Category Archives: depression

Stuck Between Entropy and Inertia

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Entropy is essentially a measure of disorder or randomness in a system. The fundamental rule of the universe is that things naturally move from being highly organized to being chaotic and spread. Think about your living space. There is only one way for a room to be perfectly neat and organized, but there are thousands of ways for it to become messy. Over time, without you putting in extra energy to clean it, the room naturally falls into a state of messiness or “high entropy”.

Human inertia is the psychological and behavioral tendency to resist change and maintain the current status quo. Just as physical objects resist changes in their motion, individuals often stick with familiar habits, thoughts, and default options because doing so requires significantly less mental effort. the tendency to remain in an inactive or action-oriented state. For example, a person might stay in a stagnant routine simply because the energy required to make a change feels overwhelming.

I sprawl in my recliner, pointlessly gazing out my window, following random clouds skip across the summer sky while an occasional rosey-headed house wren stops by to express disappointment at the empty bird feeder. The sun rays slipping through the gnarled branches of the huge old oak tree in the front yard dapple my eyelids

Inertia dictates my day, and I barely have the energy to put my lunch dishes in the sink. The mail piles up and various sweaters stay draped over various chairs. Walking with the brace on my foot tires me out and makes my lower back hurt. It’s easier to sit.

And so I let entropy take over. My eyes close and the rest of the day disappears.

The Beginning of the End?

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My last post appeared here exactly one month and one day a year ago. The poem I wrote on that day pretty much describes what this past year has been like, filled with dental difficulties, lower back and joint pain, worsening my of hiatal hernia and GERD, and struggling with such existential issues as what the hell is the point of my being here at all at age 86.

Complicating my struggles even further is the fact that I fractured my right ankle badly four months ago, resulting in three separate surgeries and bouts in and out of rehab.

Currently, I am wearing one of those Star Wars-looking orthopedic boots on my right leg and a lift contraption on my right shoe to level out the length of my legs to enable walking. Yeah, right. It’s like trying to walk with a shoe box on each foot. So I have to use a walker to keep upright.

I have spent the past four months pretty much homebound with my foot elevated and my daughter taking on the exhausting role of caregiver — giving me my meals, my meds, and whatever access to the outside world that I need to have, including trips to the doctors and careful forays onto the deck in the backyard (weather permitting).

I can’t help looking at this as the beginning of the end, because from now on, it’s only going to be one thing after the other, as my assorted healers keep track of my chronic kidney disease, the damage to my digestive system, and the need for pain management of my back and knee.

In the past, I never thought about how long I might live, since my life was always filled with distractions from hard realities — fun hobbies, good friends, and variety of other interests. Now I often think about dying — when, how, why — and whether I’ll ever again have a compelling reason to keep the end at bay.

Right now, it’s like I barely exist on any kind of meaningful level.

Back in the old Blogger days, many of those folks made the point that blogging was a way to write themselves into existence.

So here I am, again, attempting to write myself back into existence, trying to find a point to it all, after all. Hoping to find a desire for desire.

The Exile of Age

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We take comfort where we can —
the cuddle of a soft chair that rocks;
rich chocolate, ripe berries
on tongues hungry for savor;
a healer’s hands on aches holding
lost assurances of potency and privilege.

Age sucks from our days the granted
pleasures of the unknowing young,
whose dreams of hope and promise
bring fervor and spice to their days.

Instead, our days task us with
the release of expectations,
tbe realities of dispiriting limits,
leaving our nights to wrestle with
unexpected regrets and
pointless Escher dreams.

ponderings on a typical April day

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NERO FIDDLED; TRUMP GOLFS

History says that the fall of Rome was caused by a number of factors, including internal corruption, trade issues, wars over expanding territories, and incompetent leadership. Legend says that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. History will report that Trump golfed while American democracy collapsed for those very same reasons as Rome’s demise.

