I Know Why They Call It The Blues

This story is not easy for me to write if you read on you'll know why.  I guess my battle with depression and sadness began when I was barely six years old.  That was the year that I began school.  I don't remember very much from that year except my teacher being told that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated  and that I cried everyday.  I wanted to be happy and have fun like the rest of my class, but I could not stop crying.  I don't think I cried the whole school year, but when my second grade year began, so did another year of crying.  I didn't like riding the school bus.  I was the last one to board the bus and all the seats were taken. I can remember having to stand up the 3 miles to Brodhead Elementary and that sometimes I fell down when the bus turned a corner or stopped too quick.  All the big kids made fun of me and no one offered to help.  Momma tried driving me to school herself, but when I watched her drive off, I started crying again.  Finally Momma and Daddy worked it out so I could ride to school with my grandmothers uncle and his wife, who was a school teacher.  She didn't drive so her husband took her.  He drove a red Chevrolet pick up like you see in the Old Navy store.  By third grade, I started to enjoy school and did until I graduated in 1975. 

In 1988 I was working as a hairdresser.  I had my own shop in Mt. Vernon and had 2 ladies working with me.  I had grown up in a country store that my grandparents owned, so working with the public came easy for me.  I was married and had two sons in school.  I thanked God everyday that they liked school and neither had cried like I had when I started school.  I don't remember exactly when I started getting the "forever" blues, I guess that's another blessing from God. I think he takes away some of our bad memories because there is no use dwelling on them.  My father had suffered from depression.  He passed away from a heart attack when he was only 53.  I was 13.  My memory of him was that he was a very sad man that went to the Dr.s a lot.  He actually had Electroconvulsive Therapy, shock treatments, that were the Cadillac of treatment for depression. After a treatment he didn't know who we were or where he was for days.  Years later when a psychiatrist recommended ECT as a treatment for my depression, my mother was adamant that I not be given them and I choose not to have them.  She said she could not go through with them again and I didn't want her to have to.  I suppose that I inherited my incline for depression from him. 

When I realized that my sadness was hanging around too long, I made an appointment to see my doctor, who was the same family doctor that had taken care of my dad.  He didn't waste any time sending me to a doctor in Lexington.  He said, "I watched your father battle depression and couldn't help him, but I won't do that with you."  The psychiatrist I saw was supposed to be the best in Lexington.  He diagnosed me with Clinical Depression, a broad term for different kinds of depression and prescribed a new anti-depressant drug called Prozac.  I remember the first time I visited him how nervous I was.  I also felt very vulnerable sitting in the waiting room with other troubled souls.  When I was called back, I was amused that he actually had a couch in his office, but he didn't ask me to lie back on it.  Within 2 weeks I could tell the medicine was working.  The Dr. had me come to his office once a week for therapy.  I found out through this therapy that I was also suffering from anxiety.  I know that my whole life I had worried about something everyday, every minute actually.  I was prescribed something for anxiety, thus started my long road on the medication treadmill.  I've taken them all, but never really gotten anywhere, just like walking on a treadmill.  

I continued to work and drive up to Lexington. I thought I was doing some better.  One Saturday in November 1988, I was at work at the shop.  I had been in a bad place for a few weeks, but that particular day I got worse.  I didn't have a customer at the time so I was just sitting in my chair worrying.  I started crying and shaking uncontrollably. My work mates called Mike, he and momma came to the shop to check on me.  By then, I was in a total meltdown.  I don't remember much after that.  Someone called my doctors office and his answering service instructed someone to bring me to St. Joseph ER.  I spent one night in a regular room and was beginning to feel a little better.  The next day I was moved to the Behavioral Unit on the 6th floor.  Ordinary people who are not suffering with any mental illness usually find this floor very disturbing, but to someone who is barely hanging on, it seemed like heaven.  I was filled with the expectation that when I left this place all my worries and sadness would have gone away just like a case of the flu, I would be cured.  The door locked behind me.  Momma and Mike were briefed on what was going to happen next such as therapy, meds, visitations etc.  I was told to empty my purse.  When I did, the nurse took away my dental floss, compact, because of the mirror, tweezers, shoe strings and anything else I or anyone else could use as a weapon or a tool to harm myself.  All that stuff was given to Mike to bring home.  I was to wear my own clothes and shoes because it was a rule that I get dressed everyday.  I could call home at times, but I had to get special permission.  If I progressed enough I would be allowed to leave the floor, but not the hospital grounds.  I was to stand in line with the other patients and be given my medication, which now included the drug Lithium and higher doses of Prozac and an anxiety drug.  I had to attend group and individual therapy as well and was required to participate in all activities and meals.  Everything was very structured.  At first, I was the only one in my room, but during my stay roommates came and went.  We could only take a shower and the shower stall didn't have a shower curtain. This was to ensure no one used the curtain rod to try to hang themselves.  They also took my shoestrings to keep me and we weren't allowed razors.  The men could shave under supervision, but the ladies had to give up the luxury of having smooth legs.  I ended up staying 21 days there.  I did earn the privilege of being able to go to other floors, so once a day I went to the nursery to look at the new babies and then down to the snack bar for a candy bar.  Thanksgiving was during my stay and I was allowed a day pass to come home.  I remember that I was ready to go back to the hospital early because I felt safe there and being home made me feel very anxious.  After I was released in December, I had to do all my Christmas shopping.  This worried me to death.  No amount of therapy has ever helped my anxiety.  I learned a lot in group therapy, but I am just not able to apply what I've learned to help myself.  I've been to so many therapy classes in my adult life that I feel like I could teach a class. 

