I went to therapy yesterday, and I have to say, despite the fact that I have good days here and there, increasingly I am having bad days. The winter is totally getting to me. I have a tendency to react to the numerous cloudy days with Seasonal Affective Disorder. Last year I managed to escape it, and I was so pleased. It took lots of proactive planning and purposefully taking care of myself in order to do it. This year has had so much going on, I guess I have missed the boat on this.
Since my mother passed away in October, a week after I started graduate school, my life has seemed totally shaken. Mostly I have been just getting through it day by day and using those powerful thoughts I was talking about in another post. I feel, I ground, I regroup, I contain, I get perspective, then look forward and move on. Problem is, I have given myself very little time to grieve. It's hard when there is so much going on. I just keep plugging forward, and yes, in doing so, I have not taken the best care of me.
On good days, I am fine, and I know things will get better. On bad days, I try to push on through the storm, and many days I act and look as if things are all ok. It's like I feel like if I just keep going everything will be fine. If I can just keep smiling, just keep holding my head up, and perhaps if I act "as if" things are fine, they may actually turn into "fine." Well, lots of times that works, but when there is real grief to be had, this can really work against you.
So now I feel like everything is coming to a head, and I have really been struggling just to function week to week. However, I have attributed every bit of it to stress. I have totally ignored the fact that I do have Major Depression since it has been in remission for so long, and I just haven't even looked at the posibility that depression could be a part of all of this. It's like I am not seeing the forest for the trees.
Well, my therapist who, God bless her, listens to me week after week, has the gift of objectivity, and she hears my words, sees my body language, and she hears depression at the core. She proposed that perhaps everything appears so intensely overwhelming because of depression. She read back to me things I have said over the past couple of weeks, and I sat there dumb-founded. Now, I could see it too because having her present my words to me like that gave ME objectivity, and I could see all the signs sticking out at me clear as day. She gave me a quick assessment to do, and low and behold, I ranked in the moderate to marked depression range.
Wow........I really had missed this entirely! Of course I was like, "But I'm not this way every day. I have some good days." To which she pointed out it's a "more days than not" kind of thing, and I had to concede. She is right. Then I was thankful, very thankful because I have been just whack and coping by dealing with each issue as it came....sort of like putting out fires but never knowing exactly what's starting them or what's keeing them going. I will be driving down the road and just starts crying for no apparent reason! Like a pregnant woman on TV! I mean, tears streaming down my face, and no thoughts I could trace them too. I honestly think there has just been so much emotion that I have shuffled aside that it has just been leaking out here and there, but I have not been facing it, so here I am.
Normally I do not catch this until I guess I would be considered in that severe range. Because I don't really recognize the depression is setting in until I have day after day, week after week of it not getting any better. That's too late as evidenced in this series of posts I wrote. However, I do know what to do to help myself when depression comes knocking, so I am thankful for my therapist picking up on this and making me aware of the issue.
I need to pace myself out better. I need to take time for myself. I need to enjoy the sun while it's out to the fullest. We have had three days straight of sunlight, and it has been awesome! I need to spend time with freinds! Actually, a lot of times I need to do the opposite of what I feel like doing. That skill helps me out a lot because what do we feel like doing when we're depressed? Stay home, be alone, sleep, "veg out". That only makes it worse, so when I feel like staying home and alone, I make myself do the opposite because I know it will be good for me in the long run. My p'doc did tweak my medication a bit (up 5 mg), so we'll see if that helps, and honestly, somehow just knowing what's really going on helps tremendously. You cannot change what you aren't aware of.
So, interestingly enough, I then go to one of my graduate classes right after all this, and the professor decides today that she will deviate from the course topic and speak about self-care for Social Workers. :) She also talks about Depression and how it can creep up on people under stress and can often be hidden. She passes out a quick assessment thing with scoring info on the back in case we're interested, and guess what! It was the same one my therapist gave me. So, ok......note to self.......pay attention, listen to yourself, take care of yourself, and allow yourself your emotions. Sprinkle in some fun. Go out with friends, listen to music, watch comedy on TV, take frequent breaks from all the studying, and most of all, cut yourself some slack. Through all this I have managed to earn straight A's. I am a total go-getter, multitasking, over achiever. There can be too much of a good thing.
I decided to look up this Depression Assessment, and I found the same one my therapist and professor used on-line. It can be taken, scored, and interpreted in minutes. I thought it might be a good idea to post it. It is the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale. I will add it to my links in the sidebar. Perhaps it will be as helpful to others as it was to me yesterday.
Heres anoth thing I was dealing with the past few weeks. Things have been such a struggle I have been wondering how in the world will I ever be able to be a therapist?????? Now that I have gotten a bit of perspective, the reality is that our therapists are people too. They are not perfect. They have their own struggles in life. TRUST ME on this. It's true. For my Data Analysis class my group did a survey of MSW students, their personal experience with therapy, and their attitudes towards the use of mental health services as a therapist, and the overwhelming majority had previous experience in therapy, and indicated that their personal life experiences played a major role in their choice to become a Social Worker. Another group did a survey on trauma, and every single respondent indicated that either they have personally experienced trauma or someone very close to them had. Interesting......
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I can totally relate to this. My days are spent with people who have mental problems, are destitute, have drug/alcohol problems, and are angry at life, so it's easy to pick some of it up. With the problems I have anyway, I don't always realize when I've "brought it home."
Posted by: Ivory | 03/06/2011 at 01:01 PM
Lothlorien, thanks for sharing this information. I read somewhere years ago that most people in the helping fields of society - doctors, nurses, teachers, counselors, therapists, etc. do so because of their own desire to help others because of their own childhood issues. Helping others is how many of us get to feel good about ourselves. What I discovered for myself was that I wasn't really that good at helping others until I learned to help myself to heal from my incest and adult children issues.
Posted by: Patricia - Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworker | 05/30/2011 at 07:33 PM
I agree, and I am hoping that when I graduate in two years I will be in that place. At the current time it looks very promising. :) However, I should also preface this by saying it is a continual process and one I plan to continue to explore and evaluate throughout my life.
Lothlorien
Posted by: Lothlorien | 05/30/2011 at 09:05 PM