BOREDOM
“A desire for desires.” That’s how boredom is referred to in Chapter 8 of Anna Karenina. I can identify with that these days. I wish that there were something that excites and motivates me, that fills me with a desire to create, to imagine, to become involved with. I desire to have a desire. Instead I watch a lot of tv and sleep. And play brain games on my Amazon Fire Tablet, Word Chums with a friend, and Words With Friends with one of my former college profs. But I have no energy. Even getting out for my African Drumming class has become a chore. I keep doing it because it’s the last thing I have that gets me out of the house, despite the lower back pain that makes it hard to carry my drum. I have no more interest in knitting or sewing or any of the crafts in which I engaged for decades. I need an adventure, but I have no idea what that might be. I am bored to the extreme.

ENTROPY
It looks as though this will be the year that parts of my body start falling apart. I just had a thyroid biopsy and will get the results this Friday. My sacroiliitis has flared up again, and so I’m off to the Pain clinic later this month to get re-evaluated so I can get another series of injections. I broke a clasp on my partial denture and have to get a new one, although it never is going to fit perfectly because of the location of my missing teeth. I need new glasses, unless I get my cataracts removed, but I’m not sure I’m up for one more medical procedure. I guess I’ll wait and see what the results of the biopsy are.

ADOLESCENT ANGST
I found this old poem I wrote when I was about fifteen. I guess I was depressed even back then.

I hear the dreary, mournful refrain
Of the steadily falling downpour of rain.
Not the rain of a wild and stormy night,
With furious streaks and flashes of light,
With tormenting winds of passionate force
And eerie outcries from an unknown source.
Not the kind of rain that rises from hell
And holds all the world in its magical spell.
Not the kind of rain that’s so torrid and splendid —
That you still stand in wonder even after its ended.
And still not the rain that’s mellow and mild
As sweet and refreshing as the smile of a child.
Not the shower that calls all of nature to waken
With gentle caresses that leaves all unshaken.
Not the rain that makes every creature feel new.
Not the rain that leaves the world sparkling with dew.
But a gloomy depressing curtain of gray
That covers and hides all the brightness of day —
A shroud of depression, a mist of despair,
A cloak of discouragement, everywhere.

“plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”

The struggle to be heard.

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To be “heard” is to be visible, to be acknowledged as valued and appreciated.

Today is the 55th birthday of my incredibly articulate late-diagnosed autistic son.  Today he posted about marking the completion of his having to date traveled 32,120,000,000 miles around the sun.

His writing is thoughtful, moving, honest. But between his autism and what looks like is going to be diagnosed as a bad case of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, the only place he can hope to be heard is over the internet. He really needs to write his autobiography, but that’s a challenge I don’t think he can find the “spoons” to master.
He  ends his post with this final poignant statement:

Thirty-two trillion miles is a long way to travel, and that doesn’t even include the miles accounted for by Earth’s rotation, let alone the rotation of our solar system around the galactic focus. That’s a lot of mileage I’ll be accruing even as my autistic and myalgic fatigue increasingly keeps me confined within a one-mile radius here in downtown St. Johns.

The passage of every mile, be it on foot or on orbit, subtracts a portion of life. I’ve already traveled a considerable portion of the way toward my death, and now I’m closing in on the reality that I mostly will move only as the planet carries me around the sun. So, then, maybe all of this is why I’m here, once again writing into the great and yawning abyss of the web: as my real geographies contract, perhaps I’m reaching—flailing, really—toward those ethereal, untouchable geographies.

For now, anyway. Until I quit on it again, or everything else up and quits on me. Which, at some point, it will, and must. As it will, and must,  for everyone.

So it goes.

Here we go again.

Happy Birthday, Bix. I wish I had the magic that could take away your pain –existential and otherwise.

Like Lazarus

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Like Lazarus, this personal blog periodically comes back to life. This time in the midst of major world crises — war and death, planetary destruction, political insanity.

I am feeling lost in the middle of all of this — tired, unconnected, useless.  The tiredness is overwhelming.  Nothing inspires me.  So I sit down to write to try to tap into that place deep within me where there must still be signs of life.  It takes an effort just to do that much.

