

Now, my motivation may be crass but it is one of necessity. Even so, my voice here will remain the same honest, confessional voice that it always has been. Hiding behind anonymity gives me the freedom to be much more honest than I can in anything else that I do.

So, to my loyal readers, I say thank you for the support and comments that you have left on this blog and sent to me personally. I hope that you will continue to read and you enjoy the new direction.

Nothing To Report

Just checking in to report that there's nothing to report.

My year isn't quite as bright and shiny as it was but I still haven't had any really dark days. Still off the SJW, too. It's odd, that. I just realized one day that I had forgotten to take it for a few days and I didn't miss it one whit. I still have a massive pill bottle of it in my desk drawer.

A few things have cropped up but they hardly rate as depressive episodes, just emotional bumps. The first was yesterday I had to get nasty with a magazine that owes me money for some work that I did last summer. I hated doing it and even though I was in the right I still felt small and mean for the rest of the day. That's an odd thing; I know I'm not alone in it. The more I am in the right and the greater the insult to me, the worse I feel when I overtly react to it.

Another is a dear friend lost her mother. As you might imagine I have few friends. This has less to do with my sometimes apparently abrasive personality and more to do with the fact that I simply let few people in. Well, she is one. She's quite a bit older than me and it wasn't unnatural for her mother to go. But I don't really know what to do. I called her when I heard and we talked for around 30 minutes. She discovered her mother collapsed in her (mother's) house so she had to live every minute of that horrible day. Now she's descended into her family as they deal with everything that has to be dealt with. I want to do something for her but I feel like I'll only be intruding. I may give her another call on Friday.

Finally, an old friend who's been gently trying to reconnect with me for months finally forced the issue. I cut him off years ago. I was having a very bad year with my family and … well, it's all stupid and the details are pretty boring if you didn't live them. Suffice to say that I was petty with him and was just being stupidly stubborn. So, he lives a continent away now and pinned me down via facebook. He sent a long, nice email just catching up. No mention of my pettiness. He ended the message by saying that I was someone for whom he felt great affection. Those were his words, great affection. I don't think anyone has ever said that to me. It was startlingly disarming especially when said between two heterosexual men. It made me regret the years.

But, like I said, nothing of the deep, black depression that has engulfed me in the past. Just life.

So that's my update for now. Cheers all!

photo by elisafox

Ray's Shiny New Year

Hey, wow, did I leave this blog hanging or what? What a bleak entry that last one was! I was on no sleep; exhausted and sure that I'd never get a peaceful night again.

Then the dreams stopped.

Literally stopped within a night or two of my having written it. I have two theories. One is that I needed the therapy of describing them to someone. (Thanks, readers, for your feedback and more importantly just being there for me to describe them to.) Or two they were holiday related. The date on that post is Dec. 28 meaning that Christmas falls right in the middle of that period of a solid week of nightmares.

But for now they've stopped for whatever reason and I'm grateful.

I've actually been feeling pretty well these last few weeks. I don't have any reason to but when can a depressive look outwardly to explain his feelings? The economy is hitting me hard. A significant portion of my income is based in a sector of US business that is really hurting so consequently my checkbook is, too. Frankly I don't know how I'm going to make it through next month.

Nevertheless I've been in the best mood since New Year's Day that I can remember for months. It might have to do with my clean desk. I ritualistically clean down my office and package up everything from the old year sometime in the first week of the new year. There's nothing quite like a clean desk and office. It's a silly little thing but there it is.

I even realized yesterday that I haven't taken SJW for days and haven't missed it.

It's all almost disconcerting!

My Big Week

This is probably the only work that I’m going to do today.

Last week was probably the biggest week of the year for me, both professionally and personally. I attended the most important annual conference of my industry, I presented two lectures (and was paid well for the effort), my wife came with me for the first time and I tried to do it all without St. Johns Wort.

This was primarily a packing decision and I’m really not sure why I did it. There were other concerns such as being able to take my thrice daily dose without having to answer questions from my colleagues and being overly cautious about airport security but I think that perhaps I just wanted to see if I could pull it off.

