My Monster Part 2

If anything was going to be a catalyst for my monster to come back it was losing one of my best friends. After the instinct just to get through the few days following Randy’s death wore away, I became increasingly worried about going into another depression. Sure I was still on medication, but the types and dosages were already being decreased and my stability was better than ever. Over the years, I’ve learned one of the worst curses of clinical depression. Constantly asking yourself, is this reaction normal? When it comes to something as terrifying as watching a friend die, I don’t think there are normal or abnormal reactions. There are as many ways of handling it as there are people in the world. But nevertheless, an internal line needed to be drawn as to when my recovery was starting to look abnormal.

I took two approaches to dealing with this without my depression getting the best of me. One was to look at all the progress I had made and the prospect of six years of recovery down the drain was as overwhelming as my grief. As a grad student with deadlines looming and my entire career on the line, I realized letting myself get pulled under by the current lapping at my heels literally wasn’t an option. I decided I had better fight this thing or I’d let myself and Dean down as well.

Randy had his own monsters which were ironically under control when he was diagnosed with leukemia. We talked about depression and mental illness a lot and both took solace in the fact that a disproportionate amount of intelligent tend to suffer from this disease. He knew better than anyone what it was like to struggle with this. The second approach I took to making sure I didn’t spiral after he died was knowing that it would upset him if I did. He wouldn’t have wanted that for me and I like to think he would be proud of the strength and perseverance I found within myself to convince myself that yes, this reaction is normal.

So why am I suddenly telling you all this? There are a few reasons. The biggest reason is that I am finally free of prescription medication though I still take dietary supplements, get plenty of mental and physical exercise, and constantly assess my environment to help regulate my moods. I’ve noticed a lot of changes since I weaned myself off of my medication, the biggest one being this sense of being alive that I haven’t felt in a very long time. If the deepest part of my depression was a coma, the medication was still a general grogginess. Today, I am awake. The moods are there, the highs and the lows. I didn’t realize I had given up the highs to get rid of the lows and it’s good to have them back. I know I needed to take them six years ago when I started but I know even more now that I don’t and that is the best feeling.

I’m not really writing this to increase awareness about depression. As a society we are advanced enough to know that it is out there and that there is help. We are aware that psychotherapy and medication in some combination will get it under control. People will disagree as to the causes, the catalysts, the treatments, nature versus nurture and so on and so forth. What I don’t think we as a society are advanced enough to know is that it’s not something to be ashamed of. If you have this disease, it isn’t your fault. You aren’t an alien from another planet. People have high cholesterol, high blood sugar, lactose intolerance, etc etc and they are not looked down upon for being unable to regulate these human functions. Nor should we look be looked down upon for being unable to control moods and emotions. It is all apart of the collective human condition.

My Monster Part 1

The first time it happened I was thirteen. The second time, I was twenty. But in between those times I always felt it lurking, just beneath the surface. That is why I don’t think that things happening are the cause of it, only the catalysts. It is my monster. My disease. My depression. And I still live with it everyday.

The time it happened as a twenty-year-old in a relatively new but serious relationship, I was diagnosed with clinical depression and anxiety. A number of things pointed to the fact that I needed to see a doctor. I didn’t remember when it had started, but I had a constant knot in my stomach. Everything made me nervous. Every situation. I distinctly remember one day sitting at work feeling nervous about my job- but I was the only one scheduled to work in the lab that day. I had absolutely no rational reason to be nervous about being there. I would pick fights with Dean. I would cry, throw temper tantrums, spend days in bed with my door shut just sleeping. Hoping that when I woke up I would feel differently. Like a tummy ache or a fever I thought sleep could heal me. I still believe in the rejuvenating power of sleep but looking back on it I needed much more.

The catalyst that time was the death of Chelsea, my childhood cat. I took it really hard and Dean tried his best to console me. He was still two years away from fully understanding what special role animals can play in a person’s life. After a few days, everyone else thought I should be over it. Embarrassed that I wasn’t over it, I pretended to be. And while hiding my feelings, I spiraled into a depression so deep I was rendered almost completely dysfunctional. I couldn’t concentrate at work or school. My grades those semesters were a big part of why I ended up in Florida. They were one of the only schools to give me chance and I don’t think either my department or I have regretted it since. But like I said, I don’t think Chelsea’s death caused my depression. It just gave my monster a chance to get its foot back in the door.

All this happened while my romantic relationship with Dean was less than a year old. You see, we had been friends for almost two years when we started dating. He knew that the sobbing, snotting, screaming mess of a girl wasn’t the Natalie he knew. He stuck by me even though he was young and could have moved on and found someone easier to deal with. He had much more confidence in me than I had in myself. When the world seemed to be too much for me, he would whisk me out of it to a small town or a resort for a getaway weekend. Those are still some of my best memories.

Finally I got help, started taking medications and going to therapy again regularly. I learned to recognize my moods, their catalysts (and thus what to steer clear of), and how to deal with them. I learned to supplement my chemical treatment with changes in behavior. My doctor and I discovered through my long course of recovery that besides social factors, I was affected by my environment and suffered from substantial seasonal affected disorder as well. And so it seemed that Florida wanted more than to offer me a shot at grad school. It wanted to wrap me in its sunshine and take care of me.

In large part, Florida did take care of me. The department I joined was tiny but growing and happy to accept someone from a Big Ten school. Many of the people were friendlier than I could have imagined. And when our first winter rolled around, Dean and I were filled with the excitement and giddiness associated with something too good to be true. Only it wasn’t. The constant sunshine, the beaches, the gulf and the foliage did wonders for my mental health. We know it can’t be forever, Florida isn’t known for its opportunities in materials science. And we don’t want to raise kids quite so far away from their grandparents. It isn’t fair to anyone. But by the time we make our way to an (inevitably) cooler climate I will know much more about taking care of myself than the scared, tentative girl I was when we moved down here almost five years ago.