I had missed out on several events in my son's lives while I was gone.  Things like basketball games and school programs.  Mom filled in for me and Mike did the housework.  I had lost a lot of weight while I was gone because I couldn't eat in the dining room with the other patients.  Almost all of them were a lot worse off than me.  Some could barely feed themselves.  One lady cried the whole time I was there.  Some slept all the time only waking up to take more medication.  We had a big room called the "day room" where we were allowed to watch TV.  Sometimes there would be a battle over what station to watch.  We were also allowed to smoke in this room.  We weren't allowed a lighter so somebody had to keep a cigarette lit at all times.  That was our only way of assuring we could light our cigarettes.  I started chain smoking while I was there.  Thank goodness I quit smoking cold turkey in 1990.  The combative patients were isolated from the main floor, but we could hear their screams sometimes.  Even with this nightmare going on around me, I still felt I belonged there.  In my life thus far, I have spent a total of 37 days in 3 different hospitals for depression. The second time, both Momma and Mike were gone when I decided to exit this world by taking a large number of pills.  After I took them, I laid down on my bed and waited.  I fell asleep and dreamed of my boys.  I dreamed they were crying for me.  I woke up and came to the realization that I didn't want to die after all.  I had to call my cousins Glen and Anna Lee Rigsby to take me to the hospital.  I hadn't taken enough pills to do any permanent damage.  I know God was with me that day.  

Walking away and leaving me in a Behavior Unit has been very hard on my family, especially Momma.  She cried every time she came and again when she left.  The patients scared her and she was worried about me being there with them.  They were almost all a lot worse than me. I saw the movie, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" when it first came out in 1975 at the drive-in and again last year on TV.  I can relate to a lot of that movie.  Sadly, it is a pretty good portrayal of a mental facility.  

Me and Kyle right after my first hospitalization

 

Today. after close to a hundred different medication changes and some therapy, I am getting by.  I can't say I am well though.  My life with depression is a chain reaction. My medication has side effects for which I have to take another medication.  I now have Fibromyalgia, arthritis, asthma, high cholesterol, stomach and thyroid problems, muscle spasms, hearing loss, sleep apnea, obesity, memory loss to name a few.  I deal with all these issues plus Obsessive Compulsive Disorder,  anxiety and depression.  I've been diagnosed with Clinical Depression, Major Depression, and Bi-Polar disorder, just according to what doctor I was seeing at the time.  I really don't know which one I have, I looked them up and I could have them all three I guess that's why I'm so hard to treat.  

In 1990, I had to sell my beauty shop.  I think because that was the place I was when I had my first breakdown and I couldn't deal with that memory.  I stopped working as a hairdresser in April 1990 and started work as an Instructional Assistant at RCHS in August 1990.  I was doing much better then.  I was finally on the right medication regimen.  I didn't and still don't attend any therapy sessions because they just make me worse.  I do better if I just bury my depression somewhere deep within myself and pretend it's not there.  I could win an academy award for acting, because if you didn't know me, you'd never guess just how sad and troubled I am.  I have had my feelings hurt so many times by well meaning people who say, "You don't have a reason to be depressed." or "You're not close enough to God.  He will heal you if you will let him."  I have been treated different by employers, co-workers and family members due to the stigma of mental illness.  Unless you suffer with depression, you have no idea what it's like.  No two people's depression is the same. It is a lifetime of hell for most.  The TV ads say try this, you will get better, but I have found that to not be untrue.  Some meds. do help the symptoms, but I know I will never be cured.  Since it seems to be an heredity issue in my family, I worry about my children and grandchildren.  I look for signs in them all the time.

This brings me to the present.  I have been on the same meds for over 10 years and unfortunately they are either not working or the side effects are worse than the depression.  My doctor is in the process of making some medicine changes, but I've tried everything out there and she says I don't have anywhere else to go.  I am hoping for a new anti-depressant that has less side effects.  I have no self confidence therefore I beat myself up all day long.  In my eyes I never do anything right.  I have cried for hours over something someone said that I took the wrong way. I dread everything even something as simple as going to the bank.  I have to make myself attend family functions or go shopping.  Mike does the grocery shopping and takes care of other things that I just can't bring myself to do.  Very few things make me happy.  The last thing I did that made me happy was years ago when me and several family members went canoing down the Rockcastle Co. River. Of course I have been excited when all four of my precious grandchildren came into this world, but activites that people do daily, I can't do. I always look forward to our yearly vacation at the beach, but when I actually get there, I keep waiting to start enjoying myself.  I'm always glad to get back home.  

Sadly after all these years, Mike and now the boys, have never really understood me or my depression.  I think Momma does because I make the third family member she has had to help with depression.  She had to quit school in the eighth grade to take care of the family because her mother was so depressed that she didn't get out of bed for over a year.  Then she watched my dad suffer and now me.  She says all of us have suffered differently. My grandmother did get well and with no medication.  It's hard for me to realize that the granny I knew was ever the way Momma describes her.  Daddy never got any better, even with the shock therapy.  He had to quit work and draw disability only then to die at a young age. I do have one rock to hold onto in this stormy life, my friend Janice.  When I started working at RCHS, she was the teacher I was hired to assist.  We've been best friends since 1990.  Having her is another gift from God.  I'm convinced that in his goodness he doesn't want me to suffer so he sent Janice to me.  It's ironic that I got out of the hospital in April 1990 and met Janice in August 1990.  She knows and understands me so well.  She's my own private therapist.  She knows exactly what to say and how to talk me through the bad times.  I don't always agree with what she tells me, but I always end up taking her advice. 

This story is different from the other stories I have written.  They were almost all happy and made us laugh.  But along with the sunshine we have a little rain.  To all things there is a season.  My season is sometimes a dark, sad place.  I try not to visit that place very much.  I'd rather enjoy the sunshine.