Conferences like this one mean that you get to interact with others who uniquely understand your professional worries and joys. It’s always a high and I look forward to this one all year long. Plus just the vacationy aspect of the event, even though one is working the whole time, makes it an upbeat thing. Perhaps I thought that I’d try coasting on this energy.

Now, I was worried about the lecture as you know from previous posts. (I survived, by the way. My wife was very complimentary, which she never is so falsely, and a handful of the audience came up to further discuss the topic both hours so I guess I pulled it off. There was also discussion with the organizers afterwards of my returning next year. So I suppose we should put this in the professional successes column.) But it was the first thing of the week and, again, I thought that I could coast on my relief that it was over and leave SJW out of my life for at least one week.

We left on Tuesday. By noon on Friday I was curled up in a ball in my hotel room bed full of self castigation and doubt. I told everyone that it was a dodgy breakfast burrito that I’d had at a local diner.

I slept for a few hours that day, skipping some of the best seminars of the week, before I was able to roust myself in time to catch the last event of the day. There were meetings on Saturday, too, but I was able to make those.

Overall, the week was good. I mostly enjoyed myself and I feel recharged professionally. I’m taking today to decompress but I learned an important lesson. St. John’s Wort works for me but I have to stay on it or risk a crash. I’m not sure if the pressures and eustress of the week got to me or just the fact that I’d laid the herb aside caused me to plummet but either way I’m convinced that it wouldn’t have happened had I just packed it.

Live and learn!

Too Distracted to be Depressed

A comment on my last post: “Are you alright? Please just post a single line to let us know. K”

I’m really touched, thanks. I’m doing OK. Here are some highlights from my rambly life.

For the last few weeks I’ve been immersed in two speeches that I’ve been hired to present early next month. I’ve had a lot of trouble with them because, though I love the topic and the research is a fun to do, anytime I work on them I start to think about the speeches themselves and my mind clamps shut. Given my social anxiety it should be no surprise that I’m pretty nervous about them. I understand that lots of people have trouble with public speaking so I have no way to compare my reaction to others’ but I haven’t been sleeping, I’m drinking even more than usual which was already more than is healthy, my other work has been neglected, I’ve been prone to overreact often with rage– basically I’m a nervous, twitchy wreck.

I have a good friend who’s enthusiastic about everything that I do. I have few friends but she has lots and most of them seem to like me. I asked her if she could gather some of them for a rehearsal of my speech. She did and Sat. night I got to give it a dry run. Things went pretty well although I have some clear holes that need patching. They kept telling me that I’m charmingly disorganized. The interpretation is obvious.

Otherwise life is churning along. One advantage to having a major roadblock in one’s future thinking is there isn’t room for a good, all encompassing depressive episode. Things haven’t gotten really dark since I misinterpreted my St. John’s Wort dosage earlier this summer. That might be the herb or it might be the speech. If the dark engulfs me later next month I suppose I’ll have the answer to that one.

Finally Hide & Seekis being released on Wednesday. I really enjoyed this book. Look for my review here tomorrow or Wednesday.

It’s made me think again about aromatherapy. New-agey flotsam and jetsam aside this might be a helpful thing for me. I think I’ll look into it sometime after the speeches.

Improper Use of St. John’s Wort

As you know I’m convinced that St. John’s Wort works. One has to be religious about taking it or its benefits wear off in a matter of a couple of days. But what is a person to do if he is going to be out all day? It takes two pills three times a day for the brand that I take and carrying a pill bottle around just isn’t practical. I also don’t want to advertise that I’m taking it.

My solution is to simply throw four or six pills in my pocket before I leave. Most of the time I can remember to take them and it’s easy enough to do take them discreetly. Problem solved.

Well, it didn’t work today. I had to leave the house just before eight. I work at home so this was unusual. I was going to take pictures of and interview some people who were harvesting an interesting crop. I packed up my camera, notebook and four pills to cover me for the day in case it took that long.

It didn’t; I got home at noon. I fixed lunch and dug in my pocket for the pills. They weren’t there. I thought that they might have fallen out at some point and I didn’t think much of it. But then I felt some sort of grit against the cloth of my pocket. Then I realized what might have happened and pulled the pocket out.

