Update
November 23, 2003
I had not recovered as rapidly as I had hoped and continued to be depressed all through 2001 and 2002. I had figured out that the job I left in January 2001, even though I really had no choice but to leave, was an integral part of my identity as a "recovered" person and I have had to reinvent myself all over again.
With the help of my doctor, my friend Harry, and my husband I have come to realize that getting involved in another stressful job, especially in the shape I'm in, at my age, and with a left arm that's so severely injured it may require surgery (nothing to do with the job--I hate to admit it but the truth is I turned around and fell over a kitchen chair--threw out my left hand to break the fall and rammed my shoulder joint) is not the answer and would probably lead to another failure, which I definitely do NOT need.
So basically, I've been a housewife this year, which is something I never thought I'd be, but it beats sitting around on SSI killing my liver every day. My husband is not very demanding. All I do is dust and run the vacuum once a week and cook one meal a day (supper), wash dishes, wash clothes, do grocery shopping. He cleans the bathroom, washes walls, does windows, yard work, etc. I have plenty of time to read my books and mess with my computer. I have recently become involved in genealogy, which I never thought I would be interested in.
I have been put on Risperdal, then Abilify, because of some depressive delusions I had about everyone around me being dead. The last straw came when my husband came home from work one day and I said, "What are you doing here? You died." I think it's working pretty well as I don't seem to be thinking this way so much now.
I guess after 16 years it's finally sinking in for me just how chronic mental illness is. I always knew it was but I take so much medicine and I've worked my butt off to stay well, and......IT STILL COMES BACK!!!
I remember during a hospital stay when I was 21 I received ECT as punishment. This was back when they didn't use any muscle relaxants or anesthetics. I broke a bone in my wrist from the seizure. But guess what? It helped me more than anything else I've ever had. I had some short term memory loss which soon came back. After that, I was almost normal for the first time in my life, and I stayed that way for five years. I got a job which I held for five years, eventually becoming a foreman. I learned how to drive. The panic attacks just kind of walked off into the sunset. I was neither high nor low, just content to live my life like most people.
Five years later all the bad stuff came back and I was in the hospital again. This time they were not using ECT anymore.
The point of me saying all this is the older I get, the longer the episodes seem to last. I am so tired of all the pills five times a day, and breaking and cutting some of them in half, and taking two one time and three the next, and two Topamax at night...there's no end to it. Not to mention the fact that your body changes, which means the meds have to change also. After menopause I had to start Wellbutrin in addition to SSRI's, I had to stop Tegretol and take Topamax instead, because the Tegretol wasn't clearing from my body like it was supposed to, and this was only one of many med changes. Add to this the fact that I'm a brittle diabetic who can't use a consistent treatment every day....no wonder I'm nutz.
I'm seriously ready to march into my doctor's office and demand a set of ECT but I don't suppose I'll get it until I have a gun to my head.
I do feel very fortunate in having my husband and my best friend. Without them, I'm not even sure I would have come this far. The really scary part is I'm old enough now to see my future if I had never gotten married--60 years old and living in the middle of the woods with 100 cats and assorted other critters--but I think I'll be OK now. I volunteer at the local cat shelter helping abandoned cats find good homes. I substitute teach. My husband is more than satisfied with my companionship and the things I do for him. And if I never have a full time job again, so what? Btw, I finally got the ECT, and it improved things tremendously.
