Me, Not Me, and Sort of Me

I've mentioned that I recently stopped taking anti-depressants. The most recent need of them resulted from my younger sisters suicide in October of last year. But all the women in my family constantly fight a battle against depression.

Just putting that word out there (depression) is like assigning myself all these negative connotations. People who grow up without having someone close to them battle depression over periods of years, just don't understand. They are also extremely lucky and should be hunted down and tortured -- just so we're all operating from the same view point.

The depression in my family line has a medical reason. All the women, and some of the men, suffer from a serotonin shortage. Our bodies just don't provide enough on a daily biases. Now, you can go years without the level dropping to the point it induces major depression . . . as long as nothing bad or stressful happens to you.

I love numbers, and to me it is much easier to understand that way. On an average day, I produce 80% of the serotonin i need. On a stressful day my need will double; but my production does not, now I'm producing 40% of what I need. I'm in the critical zone. But this can be overcome as long as the stressful situation resolves it's self quickly and I'm allowed to slowly creep my level up to 50% and then 60%.

Things like eating right, being outside each day, taking vitamins, and working out all help. They all increase the level of serotonin produced naturally. Less so in me than most, but enough to make a difference.

The bottom line is that I WILL be depressed off-and-on my entire life, or I will be taking serotonin to counteract it. Those non-serotonin takers out there are thinking, "So, just take the medicine."

Yes, I could. But then I am not me, not usually. As your serotonin needs changes on a daily basis it is impossible to correctly supply just what you need to stay at 100% on a daily biases.

If I need 20% serotonin on a normal day; the doctor can't subscribe that to me. Because the first bad day I hit, I'm sinking down already. So they over adjust. They give me 40% which builds up if I am having good days and before you know it, I'm numb. It's not the same as depressed; it's just not "me". All of my emotions and needs are dulled; happiness, sadness, love, appreciation, sexual drive, ambition.

The easiest way I can think of explaining the differences is that when I am depressed you will catch me saying, "I don't care," a lot. And I mean it. I really don't care. When I am over medicated you will catch me saying, "What ever you want" -- because I have no preference one way or the other.

It probably sounds very similar to the non-gators out there, but there is a world of difference to the person going through it. Lack of preference is much better, trust me on this.

But the sweet spot, the moments that make life worth while, are the in between stages. Right after I've gotten off serotonin and am as close to operating at 100% as I'll ever be. It's between the "I don't care" and the "Whatever" phase. A phase I like to call "my way". lol

I care about everything, because all of a sudden I can. I have genuine emotions that are almost overwhelming because I haven't experienced them in so long. I have an opinion about everything going on; in my life, the city I live in, Steve's job, etc.; and I have a hard time not voicing it.

I cry at commercials. I laugh out loud at silly stuff Will does ALL THE TIME. I call customers "bitch. I argue over the price of beans. And when it's all over, I'm left going, "Who is this? This is not me." But it is.

Everyone in my family refuses to get medication for our depression until it's been going on way to long, as a result there are 3-7 years between our treatments. I'd forgotten so much. Most of all, I had forgotten I wasn't alone.

My sister, the living one, called me the other day complaining about the shrew she's turned into lately. She was shocked and dismayed. I just laughed.

It truly has come to the point where we are healing from our sisters death. When we are able to put aside whatever crutch we needed to make it through the days.

Yeah, we're loud, opinionated, and more than a little bitchy.

But God, I love us, and I'm happy to see us back.

In the Middle of the Seesaw

Did you ever play on a seesaw or teeter totter when you were a kid? We had some large wooden ones in our town park and I use to walk up them from one side to the middle. There I would balance the two sides until I got them exactly level.

The kicker of coarse, was that I wasn't doing anythinge else. I could'nt play with others unless I was willing to jump off and let the seesaw crash one direction or the other. Even as a child, releasing that sort of control was hard for me to do.

I find myself in the same place now. After years of confining depression and months of numbing medication, every day I find more of my old self present. More of my spit and viniger. :)

Sure, that sounds fine to the uninitiated. But the world I am returning to is not the world I use to know. I'm not the person I was before the last few years took place; my spouse, after looking out for me the last few years, isn't the carefree guy he use to be either. Nothing is the same, so I am afraid to take a step out of the middle.

But the middle seems to keep moving. I don't want to lay around and read; which I was close to winning the "most consecutive books ever read" cateorgy of the Worlds Records. I actually am having trouble keeping my interest in a book. It took me three days to read a book I've already read 3 or 4 times in the past. (For those of you that don't know me that well, I can easily read 1-2 full length novels a day.)

My local friend is working almost full-time now, so she's not avaiable to hang with. One daughter is in CO and the other in school/work/other town full time. Even my cousin Lori is moving on with her life; new job starts tomorrow. So my late night IM partner in crime will be gone.

And while my interest in completing projects I've had laying around forever is returning, I'm almost afraid to get involved in them. I find myself doing stupid little projects I can post as ehows; and not doing the more complicated ones I can add as patterns. Just stuck in the middle.

I'm sort of working on the quest bath, sanding walls and stuff. And I do have a reawakening desire to "nest". To clean, organize, decorate. But something holds me back there too. Well, sometimes that something is Will, but sometimes it's not. It's me; afraid to move to far to the side of the living. Those strange people who seemingly participate in life and the world around them.

The issue is control. In an odd way, while depressed (and even on anti-depressents) I felt in control. I didn't clean house, make meals, or do other things because I just didn't feel like it. I didn't want to visit other people or go walk in the mall. I didn't want to go fishing. I, I, I . . .

It wasn't really that I was in control so much as that my life was a small place and I was the queen bee. Everything resolved around me and my illness, my issues.

Now I know I need to step out of the center and approach the scary side of the seesaw. I wish I could run wildly towards it, knowing I'd jump off just in time to prevent a disaster and laugh in the face of fate. But I'm to scared. I'll move towards the end I need to get off of, but I will take baby steps and hold my hands out wide for balance. Hell, I might even back up a step or two every now as I feel the world begin to tilt. But I want to live in a world occupied with more experiences and more people than I have the last few years.

I want to get off the middle of the seesaw.