Sure enough the ground up St. John’s Wort, or at least some, of it was still there but the pills weren’t. It was a hot day and I wore jeans because I knew that this crop was particularly scratchy. The result being that I stood around in the hot sun for almost four house sweating into my jeans and dissolving the pills with my sweat.

Hmm, I thought that this would be an amusing anecdote but now that I write it out it just seems kind of icky. Anyway, here’s the punchline.

Ready for it? Here it comes!

My left leg has been in a good mood ever since. Hahaha!

1:25 am

Had a professional setback on Monday.

I don't completely understand the connection between life events and my depression but they are most certainly intertwined. When I get hit with something like this it can trigger a low point which is where I am just now. But it also doesn't take external stimuli to send me spiraling.

I'm sucking down the SJW religiously but I'm having trouble climbing out. Right now things seem pretty bleak; I may look back later and decide that this was just another run of the mill trough but it doesn't feel that way right now.

Suicide has been much on my mind. I did an odd thing this afternoon. Sleeping pills really knock me out - more so, I think, than most people. Half a dose hits me hard and keeps me down all night. Around 5p yesterday I took a full dose. When my wife got home at 8 (her usual time) I was out cold and didn't wake until 10. I didn't have any reason for doing this except that it just felt like the thing to do. As I was fading to sleep I wondered if it was a suicide trial run.

But now I'm awake and it's one-thirty. My sleep's going to be fucked up for days now.

Three reasons I don't kill myself:

• I'm a coward
• I don't want to leave my wife alone with the debt we have
• I'm still curious to see what's going to happen next

How long will these hold true?

Since last time...

I’ve had a rough few weeks. Something I’ve probably mentioned before is that it is very hard for me to blog about my mental state when it’s at its lowest. Thus this blog has never served the purpose that I hoped it would when I first set it up. But it does have some value to me and, quite surprisingly, to others. So I keep it up.

A few truths about this blog have developed recently. I’m sharing these because since my last entry a few weeks ago some readers have communicated to me their dissatisfaction with the sporadic nature of this project. Knowing how I write this thing might help these readers understand why I dip in an out of it as I do.

• I never read old entries. I don’t like reading what I’ve written here. This is unusual; typically I read and reread what I’ve written endlessly, especially editable web content. But I learned early on that if I look back on this blog then I just want to delete it all. I’m glad I had the foresight to do this anonymously or there’s no way I’d let some/most of the whining that I’ve done here stand.


• I don’t always blog when I want to. There have been a number of times over the last few weeks when I really did want to sit down and pour out an entry but I didn’t. Mainly because my proper writing career is becoming busier all of the time and for most of the past few weeks I was dealing with looming deadlines. Right now my nearest deadline is two months out; my latest deadline was yesterday and I just made that one. So, I couldn’t spend my writing energy here. Think I’m depressed now? Check with me when the electric company has cut power because I stopped paying the bill!


• I only blog when I want to. I tried to establish a regimented schedule for this blog as I do with my professional blogs but that just didn’t work. Any value that this project has evaporates when I try to put it on a schedule.

Oh, and one more thing. As evidenced by my previous entry I will from time to time be posting sponsored entries. I will maintain the honest, confessional voice that I’ve established here but the topics might seem a bit strange. Please just bear with me on these; can’t fault me for making a buck, right? Between us, you’ll always know that they are sponsored by the last line of the entry, ok?

OK, back to the last few weeks. As I mentioned above I’ve had a lot of deadlines. This means more work and that’s a good thing. But it also means that a lot of different people have been depending on me for lots of different things. I learned that this can be a source of anxiety. It makes sense – if I get anxious in social situations then it seems natural that I’d get pretty anxious when others in my society are counting on me for something.

Another source of stress is the fact that with each advancement I make in my career I find myself with a whole new audience to disappoint. It never occurs to me when I’m trying to get that next great gig but when I do I always tell myself that here’s another first impression for me to totally screw up.

And the cycle starts – I get anxious and nervous, I start to feel stress because I just know that this time I won’t be able to pull it off, nervousness turns to self-loathing which turns into a full-on fit of depression. Then I spend a day or two curled up in bed or, more likely, drunk. Then I roust myself, develop a plan and execute it - usually just in time for the deadline.

Now, imagine going through that over and over with overlapping deadlines and you’ll have an idea of how I spent July and the first week of August.

