Hi everyone!
I’m so sorry that it’s been so long since I’ve written. Life has been insane with wedding plans, and wedding events, and then recovering from the wedding; I’m just now beginning to feel like I’m catching up from the exhaustion. I’ll tell you about it in a later posting. But first, I wanted to share with you the dark side of chronic illness–Depression.
Depression can be all consuming. It can come out of nowhere. It has a nasty fraternal twin called Anxiety. When they work together, you feel so out of control, you grasp for anything to hold onto so you can feel like you’re the one steering your ship–not relying on the wind to get you to your destination. I suffer from depression. And I’m actually proud of it. Yes, I want to get rid of it. Yes, I know it’ll take a lot of work, and most importantly, time. I’ve already put in a ton of work, and my progress has been slow, but it’s ok. Something that has helped has been medication. I’m not ashamed of it. I’ve been on antidepressants for years now. I can honestly say that without those, I may not be here today. I’ve had suicidal thoughts. I’m not proud of them, but they’ve been there.
The suicidal thoughts usually come in the mornings when I wake up and realize that it’s going to be a bad day. I’m exhausted, my body hurts, itches, aches, feels like they weigh a ton, and I sit there and think to myself, “What’s the point? Why bother getting out of bed? I already hurt just laying here without doing anything–I’m just going to keep on hurting. I’m cranky, miserable, I’m going to be combative, why bother?” And it’s hard to move. I have to force myself to move. I do get up, I do move from the upstairs to the downstairs; it’s just hard. Now, I’ve never had a thought thinking about how I was going to kill myself–I know that I could never do that to myself and my family. So, I’m not suicidal and need to be under 24 hour watch, I promise. There are just some days where giving up feels like it would be a great idea. I know it’s not–sometimes it feels like it should be an option though.
I did buy myself a ring to remind me to never give up. It’s a part of the Semi-Colon project. I think I’ve talked about it before, but it’s a symbol for people who have thought about suicide, and didn’t do it. Where you could have put a period to end a sentence, you can instead put a semicolon and simply pause the sentence and move on. MY life will go on, and I won’t ever stop fighting.
One thing that did start to help was therapy. Talking to someone who had an outsiders perspective was great. And my therapist, Sarah, and I clicked right away. It was less a therapy session, and more 2 friends talking for an hour. She would make fun of me for silly things (for instance liking American Girl) and we would really have a good time each session. I saw her for a year, and then my insurance changed, and the clinic didn’t take the new insurance. I had to stop seeing her, because I’m poor. But, we had each other’s phone numbers, and we would text back and forth, so I could still talk things through with her, just not in person or for an hour. We didn’t talk super frequently, but she would always answer quickly when I would text. Then, after Christmas, she just stopped answering. I was hurt, but figured something was going on and legally couldn’t keep in contact or something. I would still text her just so she knew what was going on with me, and even though I knew she wasn’t going to answer, there was this sliver of hope that she would. She never did though. A couple months ago, my insurance was switching back to the original plan, and I was going to be able to go back to therapy. I was so excited to get it changed, and as soon as I had a policy number, I was calling to schedule my first appointment back to see Sarah. I couldn’t remember the name of the clinic, so I googled her name. The top result was her Obituary. She suffered from a heart attack on Christmas Day, and died. Needless to say, I was in complete shock. I didn’t know what to think. This person who knew every secret of mine, this friend, this amazingly wonderful spirit was just gone. I stared at my computer screen for a few moments, frozen, and my dad was the first one to notice that I wasn’t moving and my jaw was dropped. “What’s wrong with her? Kristina, what’s wrong?” And I simply kept staring at my computer and said out loud, “Sarah died. On Christmas.” Both parents stopped what they were doing and were in shock with me. It took a good 15 minutes to really hit me that she was gone, and that was when the tears came. I cried for a few hours on and off. I was thankful that I was babysitting that night, and my little one was awake. She crawled into my lap, and just held me for a long time while I cried in her little arms. She was so intuitive, that she didn’t even need to say a word, just “Teeny, it otay.” To this day, I still have overwhelming waves of emotion when thinking about Sarah. It was finally last week that I had worked up the courage to call and make an appointment with another therapist. After the phone call was made, I cried. It’s so emotional. When I had my first session with Nicole, I cried in the parking lot, and had tears during the session when I talked about her and how I found out. I’ve had 2 sessions with her, and she’s really nice. A little more focused on the therapy side of things instead of just someone to talk to. I’m still getting used to her style. It’s an adjustment, but I’ll get there.
My emotions have been all over the place lately. I’ve been in a lot of pain, reacting like crazy; it all takes a toll. Stress IS the #1 trigger for MCAS. There’s been a lot happening this summer. I’m happy that I can finally begin to relax and heal. Buzz and Woody have been a huge help late at night when I’m alone with my thoughts. They help keep me grounded.
Anyways, that’s enough emotion for tonight. I’ll be posting a lot in the next few days, talking about good times, bad times, and meh times too. Thanks for being patient!
Love you all!
Kristina ♥
Life with MCAS 