Validation

Lately I've been feeling myself slowly retreating back into the ugly darkness that is depression. I've dealt with it for most of my life, as you can read from my previous entry. To me, depression is as terrible as any disease and it can sometimes be fatal. It almost killed me twice. I have heard that people sometimes go into the mental health field to learn more about their illness and themselves. I did not. I knew enough about it to compel me to help others who have been in that situation. I know what it is like to feel stuck at the bottom of a deep pit, desperately trying to find a way to come back to the surface. I remember the worst days of my depression were those when I was an undergraduate in college feeling paralyzed in my bed while my room mates and friends went on with their lives. There were those days when I could see a beautiful blue sky and the sun shining off on the bright roof of Fribley from the bed. The days of dreariness and cold made me feel better because it almost justified my depression; however, when it was a beautiful day outside it only accentuated the deep chasm between my grief and the beauty of life. I had engaged in counseling while an undergrad, prompted by the break up of my first boyfriend. I have been on myriad medications. I understand the feeling some people have of being a guinea pig: Prozac was wonderful but its efficacy wore off very quickly due to the very scientific term of "serotonin poop-out;" Effexor made me very aggressive, and I even went looking for fights; Paxil gave me horrific nightmares; Anafranil (that should tell you how long ago this was) made me extremely thirsty and lethargic; Lithium increased my liver enzyme levels; Lexapro worked for a while but it, too, eventually stopped working and it made me feel numb. I have found my dream combination: Wellbutrin XR and Lamictal. It has served me well for nearly 3 years; however, I feel that their efficacies are reducing. I had a medication increase about a year ago, and now I am at the threshhold so if I choose to do something new it would either be adding another mood stabilizer - Abilify was discussed but I refuse to take it due to its side effects, i.e. increased blood sugar and weight gain - or removing 1 medication and adding another. I will once again return to being a guinea pig.

I was diagnosed with dysthymia and had been considered in full remission, as it had been over a year that I had been free from my depression. One thing I learned from attending an intensive outpatient program for those with mood disorders (I highly recommend the one offered through University Hospitals of Cleveland) is that sometimes when we begin to re-experience depression we don't realize it until it is too late. One thing I did was make a list of signs of depression and informed my husband, family, and friends about it. If they saw something on that list, they needed to tell me. My husband has come with me to therapy a few times, and my therapist has strongly encouraged him to contact her if he sees signs in me. It sort of helps though to remind people of the list as I have noticed my symptoms returning but only after more than one manifested itself. My list is as follows:
* making plans and then quickly trying to figure out how to get out of them
* listening to music more (a very big one)
* staying in my room or not wanting to leave the house
* having difficulty sleeping
* having difficulty eating
* increased irritability
* having difficulty doing work or things that I need to do around the house
* crying often
* being more self-critical and feeling worthless
* impaired concentration, i.e. having difficulty remembering things or participating in conversations
Lately, I've noticed that I don't want to do anything. I need to work out in the yard. I keep telling myself I will but I never get around to it. My house is a shambles. I can't bring myself to clean it. I am having a lot of trouble getting to sleep. I've been a lot more irritable and feeling very self-critical. As I'm writing this, I've been listening to my iPod for going on 4 hours. With the amount of music on it, I can listen to it continuously for about a week. I have come to the conclusion that I'm depressed. I burst into tears when I saw my therapist yesterday. That was definitely not something I had planned to do. I could see the disappointment in my therapist's face - not a bad thing. I know that look. I have had that look many times when I was working with drug-addicted clients and discovered that after a significant period of sobriety they had relapsed. I have relapsed.

My therapist and I tried to look at reasons for my depression. I mostly attributed it to feeling overwhelmed at work; however, we quickly discovered the root cause of all of it - my brother is getting married in about a month, and my mother is coming for the wedding. I nearly had a full-blown panic attack while discussing it. Bottom line is I don't want her here. I don't want her anywhere near me. I don't want to talk to her. I don't want to cater to her whims. I don't want anything to do with her. It saddened me even more to know that even though she is 2,000 miles away she still has so much power over me. Something important happened recently that I feel should have brought some comfort actually caused anxiety and my depression. My husband's aunt had written a book about her mother whom she suspected had borderline personality disorder. As I read her book, I began to feel chills. The realization slowly dawned on me that I was reading about my mother, too. I never saw it until that moment. My mother has bordlerine personality disorder. According the the National Institute of Mental Health, borderline personality disorder is:

"While a person with depression or bipolar disorder typically endures the same mood for weeks, a person with BPD may experience intense bouts of anger, depression, and anxiety that may last only hours, or at most a day. These may be associated with episodes of impulsive aggression, self-injury, and drug or alcohol abuse. Distortions in cognition and sense of self can lead to frequent changes in long-term goals, career plans, jobs, friendships, gender identity, and values. Sometimes people with BPD view themselves as fundamentally bad, or unworthy. They may feel unfairly misunderstood or mistreated, bored, empty, and have little idea who they are. Such symptoms are most acute when people with BPD feel isolated and lacking in social support, and may result in frantic efforts to avoid being alone.