I refused a new job offer last week for obvious reasons.

Oh, and regarding the St. John’s Wort… As you know I’ve been trying to find a brand that I like. Here in the US herbals aren’t regulated so I never know if I’m getting the same thing from brand to brand. I tried a few different ones and found that I preferred Nature Made. I’d bought a new bottle back in June but it just didn’t seem to be doing the job this time around. Around mid-July I crashed really hard. As I was slogging through my emotional fog it suddenly occurred to me that I might be taking the wrong dose.

I checked the bottle and sure enough it said two pills three times a day. My previous bottle – a different brand – had been one times three and it just didn’t occur to me to check when I switched back. Things improved noticeably after that.

One more thing before I close this behemoth of an entry. Suicide returned during the darkest days of July. I hadn’t even noticed that it had left but it had and I can now say SJW really works. For months I hadn’t thought about suicide and it was lovely, looking back. But now its back and it’s probably going to take me a while to shake it. But now I know that I can.

Until next time,
Yours,
Ray

Will the Real St. John Please Stand Up?

Circumstances have led me to take three different brands of St. John’s Wort products – see below. If faulty memory serves this is the order of things. When I was blogging about notable increases in mood I was on Nature Made. When I ran out of that I went to the store and picked up the only thing I could find with SJW in it, the Nature’s Way product. I have no remarkable memory of the time during which I was taking this but I do know that it was during a few months that were especially stressful for other reasons. Now I’m on the store brand and generally maintaining. The sting of my lows is blunted a little bit and since it seems most like the Nature Made product I suppose this is the best that I’ll get from SJW. I’m tempted to pull receipts and actually compare the timeline to what I’ve reported here.

It’s frustrating that there is no regulation of herbal supplements here in the US – or at least that’s how I understand it. Having little basis for this conclusion I nevertheless assume that stems carry far less of whatever in SJW is effective than the leaves. But there is no requirement that products claiming to contain X amount of SJW carry the good bits or the bad bits.

I think that I’ll order the Nature Made again and see if I notice the change I did the first time I took it. But it appears that I’ve taken SJW about as far as it will go. I should try walking again…

Nature Made – St. John’s Wort 75 Capsules
Supplement Facts
Serving Size 2 Capsules
Servings Per Container 37
Amount Per Serving
St. John’s Wort Aerial Parts Extract (Hypericum Perforatum) 300mg
Hypericin (by UV) 0.9 mg
Other Ingredients
Cellulose Gel, Gelatin (non-bovine), Maltodextrin, Stearic Acid, Magenissium Stearate, Tribasic Calcium, Phosphate, Water

Nature’s Way – Mood Aid with 5-HTP & St. John’s Wort
Supplement Facts
Serving Size 1 Capsule
Servings Per Container 60
Amount Per Serving
Thiamin (as Thiamin HCI) 250 mcg
Riboflavin (Vitamin B2) 284 mcg
Niacin ( as Niacinamide) 3.33 mcg
Vitamin B6 (as Pyridoxine HCI) 330 mcg
Vitamin B12 (as Cyanocobalamin)1 mcg
St. John’s Wort extract (stem, leaf, flower)
0.3% dianthrones measured as hypercin 300 mg
Skullcap (stem, leaf, fruit) 100 mg
Korean Ginseng extract (root) 33 mg
L-5-Hydroxytryptophan 3 mg
Other Ingrediants: Gelatin (capsule), Millet, Magnesium Stearate

Store Brand – Natural St. John’s Wort
Supplement Facts
Serving Size 1 Caplet
Amount Per Caplet
St. John’s Wort (hypericum perforatum) (aerial parts) Standardized extract (0.3% hypericin) 300 mg
Other Ingredients
Dicalcium Phosphate, Maltodextrin, Microcrystalline Cellulose, Croscarmellose Sodium, Tricalcium Phosphate, Stearic Acid, Magnesium Stearate, Hypromellose, Hydroxypropyl Cellulose, Polyethylene Glycol

If it's a Placebo Effect I'll Take It

When I went off the good St. John last autumn I explained that it might have made me too happy and I couldn't have that.

Sounds perfectly silly when I say it like that.

