Depression and ECT 32

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

Saw the psychiatrist two days ago. We're still on a fortnightly ECT plan and reducing my Pristiq by 50mg.

He asked me how I am and I said that, if there was a scale where 1 was normal and 10 was suicidal, the ECT had taken me to 1 or 2, and I had thought I might be going to stay there. But I've slowly slipped backwards and now I'm at 6 or 7. I told him Depression symptoms are creeping back like crying in the shower, or having to Drill Sargeant myself to get out of bed and into the shower in the morning. I admitted that they don't happen with the frequency they did back when I was at a 10, but I'm so disappointed that they are back at all, and I'm scared that I am going to keep regressing.

Both he and Fluffy Bear said that they thought I was still better than I had been when we started ECT, and they thought that I was better than I scored myself.

That actually meant something to me coming from Fluffy Bear, because he sees me every day but, on the other hand, he doesn't hear the voices in my head, and he doesn't see me hiding away crying in the bedroom in the middle of the day.

We talked about a cheek swab test you can send off to a lab, and they look at how you metabolize certain classes of antidepressants. It can help your doctor know what kinds of drugs to prescribe for you, so it can take away some of the throwing darts in the dark aspect of prescription. He said he didn't think insurance would cover it, and that he thought it had a 50-50 chance of being helpful but that it could give us interesting information. He wrote the order form for me to take to a lab and try and see if insurance will let me have it.

Fluffy Bear is going on a business trip so we decided not to make any more medication changes, and set the next ECT date for when he's back.

So I guess I just carry on and hope that I don't continue to deteriorate back into the Depressed mess I was three months ago.

Not a particularly inspiring meeting. My life wouldn't form the plot of an inspirational docudrama right now. No soaring music and soft focus.

The good news is that I finished reading Sane New World by Ruby Wax and I've started practicing mindfulness and meditating. Just five minutes in the morning - I don't want to make it hard for myself. I want to increase the time incrementally, but slowly.

I'm also doing yoga or something "yogic" every day. I took disproportionate pleasure in squeezing into the mat storage program at the studio this week, so I can now leave my (brand new) mat there and not lug it around. Of course to store it I had to buy a cover for it. I am well and truly treehugginghippiecrap hooked.