My Life With Depression and Anxiety

I'm not a smart man. For years people told me I was. I was a "gifted child." A teacher once told me I walked around with a cocky grin like I was ahead of everyone else. How wrong she was. When I look back on my life I don't necessarily have regrets, just a sense of awe and wonder that I have survived this long being as stupid as I am. I once popped my jeep out of four wheel drive during a snow storm because the roads seemed ok and I was trying to save on gas. Of couse on the next turn I hit some ice. The jeep spun, hit a ditch, flipped up a hill, and then rolled down said hill. I wasn't even bruised. In fact the only injury during the accident was to my passenger, who got some bruises when I unbuckled my seat belt and fell on him.(Sorry Brandon). I suppose there is something to be said for the engineering of old jeeps there somewhere. But that was just the time I gambled and lost. There were so many other close calls. Not to mention falling off ladders, being ...

I reached, what I think, was my lowest point ever Saturday night into Sunday morning. I didn't want to be alive anymore. I wrestled with this for hours from late into the night into early in the morning. Finally, some rational part of my brain that was still functioning told me to call 988. I was immediatley put through to a counselor. For an hour I poured out everything that was wrong with my life, chronic health issues, mental health issues, a missed promotion, a shitty job. For an hour I spewed and the man on the other end of the phone never tried to fix me or solve any of issues. He just calmed me down. I'm not dead so his methods worked. But as I searched for what had driven me so low the answer came in a way I was not expecting. I had hopes, dreams, expectations, and wants. I built things up in my head, good things might happen to me, and time after time after time after time I was disappointed. Some were just minor that bummed me out for a little while. Others were bigg...

 I take pills when I get up in the morning. I take a pill at dinner. I take pills before I go to bed. They do all different things. There's anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, and a blood pressure pill. There's supplements that help the prescription pills or help to offset the side effects. The morning pile When I look at my pill piles I always remember my grandmother complaining that she took too many pills. I also think about all the people you meet, see on TV, or online who say "I tried those pills and I didn't feel like myself." The evening pile Then I think about myself and myself sucks. I have bipolar one. Without the pills small things became a crisis. I might not be able to get out of bed under the crushing weight of my depression. On the other hand I might become so manic that my speech could be nonsensical and my whole body would shake and sweat. Either could make me want to end it all. My little dinner time treat With the pills I'm much more level. A...

      I live so much of my life in darkness that bright spots can seem exceptionally bright for a short time and like something I have to latch on to. As a kid I remember watching Star Trek in syndication in the afternoons with my father. Then in 1987 Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered.     It was a whole new thing. A new ship. A new crew. New adventures to watch. For me though the standout character was Wesley Crusher. I know over the last thirty years people have had a lot of thoughts about Wesley and that "shut up Wesley" has become a meme. But to me, just starting school, Wesley was my hero. He seemed to be just a little bit older than me, he didn't quite fit in any where. He was like I felt.     Much to my dismay when they released the action figures for the series a little while later there was no Wesley action figure. Picard was there,Worf and Riker. Even Yar. But no Wesley. Despite that, those action figures saw a lot of u...

      Sometimes my depression goes sideways and becomes anger. It usually happens when I'm already in a depressive state and something triggers it. It can be a piece of bad luck, like a missed opportunity at work, an unexpected car repair or an unexpected home repair. Some other defeat, which my life seems to rife with and I become irate.     I'm not in a huff. I'm not pissed off. I'm irate.I want to smash things. I want to punch holes in the wall. I want to yell at people for being stupid, and I can yell really loud thanks to the "yard voice" I developed working in a prison. I want to go berserk.      I sometimes joke that my life would be a lot simpler and both mentally and physically healthier if viking was still a viable career choice.     Because you see, my own anger terrifies me. I'm a big dude I'm 6'8" and weigh nearly 400 pounds. Little bits of it have slipped out on rare occasions. I once smashed a bookcase ...

 Its been  a while. No I didn't get better. In fact I got worse. In July of last year I fell and fractured my elbow and did some nerve damage. It ended up sending me into a spiral of depression that lasted until very recently. I could barely use my arm. I couldn't pick up my children. I couldn't mow my own lawn. In short I felt useless. Ultimately I needed surgery to repair the arm which worked but I still couldn't pull myself out of this depressive episode. (Fun fact: Bipolar disorder is no guarantee of either range of emotions sometimes depressive episodes can last for months or years followed by a day or even less of  "up") Finally after months of therapy and some changes to my medication plan I've started to pull out of it. I went to a friends house the other day and I actually, genuinely laughed. Not just the forced guffaw I give to pretend that I'm OK but a real chuckle. Of course nothing can be simple. Right now is one of the most dangerous time...