Anyway, I spent months letting that nugget of truth or whatever it is a nugget of seep into my brain and lodge itself there. Now that I've taken the brave step of trying to work through happiness I find that the stuff seems to work really well. An hour or so after taking it and about the time that I completely forget that I've done so a sense of pleasentness comes over me. It lasts for a few hours and I don't crash afterwards. If I remember to take a pill at every meal - and that's turning out to be a pretty good challenge in itself - then I seem to maintain a generally happy disposition. Now when I feel myself slipping down I can think back and almost invariably realize that I forgot my Wort with my last meal.

Placebo effect? Maybe; but I'll take it!

If it is a PE will this entry mark the end of its effectiveness?

...and back on the St. John's Wort

That last post was so silly and pitiful I thought that I'd give the Wort another try. Today is only the second day. If I have another giddy fit I'll just have to push through it.

Spring is charging towards my part of the world. Every year I have this feeling that I'm ill equipped to deal with it. Previously I just thought that I was overwhelmed by the happy season; now I have the depression excuse. Nothing like a good excuse, eh?

Perhaps the Wort will help me enjoy it without giving me the feeling that I'm supposed to DO something about it. I don't mind that feeling until it replaces pleasure and I'm left with nagging self-doubt.

that's not what I mean

Reprinting a Comment

My last entry (Could I have BEEN more pitiful?) generated a really great comment from Trishwash. Blog comments can sometimes get missed so I wanted to reprint it.

I hear you, brother.

I am currently going back on Wellbutrin after six months off. It's making me a bit manic at the moment. I went off because I didn't want to have to take drugs. I was feeling better and thought I could do without (ha!).

A couple things to keep in mind. 1. When you start a drug, herbal or pharmaceutical, you body will go through an adjustment period. The crazymeds guy some great things to say about this http://www.crazymeds.org/SideEffects.htm. I especially like the paragraph that begins, "These are powerful, alien substances..." While he's referring to prescription drugs, this may apply to SJW. Given that your body and mind need time to adjust, you may need choose a better time to start taking SJW. Sometimes it takes longer than a few days. Maybe getting better will require a good week where you can afford to just be deliriously happy. Or just be. Does your work have an annual slow period or can you create one by working ahead for a while?

2. Maybe next time, start with a lower dose and work your way up to the recommended amount. Maybe half is all you need to get the affect you want.

3. You sound ambivalent about happiness. That might warrant some further reflection. Did it feel good? Maybe too good? Why shouldn't you feel really good? Growing up, did you get the message that good stuff must be experienced in small, stingy amounts? If not, what other beliefs do you hold about good things? That they are limited, rare, untrustworthy, fleeting, bait for the seven deadly sins?

One of the ideas I've been playing with is that everything we do, think and feel is just a habit. It's not always easy, but all habits can be changed. You work best depressed because you are in the habit of working best depressed. http://www.fallingawake.com/falling-awake-book-toc.html is an online book with a good chapter on habits (#9). It's all a bit new agey, but there are some good nuggets in there.

Above all, don't look at this as failure. This experience has given you valuable information that you can use in other attempts to feel better.

Thanks TW. Nobody's alone, right? Cheers!

Off the St. John's Wort For Now

Why is it so hard to keep this blog up? The question is rhetorical; not because I think that it’s going to cause any reader to lapse into deep thought. It’s because I already know the answer.

1) I’m lazy. That isn’t to say that I’m too lazy to update the blog. Blogging is no big deal. I do it all day. Half of my income comes from blogging. No, I’m lazy about my depression. I whine and moan and appear to yearn for relief but it will take work and, dammit, I’m too depressed to want to work at it. That’s a bit of a joke but then it isn’t, really.
2) I’m comfortable with my depression. Weird, right? I’m not comfortable with the deep, deep lows and it is during those that I promise myself and anyone listening that I’m going to do anything to make it go away. But the normal constant hum of self doubt and self loathing is a comfortable thing. It’s been there for as long as I can remember and, quite frankly, I find it hard to function without it.

