Mind Full?
Posted By Kathleen David on November 3, 2019
When I was in graduate school, I tried to kill myself and got closer than was comfortable. We used to joke that the Yale School of Drama was the Yale School of Trauma and we were the inmates.
After my attempt and it was sorted out that I was no longer a threat to myself, the student health service assigned me a therapist and started me on an anti-depressant. Over time I came to realize how depressed I was and how unable I had been to cope with life. I could see my life in front of me rather than seeing no life at all. It still was a grueling program but I made it through and graduated.
After the death of my friend and confidant Angelo, I lost it. I wasn’t coping well with his passing and I honestly was not coping well with other things in my life. This all came to a head at my Doctor’s office over some not great health news and another life annoying rather than life threating problem I had to deal with. I just lost it. I don’t think I have been that hysterical well ever honestly. She put me on a low dose of an anti-depressant and recommended a therapist to talk to and a psychiatrist for medication.
I think I haven’t been alright since Peter’s stroke seven years ago. I put on a brave face and, as my mother put it, went into stage manager mode just to deal with everything and everyone. Since then there have been various health scares and other life events that just seemed to pile on me. I kept dealing and telling myself I was doing OK or I was doing better than X friend so I had no reason to feel this way. I did all the coping things I learned along the way. I was in survival mode. It was not like I didn’t have those moments of happiness or success. But they felt fleeting.
My psychiatrist started me on low doses of medication with one helping with the depression and anxiety and the other to let me get some sleep. Before the meds, I was averaging 4 hours a night if I was lucky. Since then I have upped that to 6 to 7 and more deep sleep than I have had in ages. It helps a lot.
She added something last time around that has made my mental state and ability to focus turn from night to day. I hadn’t realized how bad what had been one of my better traits had deteriorated. I could plan up a storm but my execution, except under threat of deadline, stunk. And that of course just wrapped around to make me feel worse which didn’t help. It has been a week and I have gotten a lot done in that week. I hope I continue to be able to work at this level.
And the biggest change is that I can write again. Ideas in my head are making onto the page and they are flowing rather than my feeling that I am just beating my head against the keyboard. It feel right and it feels good to be able to write again.
Also my short term memory has improved which was really starting to bother me. I felt like I could not hold two thoughts in my head at the same time without one pushing the other aside. I would get easily distracted by just about anything and then have to think hard to get back to what I was doing or attempting to do in the first place.
I feel, for lack of a better word, normal again. Able to function. And it is a wonderful thing to me. I missed this me a lot and am glad she is back. I do hope she sticks around.
I am grateful for medication that helps.
