Mitigating the Madness

Not So Alone

Having someone to talk to that actually seemed to care about my well being made a huge difference. While my depression was still there tugging at the corners of my consciousness every day, it wasn’t all consuming like it had been. Despite other problems in my life having a companion made it easier to fight the dark thoughts.

As I grew closer with this mysterious person on the other side of the country, I made them a promise. No matter what I would always keep trying and never give up. Nearly twenty years later, I’ve managed to keep that promise though it has been anything but easy.

Not having access to the mental healthcare that I needed to get better left me searching for answers on my own. I tried the “getting out in nature” method, and while it was a temporary relief during the time I was outside it did little to help when I was unable to spend my days wandering through the woods or sitting in parks. As the seasons began to change, being outside was becoming less and less feasible. With winter and the cold came the inability to access a lot of the spaces that I had been previously going.

Meanwhile, I was still trying to educate myself about being bi-polar, but the more I began to wonder if that was in fact the correct diagnosis. Some of the symptoms that fit with bi-polar, weren’t necessarily ones that I had. I thought back to the appointment when I was diagnosed, could they have been wrong? Did they just think of the first thing that came into their mind because I had “mood swings”? They didn’t even know what gender dysphoria was, could they have missed something else with their ten minute diagnosis?

After a few years of struggling, though not as badly as before, I finally went back to a therapist. I told them everything that I had gone through trying to get help with my mental health problems as was told that I probably didn’t even have bi-polar, but rather depression.

Well duh… I’d known for quite some time that I was depressed.

After a couple of sessions, I really didn’t feel like this therapist was going to be a good fit for me. I kept getting the “what do you want from therapy” and my answer never seemed to be good enough. I knew I wanted help, I wanted to no be depressed, to work through the trauma of my childhood. I wanted to learn how to be something akin to normal, like everyone else, but because I didn’t know how to do any of that, or what specific type of therapy I needed, I felt like I was just an annoyance.

This is pretty much how any therapy session went for me for years. When I went, I was asked “what do you want from therapy,” and I could never explain to the therapist’s liking or maybe even understanding what I wanted or needed so bad. When I tried medications, they didn’t help and the hurdles to overcome in order to try something else was just ridiculous.

On one occasion, I was supposed to continue to take a medication that made me suicidal for a set period of time before the doctor could try something else. Had I continued that medication, I have no doubt that I would not be sitting here behind my keyboard sharing my experiences with you. So I stopped trying medication and went back to dealing with my mental health issues on my own.

Then I had my first panic attack, and while I know and understand what was happening now, at the time I didn’t. I don’t remember much of what led up to it, but I do remember collapsing in the yard of the place where I was staying and not being able to stand back up. I felt like I was being crushed, I couldn’t breathe, and not knowing what was happening made it worse. I ended up in the back of an ambulance, embarrassed and ashamed, hugging my purple rabbit stuffy and crying thinking that I was in fact, finally dying.

Obviously I didn’t die, but I sure felt like it. I spent the day in the emergency room having test after test run. Finally the doctor reached the conclusion that I had experienced a panic attack. Up until this point I had had times when I felt panicky, when there was a slight tightness in my chest, but I had always thought it was just allergies or I was nervous. It had never gotten to the point of a full blown panic attack before. The emergency room doctor prescribed me the first medication that actually helped with my mental health. He gave me a low dosage of Xanax. I was instructed to only take them when I absolutely needed to, and I ended up nursing that bottle of Xanax for three months. Then I tried to get my PCP to refill the prescription, and they refused.

The respite I had from my anxiety was a short lived three months. I know I haven’t mentioned my anxiety much until this point, and that’s because looking back I only recognize now that what I was experiencing was anxiety. I really thought that what I was going through was normal for everyone, after all that’s what my mother had told me…

Now I knew I was dealing with depression and anxiety, and that I wasn’t going to get any help from my doctor for the latter of the two. History had already told me that seeking help for depression always ended up poorly. As a result, I started avoiding anything that caused me anxiety. Knowing what it was like to not experience those unwanted feelings had made me rather enjoy being at least somewhat normal, and if I couldn’t get a doctor to help me with medication, then I decided to avoid them altogether.

After all no triggers, meant no anxiety, right?

At least that was my flawed logic at the time. My very, very wrong flawed logic.

{to be continued…}