That last point is something that I learned recently. I’m back off of the SJW. Here’s why: As usual, I’m behind on my work. I started it a few weeks ago with a promise to take the herb until my bottle was empty. For the first few days I didn’t feel much of a difference. I’m not sure if that’s how it’s supposed to work but that’s what happened to me. Then one morning I felt happy; giddy, in fact. I couldn’t account for it - I just felt happy. But I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t work because I couldn’t sit still. At first I followed my wife around just chattering at her about nothing. When she left for work I tried again to work and nothing came. I couldn’t write! If I can’t write I can’t pay my bills.

I hoped I would get over it. I kept taking the stuff for a couple more days. The silly feeling subsided but I remained distracted. After three days I had to give it up because I was getting behind. Then a few days later I got a nasty summer cold. I’m just now getting over it and I am now WAY behind. So, I need to stay off of it until I get caught up. Once I do, I’m going to try again. If it happens again I don’t know what to do.

This is one of the reasons that I’ve never wanted to take medication. I have other concerns such as the fact that this society is overmedicated and it just rubs me wrong to put more money in the deep pockets of the pharmaceutical companies. But being just too damn happy to function has always been a big fear. I need me and this thing, as bad as it can be sometimes, is part of me. I’ve always felt socially isolated. I’ve always been bluer than my peers. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t think about suicide. And I can’t imagine me without these things. I hoped that SJW would gently ease me away from depression so I could learn to be me without it. I still hope that it does.

Anyway, that’s where I am. Thanks for posting your thoughts. It means a lot to me that people are regularly reading this blog.

Bad Day

Nothing much to say except the SJW arrived yesterday. It's to be taken 3 times per day and I started at noon.

This morning I'm in a terrible funk. Lowest I've seen in a while. I've also not been sleeping well so I hope that its that and not the herb.

I'm also behind on my work (as usual) so I have to fight through the fog or I'm working through the weekend... again.

Why St. John’s Wort

There are two main reasons that I’m trying SJW. (It hasn’t arrived yet, by the way.) The first is that it is relatively inexpensive compared to more widely accepted therapies. I live in a smaller community, though it’s by no means remote. The options for most specialized needs are usually limited to one or two. For example, the counselor I’m constantly referring to works at a community funded mental health clinic that adjusts its prices based on the user’s ability to pay. It is the only affordable option that is less than a 2 hour drive away. But when I went I felt locked in to the counselor that they assigned me and I did not like her. Plus her first solution was medication; a medicine that my insurance doesn’t cover. So, though the cost of the visits are tempered, the prescription isn’t.

The second reason is that I can order SJW through the mail and I never have to look anyone in the eye during the transaction. I don’t know if its society’s stigma against all types of emotional problems or my own social anxiety, but it’s a helluva lot easier this way and I’m less likely to back out of it.

So, this is what I’m trying. I tell myself that I’m going to start walking each morning. I don’t know if I actually will but that’s what I tell myself. Right now I’ve designed a life that doesn’t require me to leave the house for days at a time and that’s probably not the best thing for my emotional health even if it’s more comfortable. Maybe with a combination of these two things the lows won’t be quite so low.

Giving St. John Another Try

I’ve ordered a month’s worth of St. John’s Wort. I tried taking this once before and it had a strange affect on me. Rather than taking the edge off of any anxiety and giving me a break from my depression, it made my emotions extremely raw. Events that would have typically been just a little disappointing were more likely to send me into a flying rage or sobbing. It was strange and I quickly quit the stuff.

But I was at a job that I HATED and this situation dominated my thoughts at the time. My life is very different now so I’m going to give it another try. The main reason why is that I really want to find a non-prescription solution and St. John’s Wort is universally recognized as one of the best herbal remedies for depression. I’ve also read that it’s good for my social anxiety problem so, despite my past experience, I have high hopes. (Can anyone say “placebo effect?”)

I plan to stick to it for more than just a few days despite how I feel. I wonder, though, if that rage and sadness was an expression of how much I hated that job and my boss at the time – things that I hadn’t really dealt with because the veil of depression goes a long way to numb other sources of pain.

It should arrive any day…

Herbal Remedies

I really haven’t tried too many herbal remedies for depression. St. John’s Wort seems to be a popular one. I might even have heard once that it’s recognized in Germany as a “proper” drug and covered under whatever sort of health insurance system that they have.

