It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything here. It was never my intention to start this blog and then abandon it. However, it seems lately little has been going according to plan and that’s a big part of why I never post any more.
In my bio/info posts, I’ve talked a bit about my struggles with mental health but I’ve never gone into a lot of detail. With everything that’s going on, I feel like I should do that now.
I have been officially diagnosed (meaning a mental health professional diagnosed me) with major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and post traumatic stress disorder. I have also self-diagnosed myself with mild social anxiety as well as a specific phobia (emetophobia). Please note: I do not recommend self-diagnosis… If you feel like you have a mental health problem, go to a mental health professional to get proper care and treatment. Diagnoses only put a name on the problem, they don’t offer any kind of treatment and if you have no experience, you may end up diagnosing yourself with all kinds of things that you don’t really have.
Now that I have that out of the way, let me talk more about each of my mental health issues in more detail. (I’ll try to keep it from getting to clinical in here…)
Major depression was the first to emerge and, after reviewing my history with my psychiatrist, my first depressive episode probably occurred around age 13. I was severely depressed around that time largely because of environmental factors that had to do with middle school, etc. but still. I have experienced at least 3, possibly 4 major depressive episodes in my life and as a result, I’ve been on anti-depressants for many years. It is likely that I will experience many other depressive episodes in my life.
Generalized anxiety disorder wasn’t diagnosed until I was 23, maybe 24. Basically all generalized anxiety means is that I have a lot of anxiety about many, many things – too many to make it more specific. Technically, this means my social phobia kinda fits into this box but I distinguish it because it “feels different” (for lack of a better term). Anyway, GAD is a pain because I spend a lot of time and energy worrying about things. Some of them are big things, others are little stupid things. It’s aggravating. I take an anti-anxiety medication to help deal with this.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (aka PTSD) wasn’t diagnosed until the same time as my GAD, however I have had it since I was about 14 years old. My PTSD arose as a complication of rape. Yes, I am a rape survivor and no, I am not shy about it. I used to feel shame and I did not talk about my experience, however over the years I’ve come to understand that what happened to me was not my fault and that there is no shame in overcoming such a circumstance. My PTSD is mild now, after years of therapy.
My specific phobia is emetophobia which is the fear of vomit and/or vomiting. As I said, I self-diagnosed myself with this but anyone who knows me knows that it is true. Since I was a child I can remember being terrified of throwing up. Most people don’t like vomiting, it doesn’t feel good, it doesn’t taste good, but they get it over with and move on. I can’t do that. If there is a stomach virus going around, I’m on constant vigil, making sure not to come into contact with anyone who has it, washing my hands, spraying things down with Lysol… I’m very careful about exposure to food that might be contaminated. And this makes me just about the worst wife/friend when someone is sick to their stomach because I can’t stand to be around them. I’m actually terrified of becoming pregnant because of the possibility of morning sickness. It’s really frustrating to deal with this all the time but most of the people I’ve approached about it agree that exposure therapy is the best way to deal with a phobia and for emetophobes that means giving them ipecac. Uh, no thanks – I’ll just try to deal on my own, thanks.
… That was a lot longer than I meant it to be but anyway, that is a picture of my mental health problems. On good days, I don’t have to deal with much, if any, problems. I have plenty of healthy coping mechanisms that I use to get through the normal times. When the stress ramps up, however, I have to go into a different mode to make sure that I’m really taking care of myself so I don’t start spiraling downward. Unfortunately, at times when things start piling up on top of one another, it almost seems unavoidable for me to fall into some kind of darkness.
I may or may not have mentioned here that my grandmother passed away on July 12th, two days before my 30th birthday. My father-in-law passed away about 6 weeks later and these two deaths have had a huge impact on me. I’ve struggled to grieve and get back on with my life and that, combined with a number of other stressors (Hurricane Isaac, work stress, financial issues, etc.) has brought me to a dark place.
I don’t think I’m fully depressed as I’m able to handle things for the most part, I’m just having trouble functioning to 100%. My diet has fallen by the wayside and I’m very fatigued and tired. When I’m not working, I spend a lot of my time at home either watching TV or sleeping. I haven’t been exercising and health-wise, I’m not taking good care of myself. We took a vacation at the end of October and I had hoped that would help rejuvenate me but as soon as I got back, things went back into the slump.
For now, I’m doing little things for self-care but my plan for January is to do another Whole30 and get my diet cleaned up, then start in on an exercise plan again. I always do better mentally when I’m doing well physically so I think it will really help. It’s just a matter of getting over the hump.
I think that’s all I have to say for now… I seem to run out of steam quickly these days and this post was no exception. Hopefully it will not be long before my next post. At the very least, I plan to document my Whole30 here so I will see you for sure on January 1st!
Paleorific! 