Black Holes, Climbing Out Of

I had never really understood the stigma around talking about mental health. Friends and family members have needed various sorts of counseling or mental health help over the years and I've always been an enthusiastic supporter. Your brain is part of your body and no one debates taking care of their heart or bones or anything else, so get thee to whatever medical professional you need at the time and address whatever medical situation you have with a view to a healthier future. I couldn't imagine why it always had to be so secretive.

When Landon had tantrums around age 8 that none of us could control or understand, we went to a children's therapist. I never questioned that step. As soon as we saw we were in over our heads, we got ourselves to someone who knew more than we did and everyone benefited. We didn't go for a while after that and then at age 10 it became clear the approach that had worked at 8 didn't work anymore, so we went to a new therapist. Maybe what we were seeing was normal tweenage behavior, but we go to a pediatrician every year despite his obvious physical health, so why not get a mental health check-up too? And we did. And it was helpful for everyone. I don't talk about it too much to respect his privacy, but I felt- and continue to feel- strongly that we took the right steps and to genuinely not understand parents who wouldn't pause a moment before calling a pediatrician but who delay for months or years or forever in calling a counselor. We all benefited from adding that professional to our lives and I hope Landon benefits for his whole life by knowing that the mental element of healthcare is important and there for him and those he loves.

I write this as background to say I am pro-counseling and psychology and psychiatry and see them all as an essential part of overall health. I don't want there to be a stigma around mental healthcare and I have benefited enormously from the people in my life seeking out help when needed and would passionately support anyone in doing the same.

And yet.

I have been seeing a therapist since February, been on medication since March, and I have not talked about it. To anyone, really. You could say it isn't anyone's business, and it's not. But I make all sorts of things other people's business through my blog- if I had a problem with anything else medical you know I would have written a dozen posts about it by now. I had skin cancer and took you all on an overly detailed photo journalistic journey of my zombie skin cream and the scarring that resulted from it. But on this, this huge, new thing that has occupied much of my mind for six months, on this I have been silent. It is a terrifyingly vulnerable thing to admit. All my earnest yet undeniably naive past assertions that "mental health is just part of human health, of course we should talk about it! it shouldn't be a secret!" fall to the wayside when it's me admitting what feels like some sort of failure. Like everything I've ever read as an excuse for not talking about mental health suddenly became true because it's me. That it's a weakness. That I should have been able to fix it. That it makes everything I've written for the first half of the year somehow less. That the happy stories are lies and now everything I write in the future will be read through that lens.

I know that isn't true. I know that because I lived the last six months and I know that anything I wrote was true. I also know I wrote less often for that to be so.

I fell down a deep dark hole after Christmas. I didn't know I was in a hole, but there I was, at the bottom of it anyway. You read so much about people just needing to reach out, but you can't reach out when you don't know you need to. I mean it's not an actual hole. It's sadness for no clear reason. It's needing a reason to be happy instead of needing a reason to not be. It's feeling utterly, unbearably alone when people surround you. It's irritability and a lack of patience, even as part of you knows what's happening isn't irritating and can't figure out why you're upset while the other half feels absolutely righteous in your upset and accepts this small, ridiculous thing as something you will never get over. It is feeling so protective over your flickers of joy that you absolutely lose it when something goes wrong and your fragile inner candle is snuffed out. Don't you know how hard I worked to feel happy and hopeful about something? How DARE you forget some small thing I told you to remember and now the whole day is ruined and I don't know how I'll get that happiness back again. ... I promise it all made perfect sense at the time.

It was James who told me something was wrong. It was me who trusted him and his intentions enough to believe it.

My first appointment with my therapist was terrifying. My hands sweated the whole time as I fought not to brush off her every question with a laugh and self-deprecating funny story. I realize now that wouldn't have worked anyway, but at the time answering "I don't know" to multiple questions in a row to a quasi-authority figure was perhaps the bravest thing I've ever done.

"She doesn't understand me at all," I told James after my first visit. "She's totally on the wrong track. It feels like a waste of time." But I kept going, because once I realized I was in the hole I was sure as fuck going to get out of it. And also because I had no idea how to break up with a therapist and I was afraid I'd never start going again to another one. Five months of biweekly visits later and I don't say that anymore. She understands me just fine, she is not on the wrong track, and it is very much not a waste of time. As it turns out, my mental health professional knows more about my mental health than I do.

And so, I have generalized anxiety disorder. I fought that label because I'm not anxious and I don't really worry about things, but that's not always how anxiety manifests itself. Anti-depressants are helping. I was on Lexapro for 2 days and it made me so sick I couldn't leave the couch because my head wanted to explode. I switched to Paxil and have no side effects at all. It's helping. I can feel it helping. I don't have a fight or flight reaction when something hits a stress point or past hurt. Or I don't do it as often and I recognize it better when I do. I still have a ways to go to remission.

The deaths of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain last week hit hard. Bourdain particularly because I'd just finished reading his book Kitchen Confidential and had loved it so much and recommended it to so many. Amy's blog post today hit even harder. I've read Amy since 2007 and she was one of the first to indignantly and supportively publicize what we were going through with Landon in Chicago. I don't have anything particularly wise to add to the conversation going on right now about mental health and suicide. I know that simply telling people to reach out for help isn't enough. Depression lies. Not just in big ways, like suicidal thoughts (something I never had), but in little ways too. In telling you that you're just not trying hard enough; or that you're all alone when you're not; or that nothing is wrong at all and your absolutely abnormal reactions are perfectly normal and justified. After all, you can't yell for help when you don't know you're in the hole. Depression lies.

I don't know what the answer is. I think part of it is actually treating mental health like any other regular aspect of healthcare. It's talking about it and showing what it looks like. Unfortunately I've discovered that poor mental health looks an awful lot like excellent mental health, but I don't think I knew that before. Earlier this year I kept thinking, but I'm still happy! And I was. I'm still social, I love my friends, I work out, I delight in nachos, I have a great job, I love my family... my shit is still together. And all of that was true. But I was still in a hole, feeling inexorably alone. Sometimes I'm still in it. I just know how to climb out now and Paxil gives me the ladder to do it.

I hope that it helps someone to know that. I feel at once more vulnerable and more complete for saying it. I keep coming back to the quote, "Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle." This is my battle right now. I'm thankful for access to the tools to help me fight it and I hope I can meet the people in my life better able to help them fight theirs. Even if that just means making someone feel a little less alone in the battle.