I've suffered from depression since I was a pre-teen. In 2012 I got very sick, becoming suicidal. In 2013 I decided to try ElectroConvulsive Therapy. The "Depression" series of blog posts chronicles that process.

To start the Depression series at the beginning, click here: http://ittybittycrazy.squarespace.com/imported-data/2013/12/29/depression-1.html
#depression
#ECT

It's Sunday and, as on every Sunday, the thought of going back to work and facing my life tomorrow fills me with dread. It's an almost physically palpable feeling: a tightening in my chest and a slight nausea in my stomach.

What is it that I'm afraid of?

I suppose the first fear is that I simply won't be able to face my day, and that I'll end up making some pathetic excuse about a migraine, then spend the day getting in Fluffy Bear's way in the house, knowing work is piling up on my desk in the office.

Other than that I suppose I fear how mundane and little and petty my life is, and that I'll have to face that fact, and yet somehow function. If you take the reasoning to its logical conclusion, surely it must be a fear that I cannot bear my little life, and therefore it's a fear of suicide.

I know this must seem so completely pathetic as you read it. It must sound over dramatic, or whiny, or insane. But the problem with depression is not just the thoughts. It's the feelings. The feelings in spite of the thoughts.

The dread I feel about going back to work and into society tomorrow feels very, very real. And all my logical, motivational thoughts don't make any impact whatsoever on that feeling.

So how am I going to get around this? I'll do what I've done in the past, and that is to use my morning routine and muscle memory to move through it. If I can just slot into the routine - wash hair, rinse hair, condition hair, rinse hair - I can hopefully get through it and just get myself to the office. Once I am there, I have work to distract me. Then I can broker a series of distractions for myself until somehow, inexplicably, the baseline feeling switches to OK. It's a feeling that ECT has definitely intensified for me, but it's the same one I try to hold onto in vain while it's like fine sand through my fingers.

I have to have faith that feeling OK will become more and more the norm for me and will truly become my new baseline.

I have to have faith.

IT'S SO HARD TO TALK WHEN YOU WANT TO KILL YOURSELF. THAT'S ABOVE AND BEYOND EVERYTHING ELSE, AND IT'S NOT A MENTAL COMPLAINT -- IT'S A PHYSICAL THING, LIKE IT'S PHYSICALLY HARD TO OPEN YOUR MOUTH AND MAKE THE WORDS COME OUT. THEY DON'T COME OUT SMOOTH AND IN CONJUNCTION WITH YOUR BRAIN THE WAY NORMAL PEOPLE'S WORDS DO; THEY COME OUT IN CHUNKS AS IF FROM A CRUSHED-ICE DISPENSER; YOU STUMBLE ON THEM AS THEY GATHER BEHIND YOUR LOWER LIP. SO YOU JUST KEEP QUIET.
NED VIZZINI

To start the Depression series at the beginning, click here: http://ittybittycrazy.squarespace.com/imported-data/2013/12/29/depression-1.html