I  continue to struggle with the inability to fall asleep.  A combination of Abilify and Melatonin seems to have begun working.  Time will tell.  The Abilify was prescribed (added to my depressive meds) because last year I was diagnosed with Bipolar 2, which means, while I don’t get manic, I do have periods of significant mood swings that affect my life.

But I am still tired during the day, and nothing seems to pique my interest — no crafts, no projects…  I only occasionally leave the house.  It doesn’t help that the magnificent maple tree outside my window is intently shedding dry brown leaves instead of turning its usual Autumn color palette. The brittle leaves are piling up in inches-thick mounds.

Notice that none of my neighbors have leaves in their yards.  It must annoy them to have the breezes send some of ours onto their well-manicured lawns.  My son-in-law usually mows the fallen leaves into mulch as the season progresses, but this pile-up is overwhelming.  When he has time, he will figure out what to do with them.

I have plenty of time, but I can’t seem to figure out what I want to do.  I check the calendar my senior center and circle programs to consider.  But all I do is consider.

The one thing that keeps me going is my relationship with the man to whom Match.com accidentally sent me, even though I canceled my subscription years ago.  The same age as I am, and a fellow Pisces, he amazes me with his perseverance and positive attitude. We both struggle with health issues (I had my right knee replaced last June), and we live an hour’s drive apart. So getting together can be a challenge, but we manage.  And having lunch every other Friday with him and his sister is also an incentive.

I saw something on the senior center page that I am considering.  They are looking for town residents to help “build an age-friendly community….help shape the future of an Age and Dementia Friendly East Longmeadow”.  Well, I sure know about age and dementia, and I sure would like to become part of some community.

Meanwhile, the poor Palistinian people are being annihilated.  Where is there justice in all of this? Gaza is about the size of Philadelphia; Israel in a little smaller than Massachusetts, but has a strong military.  Although Israel is fighting Hamas, it is killing  ordinary Palistinians who  have nothing to do with Hamas. Looks like David and Goliath, and Goliath is going to win. Why isn’t neighboring Egypt offering to take Palistinian refugees, who are caught in a cage with no way out?  Gaza and the innocent people in it are fodder. And America is backing Goliath.  At least, why aren’t we working with Egypt to rescue the women and children of Gaza?

 

Dooce is Dead

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“Dooce” was the blogger name of Heather Armstrong.

The pioneering mommy blogger Heather Armstrong, who laid bare her struggles as a parent and her battles with depression and alcoholism on her site Dooce.com and on social media, has died at 47.

As a personal blogger back in the early blogging days, Dooce inspired and pushed the envelope for many of us trying to establish our own authentic voices on the internet.  As she succeeded in writing herself into existence, she paved the way for personal bloggers, like me, to use that public format as a way to navigate our ways through tumultuous personal times because we did not have to feel isolated and unheard.

For me, it included years of being an abused caregiver; the five days I sat with my mother while she died;  my debilitating struggle with not being about to fall asleep; my experiments with medical marijuana; and my ultimate sleep solution with an unusual pharmaceutical.

Like Dooce, I suffered from depression, but unlike her, I have been able to control mine, and, in association with that, to finally fix my sleep problem.  For years, I tried to convince doctors that my inability  to fall asleep was a matter of inefficient brain chemistry.  While my depression meds triggered certain neurotransmitters that produce the chemicals that supported mood, they did not deal with dopamine.  After doing extensive reading on the subject, I was convinced that my brain’s inability to trigger dopamine was behind both my mood swings and my sleep deprivation.  A psychiatrist finally prescribed Abilify (which triggers dopamine) and my problems were solved.

I think of what Dooce endured as she struggled to find a solution to her depression.  Her depression grew worse, leading her to enroll in a clinical trial at the University of Utah’s Neuropsychiatric Institute. She was put in a chemically induced coma for 15 minutes at a time for 10 sessions.

