Depression is a Vampire

For the past several months I have been suffering from depression.  When I am depressed, I lose the ability to write cohesively.  I want to apologize to my readers for this time-out period, but please understand it was beyond my control.


I have suffered from depression and mania (bipolar disorder) and anxiety most of my life.  I have been labeled with a whole host of disorders since I was a wee little one.  Although it's been very hard for me to write this post (in fact, I'm on Day 3 of typing and editing this), I'm going to try to tell you all how I have been feeling lately.

I have felt very listless.  I have felt very tired, but I can't sleep.

I even felt gloomy, unless the sun was shining, and then I only felt okay.  If it's raining, watch out, because I couldn't bear to get up out of bed.  My joints ached.  My heart ached.

I barely had an appetite.  Strangely, I have been only able to eat Bosco Sticks every day.  When I eat them, I have to eat them with a tall glass of hot green tea flavored with honey.  Everything else is bland and boring. I could barely stand to chew.

I had a bunch of favorite television shows that I taped on the DVR, but I haven't been able to watch any of them.  The numbers next to their titles on the DVR Menu were adding up each week.  I'm now behind 4 weeks of House, 5 weeks of Celebrity Apprentice and 4 weeks of Ghost Adventures.  I'm sure ignorant people believe depressed individuals are couch potatoes, but for the past month and a half I couldn't even sit in front of the television long enough to watch any of my shows.  My thoughts wandered continuously, and I couldn't focus.

Depression is a vampire that slowly drains a person of their life blood.  It not only affected me, it has affected everyone around me.  My husband, my children, my friends.  

Many of you may wonder, if I was diagnosed so long ago, why don't I have this disorder under control.

Well, it's not that simple.

The trouble for me is two-fold.  If the medication works, it causes side effects.

Depakote is one of those medications.  It's as old as the hills in bipolar treatment.  It was the first mood stabilizer I was ever put on.  It works wonders for my mood.  It keeps me stable.  It makes me play nice.  But...and this is a big but...it causes extensive weight gain and hair loss.  My sister and I have joked that Depakote makes you fat and bald. That, in itself, can cause depression.  And then treatment becomes a vicious circle.

Over the years I have been on: Tegretol, Topamax, Risperdal, Zyprexa, and Lamictal.  Each one causing some horrible side effect.  Tegretol gave me headaches; Topamax made me lose too much weight and I was in a fog most of the time; Risperdal made me too tired to work; Zyprexa made me jittery and shaky; and, Lamictal caused a light rash. 

Last fall, after years of being off and on various mood stabilizing medications, I was taken off everything.  I actually felt good about the decision.  I wanted to believe there was no such thing as bipolar disorder.  I wanted to believe I could cure myself.

My good mood lasted for several months.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.  I was delusional.  There is no cure for bipolar disorder.  I was just in remission, as my psychiatrist called it.  My experiment didn't work.  I fell into a depressive episode shortly after Christmas.

I also started having sleep issues and anxiety, and was put on Trazodone.

Now my therapist has added Saphris, a newer sublingual mood stabilizer.  The first few days on Saphris were scary for me because of the delivery mode of the medication.  One doesn't swallow a pill with a glass of water. Instead a chalk-like pill is put under the tongue and it is allowed to dissolve slowly.  It tastes horrible.

But amazingly:  it is working.

I'm slowly coming back to life. So far the side effects have been minimal.  The biggest issue I have is what time I take the medication.  I have to take the pill early in the night and make sure I get at least 10 hours of sleep, or it's very difficult to get up in the morning.

Thankfully, I had a few posts that were prepared ahead of time that published in the month of March.  This is my first post for the month of April.  I really hope that I can continue to push forward.

I hope that you all don't mind my opening up here about my struggles with depression.  I realize my blog was never meant to be a personal expose of my feelings or of my family, but I hope my readers will stick around to get to know me anyway. 

I welcome your comments.