Life Felt Heavy - Introduction

    April 6, 2020 & May 19, 2020. I do not think I will forget either one of those days. April 6, 2020 sent my world into a spiral when my mom left my dad and began the process of divorce. I had moved back home in December 2019 after spending a year and a half in Tallahassee attending FSU. My grades were slipping, I slept a lot, and I really had no motivation to do my schoolwork. Life felt heavy. I moved home to get a breath of fresh air, and I thought that being around my family would benefit me. It did, until April 6th. When I moved home I had planned on seeing a therapist because my anxiety had started to get out of control. I really didn't take my search for a therapist seriously until my mom dropped that bombshell. April 7th I started my search and made an appointment to talk with a therapist. I cried through my entire first appointment because it felt like my whole world was falling apart around me. I wanted to try a therapist-only-no-medication route first because for most of my life I have been opposed to putting medications into my body unless absolutely necessary. I had about 3 appointments with my therapist before she recommended that I see a psychiatrist because the side effects of my anxiety started to become more aggressive, leading to physical effects. For the first time, I had a panic attack where I felt heavy pressure on the middle of my chest around my sternum. That was the last straw for me. I refused to keep feeling nervous all of the time when I was performing simple tasks. Life felt heavy. 

    May 19th. This was my first appointment with my psychiatrist. My therapist had warned me that typically it takes a month before you get in to see a psychiatrist. I called to make my appointment, and to my surprise, they had an appointment available for the next morning at 8:30. That was way to early to for me, but because I was so desperate to start medication, I took that appointment. May 19th I was diagnosed with severe depression, severe generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and insomnia. My psychiatrist seems to think I have been suffering from depression and anxiety since at least middle school based on what I explained to her. I think I have had anxiety my whole life, if I'm being honest. No one knows this, but in 8th grade I wrote a suicide letter. I remember sitting on the toilet in my parents' bathroom one afternoon writing the letter in the notes app of my iPod touch. I was going to end my life because it felt so heavy. I was basically being raised by my dad because my mom worked so much and we barely saw her. It felt like I didn't even have a mom during this time. I was at a school that I hated, and no matter how much I pleaded, my parents would not let me leave that school. I honestly do not remember why I didn't end my life that day, but I think this was a good indication of when my depression began. It is my earliest memory of depression symptoms, at least. Life felt heavy. 

    My psychiatrist put me on medication on May 19th, and it has been a learning experience ever since. The first medication that she put me on was Prozac. This did not work very well for me, and on top of that it gave me diarrhea (sorry TMI). Next was Zoloft. I wanted to kill myself every single day that I took that pill. I had no relief of my anxiety symptoms at all. Zoloft was not the one for me either. Currently I am on Cymbalta, and it seems to be working pretty well. I can focus, I can't cry no matter how hard I try, and I rarely ever feel anxious. It was crazy the first day that I think the Cymbalta started working. It takes so long to build up in your system, but the day it finally kicked in, I remember thinking, "Is this what normal feels like?" I was so used to the hopelessness, the nervousness, the heart racing, and the inability to fall asleep at night that I began to know no different. I used to not be able to fall asleep at night until 3am-5am. I would sleep until around 12pm, wake up, eat, and go back to sleep for the rest of the afternoon. I would still feel tired at night too, even though I had been asleep pretty much all day. Regardless of how tired I felt at nighttime, it always felt impossible for me to fall asleep. I felt at peace when I slept, and fighting depression is flat out exhausting, so sleeping was starting to become my favorite activity. 

    Since I have been on Cymbalta, I can focus, and I am rarely ever anxious, but I can't say that since starting Cymbalta I have been free of the suicidal thoughts because I haven't been. I know how easy it would be for me to go into my bathroom and take the bottle full of Percocet and swallow them, but for some reason I choose not to even when I want to so bad. I should probably flush them, but keeping them helps me teach myself to resist those invading thoughts. It really is me vs. my thoughts. Ultimately, I think it's my brother, though. He's the only one I am afraid of leaving on this earth. He's the only person that I can not justify leaving behind because in my head, he needs me. So, I am just going to keep telling myself that. Some weeks are harder than others because every week has its own set of distractions. With less distractions comes more thoughts. Life feels heavy then. 

   Depression is a constant internal battle. I will be battling this until I absolutely can't anymore because I don't want to lose. Some days I kick depression in the ass, and other days it kicks me in the ass. Regardless, I still try my hardest, even when life feels heavy. 

Life Felt Heavy (click on "heavy")