She finally committed suicide.  What if her struggle could have been lessened if she just were given the blend of meds that would have balanced her brain chemistry?  Why isn’t there  more research being done to produce the pharmaceuticals that will help brain neurotransmitters produce and maintain the necessary balance of the chemicals necessary for mood balance: dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins?  One big motherfucker happy pill that balances imbalanced brain chemistry.

Dooce committed suicide because life’s pain was more than she could handle.

Last night on the series “911: Lone Star”, a character with the last stages of Huntington’s Disease commits suicide, using what looks like helium inhalation. I happen to believe in the right of an individual in terminal stages of an illness to choose to end their life on their own terms.

I also believe that folks should be more comfortable talking about death and dying. ,  Back in 2010, there was a movement to set up “Death Cafes”.

At a Death Cafe people, often strangers, gather to eat cake, drink tea and discuss death. A Death Cafe is a group directed discussion of death with no agenda, objectives or themes. It is a discussion group rather than a grief support or counselling session.

I, for one, would love to  have access to a Death Cafe, and even suggested that a local senior center hold one.  The idea was never even considered.

At  age 83, I think about dying, since it could happen any day, now.  I also think about living, and doing what I can to make what life I have left continue to be a hoot.  But I would love to meet with kindred folks who, like me, want to be emotionally ready when the time comes, not matter how it comes.

Dooce is dead, too young, too fraught with pain.  There had to have been a better way for her.  There has to be a better way for all of us.

I’m Dreaming of Dead People

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The one possible side-effect of taking Abilify that I have developed is having disturbing dreams.  I dream every night, and, except for occasional nights when I dream of still-living people — like work colleagues and former friends — my dreams have been filled with people in my life who are dead:  my parents, my ex-husband, my cousin Lorraine, one of my former boyfriends, my former boss, and even a guy I dated my freshman year in college who, I heard, died years later on an operating table. I was surprised that I even remembered him, as well as his name.

My dreams are fraught with frustration, as I navigate Escher-like landscapes in which I rarely find a way to get where I want to go.  The landscapes, based vaguely on places I have worked, lived, and danced, and are dark and distorted.  The people I encounter (not just the dead ones) make me feel uneasy, as though I know they don’t really like me.

I am always trying to get someplace, and I always can’t find where I parked my car. My efforts are thwarted by people and circumstances over which I have no control.

When I first started taking Abililfy, I had actual nightmares in which I was afraid for my life.  I would wind up forcing myself to wake up, and then I would lie there trying to figure out from where it was all coming.

There was a time, before I developed (and solved) a Circadian Rhythm problem, that I always had vivid dreams filled with color and sound and engaging adventures.   I still dream in color, and often hear sounds, including conversations, the actual words I can’t remember after I awake. It feels like I’m living in some alternate dystopian reality.  It is all too  real and unnerving.

I hope other dreams will come — sweet dreams the realities of which are comforting rather than disturbing.  For now, I will continue to try to figure out why I am always lost and searching and why there there are all of these dead people complicating my dream life.

I am still here.

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I am still here because I have a “mediocre autistic” superbly articulate blogger son who got me into all of this more than two decades ago and still continues to remind me why we bloggers blog.  “Because we can’t NOT.”

Most of my recent posts have been about my struggle with a Circadian Rhythm Disorder wherein I could not fall asleep — usually not until 3 or 4 am, and sometimes not at all for 24 or more hours. This went on for years, despite my suggesting to my doctors (after much reading and research) that my problem is probably a matter of brain chemistry — the lessening of the functions of the neurotransmitters responsible for the hormones that regulate mood and sleep (and many other psychological responses as well).

I tried  taking amino acid supplements, which are the precursors to the production of those “happy” hormones.  I also tried various herbal supplements that supposedly help with bringing on sleepiness.  All to no avail.

All it took was one psychiatrist and a prescription for Abilify (added to my current anti-depressive) to solve the problem.  Within a week, I was back to a “normal” sleep pattern, no longer depressed, and full of creative energy.  The answer was dopamine; that’s what my neurotransmitters were failing to transmit.