People with BPD often have highly unstable patterns of social relationships. While they can develop intense but stormy attachments, their attitudes towards family, friends, and loved ones may suddenly shift from idealization (great admiration and love) to devaluation (intense anger and dislike). Thus, they may form an immediate attachment and idealize the other person, but when a slight separation or conflict occurs, they switch unexpectedly to the other extreme and angrily accuse the other person of not caring for them at all. Even with family members, individuals with BPD are highly sensitive to rejection, reacting with anger and distress to such mild separations as a vacation, a business trip, or a sudden change in plans. These fears of abandonment seem to be related to difficulties feeling emotionally connected to important persons when they are physically absent, leaving the individual with BPD feeling lost and perhaps worthless. Suicide threats and attempts may occur along with anger at perceived abandonment and disappointments.

People with BPD exhibit other impulsive behaviors, such as excessive spending, binge eating and risky sex. BPD often occurs together with other psychiatric problems, particularly bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety disorders, substance abuse, and other personality disorders."

My mother never had friends after she had children. Her family was her life, for better or worse - more worse. Her mood would switch very quickly: one moment she would be happy and loving; then the next minute she would get very angry and say hurtful things. I always kind of thought of her like Mommy Dearest, the portrayal of Joan Crawford as viewed by her daughter, Christina. I have felt like I walked on eggshells my entire life. I wouldn't be sure if I would be able to go out and have fun with my friends or have to stay home and be with her. I have never known her to attempt suicide or threaten to kill herself, but then she never knew about my suicide attempts until nearly 20 years after the fact. Everything had to be her way. If one little thing went wrong, it drove her crazy. She was never wrong. We were the ones who were wrong. She never apologized for anything terrible she did. She is a drug addict and used opioids to make herself escape from being stuck with 3 children and a mostly absent husband. Do not get me wrong, she was not a terrible person 24 hours a day. There were many moments of her being a loving and doting mother. There were times when we had so much fun together. I would even go so far to say that there was a somewhat significant period of time when she didn't really exhibit many symptoms of BPD; however, there were also days when I feared going home. I never knew what to expect. Would she be nice or mean today? To this day, I absolutely hate it when people hum. Whistling is okay but humming is like nails on a chalkboard to me because I always knew when she was going to do something horrible when she began humming. She hummed when she threw my Christmas presents away one year. She hummed when she would shower love and gifts on my siblings in front of me while also ignorng me. She hummed before she would say something terrible. She would throw temper tantrums if she didn't get her way. When my brother failed to call and let her know he made it to Cleveland safely as soon as he arrived, she told him that he had 24 hours to come home or else she would report the car stolen. When he did come home, she ignored him for days. She honestly could not understand why, after a few days, he ran away. She was not even hers for an hour when they arrived from California for my graduation for obtaining my Masters degree before she started ripping into my father. She accused me of keeping her trapped in the basement, which was the only place we could put them. She claimed she was in a lot of pain during my ceremony and left midway, and then retreated to the basement and refused to come upstairs for my graduation party. My brother had planned a full day of bonding with my father as they would go to an Indians game - something he wanted to do with him his whole life. My father had to tell him 'no' because my mother could not have him leave her. Her reasoning was that she recently had gastric bypass surgery and had been having problems with diarrhea. She needed him to clean it up if she had an accident. I offered to help her out, as this was not something new when I was young and caring for her. She insisted my father had to do it. Her most recent displays of BPD have been informing my sister that if the cat could not come to Ohio for the wedding, she at first said she would put him down, then she said she would not come at all. So, in addition to buying plane tickets for my parents and my sister, we have to pay another $100 each way so the cat can ride in the cabin on the plane. My sister recently had a health scare, and we thought she may have had cancer. We found out she has endometriosis. While the causes are unknown, my mother said that one way people can get the disease is having promiscuous sex. What right does she have to essentially tell me sister she is a whore? That was incredibly hurtful to her and to me. I told my father she needs to apologize to my sister, but of course she has not - and she will not. She did not do anything wrong.

It may sound callous of me, but we will be putting my parents up in a hotel. My sister can stay with us but my mother cannot, and that means, neither can my father. I will not let her ruin my brother's wedding. I informed my sister that I promise to behave until after the wedding. After that, I cannot guarantee my actions. I have told my therapist that I hate my mother. I do. I would rather hate her than not care. The moment I become apathetic towards her is the moment I will get scared. If I hate her, at least I still have feelings for her, as weird as that sounds. I have even went so far as to say I hope she dies before my father. If my father dies first one of us kids will have to care for her. Since we have a house, guess where she will end up? For my sanity, I cannot have her do that. I never thought I would put my parents in a nursing home; however, I may have to do that for my mother. I need to live for me. I have my own life. I need to break her power over me. I need to be free.