Living my own personal Hell!

Okay, back to Depression. I guess it all began back in 1997, but I didn't seek treatment until Memorial Day weekend 1998.

Basically what lead up to the Depression was that I was overworked, and my marriage was failing. I don't think that my relationship failing with husband was really the problem, I think the idea of failing was it. I had questioned for years about how I felt about him, but I couldn't determine if I really loved him, or was it just habit. It was habit. I don't think I'm real big on change, I like to do the same things over and over. Like always going to the same couple of restaurants, eating the same thing off of each menu. Now when someone takes me some place different, I do have a nice time and enjoy it, but I usually don't make those changes myself.

So slowly over the course of about eight months I started to fall apart. My walls came slowly crumbling down around me, or so it felt at the time. I cried all the time, for no apparent reason. I lost 30 pounds without even noticing. I didn't even realize that I wasn't eating. When I admitted myself to the hospital they did a complete physical on me, and noticed that my keytones were pretty low, such as with someone that had an eating disorder. When they approached me about it I said, "Do I look like someone that has an eating disorder?" Which is an idiotic thing to say, since I know that you don't have to be qrotesquely skinny to have an eating disorder. To me though, in my mind I wasn't starving myself. Although I was starving myself I just didn't realize it.

All I wanted to do was go to sleep. I had trouble sleeping through the night, but I tried to do it all the time. Sleeping was better than being awake and having to deal with the nightmare I thought I was living.

During this time my husband and I didn't live together but still considered ourselves in a relationship. Work was becoming more and more stressful. I wasn't able to hire more employees because of some psychological evaluation that prospective employees had to pass, but nobody was. At the same time I had to fire employees, with nobody to replace them. My district supervisor had to have a spotless record and wouldn't allow any overtime. I was putting in major hours to make up for the lack of employees. I remember once working 4 shifts straight, because I could not abandon my employees, and at the time I couldn't get myself to go over my districts head to demand overtime hours. I have learned from that. Saving overtime hours is not worth having my life collapse around me. I remember the last night I worked before walking out. I was working on my 3 shift for my day, my superiors were there and complaining about nobody coming to work, that they had to be there. I had been going through this for months without complaining, so I walked up to them and said "I'm leaving, I'm making an appointment with my doctor tomorrow, I'll bring you documentation" and left. Their months dropped. I went on two weeks stress leave, but before going back other stuff with my ex pushed me further over the deep end, and that is when I admitted myself. That company was a great company, and I had actually taken two months off because of the depression after my walkout and received 100% pay before I actually decided that I wouldn't go back. Like a year later they hired me back again. I know it doesn't sound like it, but they were really there for me when I needed them to be, except for this time, and I didn't speak up (like I said I have learned).

So let me push forward to the day of admittance. The kids and I were in Ohio visiting their father. I was already off of work for my stress leave. I can't remember exactly what it was that caused it on this particular day. I don't necessarily remember any fight, but I do remember that I couldn't get the thought of suicide out of my head. I kept thinking about it over and over in my head. I kept trying to fight it, but it wouldn't go away. The most important thing for me was my children, I didn't want them to go without a mother, but still I was having trouble shaking the feeling of taking my own life. This was the moment that I knew I had to do something, because I knew that if I didn't do anything soon, that I would come to a point where my children didn't matter. That I would begin to think that they would be better off without me. This hit me hard. So I told my husband to watch the kids that I was going for a walk. I walked up the street and into the nearest emergency room, and up to the receptionist and told her "I'm in depression, I need help." From there I was taken into a room, where I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed for what seemed like forever. Finally they came in and of course I had to volunteerily admit myself, but they didn't have a phychiatrist on staff at those hours, so they had to transport me to another hospital about 20 minutes away. I told the hospital staff to call my husband and let him know that I was admitted. Of course they failed to do this, and hours later my family was frantically calling hospitals and police to find out what happened to me. It took hours of them searching to find me. The hosptial never contacted my family.

At the other hospital they took me up to the psychward, because I was suicidal they had me on suicidal watch. This put me in an area with some of their more severe mental cases. I was glad when they let me go to a less restricted area. After my husband found out where I was they transferred his call into my room. I remember he couldn't find the car keys, so he was mad and thought that I purposely hid them so he couldn't find them. Boy did that get me upset, why would I do something like that? I was so upset I started hyperventilating and the nurse made me hang up on him, she then gave me some drugs to knock me out. Come to find out, my little niece was with us, and you know how babies like to play with keys, she dropped them into the trash can. I couldn't believe I was going through all of this and he had to accuse me of that. I know he had some issues with me admitting myself. He thought it was crazy for me to do that. A few years later he became severely depressed, and I think then he had a better understanding of why I did what I did. It really wasn't that bad being in there. Although still all I wanted to do was sleep, but they make you get up and particpate in activities.

My recovery:

So I spent five days in the hospital. They had me on Paxil, Buspar, and one other that I had them take me off of because it had sedatives and I didn't need to be knocked out, I still had 3 kids to raise. The drugs worked for me though, because within a few weeks I felt completely normal again. That feeling I had of being a filing cabinet in complete chaos, became completely organized. Before I was such a mess I couldn't make a decision if my life depended on it, and at that moment I knew exactly what I had to do with my life. I needed to quite my job, and leave my husband. It was a pretty drastic thing to do at the time, but I have no regrets. Life is so much better now. Although life is still not easy for me, we all have days when we feel a bit overwhelmed, but never can I imagine going back to what life was like for me at that time. I was pretty poor for those months following these changes. I gave up everything. It took me almost a year to get the job that I now have, which I am grateful for. My relationship with my ex-husband is better, although we don't always agree with our ideas of parenting, but most of the time things are fine with us.

End Note:

Depression IS a horrible thing for anyone to have to go through. Even those individuals that you feel would never end up like that do. It can strike at any time, and anyone. To feel that your life is so worthless is a terrible thing to have to face. If Depression falls upon you, do the right thing, GET HELP FAST. Don't be afraid, or embarrassed, you are NOT the only one. The statistics for Depression are extremely high. Don't feel that you can get through it yourself, don't try to be tough. GET HELP and stop living in your own personal Hell! LIFE IS WORTH LIVING!