While am not a big supporter of Big Pharma, and while I hate the ads on tv for depression medication, the hard truth is that Abilify is working for me.  It’s almost miraculous.

It makes me angry to know that my problem could have been solved years ago, had any of my doctors thought beyond the typical environmental suggestions for fixing sleep problems.

Finding a psychiatrist was depressingly unsuccessful until I stumbled upon Talkiatry.  I used Linkedin and a Google search to check out the psychiatrist to whom they assigned me and found that he had impressive credentials.  He spent more than on hour with me on on a telehealth visit and discussed with me all I had been through.

I agreed to try Abilify.  And, now, here I am.  I continue to have follow-up telehealth visits with him as he checks in on how I am doing.  So far I have no side effects, although I am having frequent very disturbing dreams.  I will discuss that with him during our next virtual visit.

At age 83, I want to enjoy this last phase of my life, despite the typical aches and pains of aging.  Now I can.  Drugs.  Sometimes you just have to.

Sleep still won’t come.

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Months and years have gone by as I unsuccessfully struggle to find something to help me fall asleep. I have blogged about it various times, the latest here:  I never did the Ketamine Therapy for various reasons.

Over the years, Ihave undertaken several steep studies, the results of which say that I have apenea and need a CPAP.  But, I say to them “Once I manage to get to sleep, I sleep.  I just can’t FALL asleep.  A CPAP will not do anything to help me fall asleep.”

Last night I did an at-home sleep test, which required that I wear a strap around my chest so that a sensor was where my heart is, a tube around my ears and into my nose so that my breathing could be tracked, and a sensor on my finger to gauge my oxygen levels.  Even though I took some of the mariijuana gummies that often help get me sleepy, I was awake all night.  Well, I might have dozed off now and again, but mostly I watched the hands of the clock move through the night.  All of the paraphernelia I had to wear did not encourage sleep.

I know that we are advised not to get medical help off the internet, but the various doctors I have been to can only advise me to use a SAD light in the morning and go and sit before it.  That’s the standard way to fix a Circadian Sleep Disorder.  But I am so tired in the morning that I just can’t get myself out of bed until almost noon.

I have a theory that I can’t seem to get the doctors to consider, so I have been researching the way neurotransmitters have to work in order to support sleep and stave off depression. Severe, chronic stress, sleep deprivaion, and some drugs can cause neurotransmitter depletion. Some researchers believe that insufficient levels of neurotransmetters could lead to feels of sadness, depression, and sleep problems. One of the therapies that specialists use is Amino Acid Therapy, which provides the specific nutrients that the body needs to built its own neurotranmitters and rebalance the brain. I have been taking supplements, but apparently they are not enough.

Without an amino acid infusion for neurotransmitter balancing, it’s not unusual for patients to deal with an absence of dopamine or GABA, which means that they have difficult time resting, relaxing, and sleeping. Most importantly, neurotransmitter balancing reduces stress. With these natural chemicals, patients return to the point of equilibrium and feel more in control of themselves.

There are other theories that I am researching, including one that involves the brain producing an enzyme when under severe stress that diminishes the effectiveness of the “happy” hormones that the neurotransmitters send out.

My Circadian Sleep Disorder began during the five traumatic years I spent caregiving my mother while we lived with my brother in his house.  I slept when she slept, forced myself to stay awake when she was, and had to survive abuse from my brother.  When I finally moved out into my daughter’s house, I spent two years healing the best I good, but my sleep never went back to anything near normal.

I have always been a night person, but I still was able to fall asleep on a dime.  Not any more.

My plan is to discuss all of this when my doctor calls me with the results of the sleep test.  A Neuropsychiatrist is the specialist who can test for neurotransmitter functioning and prescribe a treatment.  There is one locally, and my goal is to get an appointment with her.

I desperately need to knit up my raveled sleave of care.