Trigger Warning ⚠️, mentions of suicide
I experienced several micro-moments of joy while hiking, not one, but two separate trails with Rich yesterday afternoon. A first for us. I didn’t want the day to end.
It was a much-needed and welcomed reprieve from life at the moment. I did whatever I could to breathe it all in.
Hiking, being in nature, and moving my body help me to clear my mind of all the vicious lies my depression and anxiety feed me.
Today doesn’t feel like yesterday, though. Today, I woke up to those same cruel and daunting voices in my head, feeding me those same vicious lies. It’s difficult to shut them off today. My mind is racing. Their lies make sense to me. I believe them. Those micro-moments of joy suddenly feel so much less attainable than they did just one day ago.
My anxiety is jumping forward to the week ahead after that much-needed and welcomed reprieve yesterday from life at the moment, while at the same time, my depression is pulling me in the opposite direction, right down a rabbit hole.
One thing that’s been top of mind for me today is that today marks 10 years since Robin Williams tragically took his own life; a day that is still very much engraved in my memory.
I’ve told the story of that evening many times before. Some pieces of it still feel very fresh in my mind today. I was just 4 months into my own mental health journey the day he died. Moments before I had read the news of his passing on my phone, I’d been sitting in my car, all alone in a dark parking lot, my family and friends having no idea of my whereabouts (once again), contemplating my own suicide. It wasn’t the first time in that 4 month period, and it most certainly has not been the last time either where I have thought about or acted upon my thoughts of suicide, but it was suddenly the first time I began to truly understand the depths of my illness.
As the news quickly spread of Robin’s death, friends and family began texting and calling me concerned for my safety and wellbeing. The easiest solution, I just shut off my phone and the noise from the outside world. By now, I was visibly shaken, alone, scared, and suicidal. My only thought I had shortly after the initial shock was, “if someone of Robin Williams’ stature, who seemingly had it all, who always “looked” happy could take his own life, then what the heck am I waiting for?”
Those same thoughts still cloud my judgment today.
The truth is, we have no idea what someone else is truly thinking or feeling or what a healthy person’s brain versus a depressed person’s brain actually looks like to know for sure.
About a year ago, my Psychiatrist told me about another research study he was working on that he thought I’d be a great candidate for. By this point, I was completely done with being a guinea pig for science after my life turned into a nightmare a year earlier from the effects of the Psilocybin trial, but thankfully this new study wouldn’t involve me taking any type of psychedelics or shaving my head like another study I also considered participating in last year. All I would need to do for the study was have a brain scan, do some bloodwork, and answer a series of questionnaires to see if they can figure out the different causes of Depression. He called it “machine learning”. I told him I’d definitely be interested in participating. I’d love to see what’s really going on in that little brain of mine. At the time though, the study was in its infant stage and now, a year later, the study has still not begun so in the meanwhile, he connected me with a colleague of his regarding a similar brain scan study already in progress.
I spoke with his colleague at length about the current study sometime last month. I didn’t discuss my conversation with anyone afterwards, except for my Psychiatrist at our next session where he agreed, that although the risks involved with this other study were very minimal, my track record with antidepressants and psychelics would not be worth trying. I felt defeated once again. I felt helpless once again. Hopeless. And I felt like a failure for turning away another opportunity for the off chance it could help me, or someone else, but after hearing more about this current study during my appointment with the colleague, I quickly learned that it involved a lot more than just a simple brain scan.
For this study, I would be given a couple of functional MRI’s, particpate in several cognitive activities, reward tasks and also be administered an intranasal insulin (as well as a placebo) over the course of a 3 week period. This last part was where the conversation with the study coordinator went south for me.
In this brain “insulin” study, the researchers want to determine whether “brain insulin sensitivity” is related to an individual’s inability to feel pleasure or respond to dopamine, the feel-good mood chemical in our brains (also known as “anhedonia”), when suffering with a major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder.
The neurological damage I’ve endured from the Psilocybin trial is very real and has left me mentally and emotionally spent, not to mention the torture it’s caused my body for close to 2 and a half years now. So attempting to put any other chemicals into my body, natural or otherwise, for the good of science feels very scary to me at this point in my journey.
I know in my heart that my depression and anxiety lie to me. I also know in my heart that I want nothing more than to find a treatment that can help me. I have to believe one still exists and that tomorrow does still need me. It’s just really so damn hard some days to silence the cruel and daunting lies they keep feeding me. I do know for certain, though, tomorrow still needed Robin Williams, and it most certainly still needs you too!
*Please enjoy some pics I took yesterday on our hikes, which brought me so many micro-moments of joy.
*If you or someone you know is in crisis, help is available*
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YouAreEnough 