I tried it once a couple of years ago – back when I was still toiling away in the corporate world – and found that all it seems to do was put me on edge. No, that’s not right because it sounds like I had coffee-like jitters. It made my emotions tenderer, like a new wound. And the effect was only on the negative emotions. I didn’t benefit from any super highs, no fits of uncontrollable happiness; only rage, sadness, and self pity. It was like it worsened the depression. I thought that perhaps my body just needed to adjust so I went ahead and stuck with it. But it was always temporary and negative. For the hours after my dosage I was always just on the edge of a meltdown and just about the time that that feeling would wear off it would be time for another dosage. I never experienced and overall lightening of spirit like I hoped I would. I finally stopped taking it after I got in a huge fight with a co-worker. I had indeed been inconvenienced by her but I completely overreacted. Luckily we didn’t work in the same department because I really never could look at her again.

So, what’s it all mean? Don’t take this to mean that I think that St. John’s Wort. With most things I’m a majority opinion kind of guy. If so many people find relief with it then there most be something to it. It just didn’t work for me. There’s another, somewhat conspiratorial possibility: Since the FDA doesn’t see fit to regulate herbal remedies it could be that I had a bad batch. It could be that it wasn’t St. John’s Wort at all. Maybe I was taking lawn clippings and my depression produced a predictably negative placebo effect.

I keep an herbal garden and thought I’d try growing the stuff but friends and family like to come over, point at different plants, and ask What is that? Remember, my diagnosis was depression caused by social anxiety. Think I’m willing to just grow my remedy where everyone can see? My wife knows that I’m depressed; I told her when I went to that clinic. But we never talk about it. She bought me a book once but that’s been it. Other than that I just don’t talk to anyone about it. I didn’t even tell her when I tried the St. John’s Wort. There’s not a chance that I’m going to try to grow the stuff.

The only other herbal remedy that I tried was indeed from my garden. I cracked my copy of Rodale’s Illustrated Encyclopedia to Herbs and read up on everything that I was already growing. It turned out that quite a few of my culinary herbs were also traditional remedies for depression or melancholy. I went to the local health food store and bought a couple of cups of bulk green tea then harvested large amounts of the alleged happy herbs – I can’t remember all of the herbs that I used but I know that rosemary and lavender were among them. (I know lavender isn’t culinary. It’s my only none culinary herb. I just love the look and smell of it.) I mixed them with the green tea leaves and started drinking the tea.

It tasted absolutely horrible. I’m making a face as I write this at the memory. Nothing I did to it could make it taste better. In the end I drank it with lots of honey. The honey didn’t take the taste away – with enough honey it just made the tea taste like honey and something horrible - though it did manage to make it a bit more drinkable. But here’s the thing: I really made me feel happier - content, really. For a couple of hours after choking down a pot of the stuff I really did feel better. I actually still have quite a lot of the stuff and I’ve almost thrown it out a few times but can’t bring myself to because it really does help. Unfortunately I also can’t bring myself to drinking it, either.

So, I started writing this post with the idea that I would announce a decision to try St. John’s Wort again – the thinking being that now I work at home I’ll give it another try. But why turn my back on the tea? I think that I’ll try to start drinking it again. I’m pretty sure that the green tea is a big part of what I don’t like about it. I will go to the store and find a different base like plain black tea and mix up some more of the stuff. Or maybe I will try it with just the herbs and no tea leaves. Some rose hips, dried apple or cranberries might just give it the lift that it needs. (I will also do a better job this time of cleaning the herbs. Part of the problem is that there is a bit on dirt on some of the leaves where I didn’t clean them very well. There’s nothing worse than getting dirt in your teeth when you drink a cup of tea.)

The only problem with this is that it is a temporary fix. One day of me not feeling like having my tea or being out of town could spin me right down into the depths again. If my problem is a chemical imbalance as Big Pharm would have us all believe then whatever remedy I find needs to be maintained. But if it’s all in my mind, as opposed to the physical brain, then using the temporary fix of a chemical high from herbs on most days could be enough to bring about the right kind of change in my overall disposition.

Tea it is, then. For now I’ll choke down the nasty stuff until I have a chance to go to the store and mix up some more. I’ll let you know how it goes.