Depression update - end of first week

Just thought I'd send you an update on the end of week one.

Bottom line is I'm still in hell. It's reasonable that the meds haven't kicked in yet, it's only been a week, it's usually a couple weeks before you see an effect, but dammit it's been a long week.

I had one day this week when I didn't cry all day, that was good, it gave me a bit of hope.

The rest of the week has been pretty tough. It's hard to describe what this is, it's one of those things that I think unless you've been depressed you can never really know, because, well, it just doesn't make sense. It's so outside of our normal concept of things. People think it's just feeling really sad. It's so not. It's feeling really worthless, hopeless, a waste of space, like nothing is ever going to change, like every single thing you do is wrong, like you live your life with this dark mist clouding you, all these things that you're supposed to be able to control, but you can't. Not one bit. No matter how much you logically tell yourself that you are not a waste of space, you can't internalize it. It seems so strange that a cocktail of chemicals in your brain can control these things. That an imbalance of the those chemicals can make you hate yourself and your life. It's weird because it's intangible. It's weird because it's not like if you break your arm and there you go, you can see the broken bone, or like with my hypothyroid stuff, I'm hypothyroid, so I can see stuff like really dry skin. For some reason physical symptoms make sense, emotional ones don't. And I know that all of these things make some sort of sense to me when I'm depressed. But right now, right now nothing really makes sense.

It's also hard on John, I can tell. He's not doing so well, it's hard living with a depressed person. I mean, he's okay, he can handle it, it's not something to worry about, but I can't help feeling kind of bad. And I try to not let him see how I'm feeling because I can see in his eyes how much he wants to be able to help, how much he wants to be able to fix it, and it's really hard for him that there is nothing he can do other that be there. And I know that feeling, I know it well. I have many a time in my life been the non-depressed person trying to be there for the depressed person. And I know from being in that role that it doesn't carry any resentment or upset, or feelings of wishing I wasn't in that position. But I can't seem to help feeling guilty that I have put John in this position.

On the plus side I seem to be eating again (without being cajoled into it). There was over a week where I just wasn't eating, I'd force stuff down because I would feel light-headed, but I wouldn't eat like a normal person. I do seem to be eating again. Partially I think because my mum went grocery shopping for me so that I would have easy food around (a bbq chicken, ham, lots of fruit, stuff like that).

As I mentioned, my doctor seemed to indicate that it might take six weeks, maybe even more, before I went back to work. I thought staying away that long was inconceivable, but I have to say, given how this past week has gone, I'm not sure, maybe not so inconceivable after all. I'm worried that I will go back to work too early. It's not the feeling beholden to work and feeling bad about missing it (well, okay, it's a bit about that...), it's about wanting all of this to be over. Wanting things to be normal. If I'm going to work then I must be better. It would be the same as the ignoring my depression that I did leading up to my breakdown - desperate to fool myself into everything being okay.

My dad thinks I should just say here and now that I'm not coming back for six weeks, then I won't have the opportunity to push myself to go to work earlier.

The thing is logically I know that's probably the right thing to do. But, well, I don't know what the but is. I think somewhere I feel like if I can't do this quickly then I'm a failure. I know, it's about the stupidest thing on the planet. And no doubt it is fueled mostly by my depression. And I guess I should ignore it and tell myself six weeks. If I have some miracle recovery I can always go back to work early.

One thing that is hanging over my head right now is 'what if the meds don't work'. It's a scary prospect because if they don't then we have to ween me off my current meds, then slowly build me up on new ones, which means a good chunk of time without meds in my system, and if this is me with meds in my system... Anyway, I know I shouldn't worry about that now. That's a discussion I'll have with my doctor Thursday, because, well, if the meds haven't started working to some extent by Thursday, I suspect that's the route we have to go. My mum suggested if they do that maybe I could be institutionalized for that part. I'm not if she was joking or not. I think she wasn't sure if she was joking or not.

Anyway, tomorrow morning I have more therapy, we'll see how that goes.

I will be back to myself at some point, I promise. I'm pretty hard to recognize these days, but it will come.