Category: Fears

What Will It Matter

In the wake of Hollywood’s latest scandal I have found myself engrossed in all its details and not only because of how disappointed I am in “Aunt Becky” but mostly because I see the damage it’s caused from a mental health perspective.

I’ve already been through the process of applying to University programs with two of my kids and in less than a year from now I will be doing it again for a third time so I know what it’s like. The process is stressful on everyone involved but sometimes as parents we make the process far more burdensome than it needs to be. Sometimes we may think we are doing what’s right for our kids but deep down it may just be our way of trying to fill our own void, doing more harm than good to them in the process. I mean heck, they are still kids when they begin the process in the first place so why wouldn’t we try and bias them. And let us not forget that only a few months prior to the start of University, while trying to make these life altering adult decisions regarding the rest of their lives, they were sitting in a high school classroom needing to raise their fricken hand to ask permission to go to the bathroom.

So I know that it’s hard as parents to want to do whatever we can for our kids if we think it will be in the best interest for their future but what’s most important to remember is that we need to listen to our children more than ever and stop pressuring them to be something we want them to be or what may look best to “The Joneses”. We quickly forget that all kids are different and that all kids have different needs as well.

Maybe if I had had more support and encouragement during this process back when I was in high school I wouldn’t have surrendered to the pressure from my parents or society and maybe I would have chosen a much different path, one that was better suited to my needs and wants. And even though it’s been over 25 years it has been a huge part of my pain and suffering over the last 5 years, something I never want my kids to feel because the pressures that teenagers and young adults face today are insurmountable compared to all other generations before them and it is taking a toll on their mental health like never before.

I never want my kids to feel like they were pressured to choose a career path they didn’t want or become someone their not. I want them to feel like they have the confidence and control over their own destination because of the support and encouragement they were given. And trust me when I say they have needed lots of it along the way thus far. You see, sadly at the end of the day, it’s the kids who wind up suffering the most, not the parents (unless your Aunt Becky). “Aunt Becky” didn’t listen to her kid’s needs or their desires and just saw the prestige and admiration from the Hollywood elite (or The Joneses in layman’s terms), or maybe she put her own needs first and felt the need to sit on the sidelines while bragging to the world (which seemed to be often) and forgetting how little it will matter in the end or who’s lives it may destroy.

Will it matter in the end that your kid got an early acceptance to the program they wanted or will it matter in the end if they don’t get into that dream school they wanted or will it matter in the end if they took a different path altogether? No, none of that will matter in the end. All that will matter in the end is that their successes, their failures and their future happiness always be supported and encouraged by you because all that will truly matter in the end is that they feel happy, healthy and empowered in spite of it all.

In Memory Of Lance: Our Broken Healthcare System

A couple of weeks ago I shared a post on Facebook which originated from the York Regional Police website in regards to a missing person in Thornhill. It’s sadly not uncommon to see such posts being shared by so many of us but this time around for me it wasn’t just a nameless face I was staring at on the screen but instead it was a face of a man that I had known since I was 8 years old. We both moved to Thornhill around the same time and attended the same Elementary and High School together. Our paths first crossed the year I had moved from Montreal and Lance had immigrated all the way from South Africa.

When the initial shock wore off I quickly became flooded with memories of a guy I once considered a friend. I remembered how funny he was, I remembered his beautiful smile, I remembered how disciplined he was, I remembered what a thriving gymnast he was (through his adolescent and teenage years he worked his butt off as a gymnast with the Canadian National Gymnastics team), I remembered how he fought so hard to pursue his dreams to the fullest and I remembered how much all the girls in Elementary school chased after him. And although we had gone our separate ways after High School I never forgot about my friend Lance and all those memories.

The only real contact we have had in the last 10 plus years was through Social Media but other than knowing he had become a lawyer, I didn’t know much more. He kept a very quiet presence on Facebook and I had no idea that a few days later after seeing his missing person picture all over Facebook that I would learn his fate and that Lance was no longer considered a missing person but instead that he had succumb to his battle with mental illness.

Every time I hear about another suicide it completely throws me into a tailspin but when I read about Lance’s lifelong struggles today through an article that was recently written by a Crime and Justice Reporter in connection to an interview conducted with both Lance’s mom and dad I became even more angry and even more saddened to learn the details of his pain and suffering. He battled with many mental illnesses, but his severe OCD is what began his demise, crippling his ability to function and ultimately leading to other diagnosis’s of depression and anxiety.

His parents talk at great length in the article about Lance’s struggle to find the proper treatment he so desperately yearned for and their heartbreaking words so sadly resonated with me, knowing that I face the same obstacles everyday with that same broken Mental Healthcare System. Their words made me feel so disheartened for him and every other individual struggling to find that proper treatment. It is so distressing just knowing how many other people like Lance or myself also feel so ostracized and stigmatized because of their mental illness.

The sad reality is that Lance’s story isn’t an isolated one, I mean I talk in great length and often about how broken our Mental Healthcare System is and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better with each new day or each new obstacle I face. This is why it’s more important than ever to talk, cry or shout about how badly our system is failing you or maybe your mom, your brother, your best friend or your own child. We have to be the voice and keep fighting to let all the Lance’s out there know that their lives were not lost in vain.

Feel free to read the article I referenced above.
https://www.yorkregion.com/news-story/9223123-frustration-of-life-health-care-system-claims-thornhill-athlete-ocd-sufferer/

Some Memories Are Unforgettable: Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)

Lately I’ve been noticing that my ability to retain small amounts of information is becoming more and more troublesome. If I don’t jot things down right away then I am sure to forget many significant or even trivial details that may be of importance to me. I also find myself losing my train of thought while in the midst of a conversation or even forgetting what I am talking about all together. Although I have been struggling more recently with my short term memory loss it has actually been of concern ever since I made the decision to do ECT (Electroconvulsive Therapy) 4 years ago.

I have mentioned ECT several times in my blogs but I have never really gone into much detail about my actual experience. But before I go any further I want you to know that this is by no means a public service announcement or in any way a deterrent from changing someone’s thoughts or feelings on this method of treatment or any other for that matter.

This, like everything else I write about is my own truth, my own story and my own reality. My intention is never to discourage someone from trying anything that may be beneficial to their own treatment of depression or other mental illnesses because if there is one thing I have learned throughout my journey it’s that no two truths are the same, no two stories are the same and certainly no two realities are either.

I share my own truth, my own story and my own reality in order to help give others some insight into this dreadful disease by bringing about more awareness, more change and more understanding. It’s not so black and white like many want to believe, there is often a lot of grey in between too. And it’s that grey area that led me to try ECT.

ECT has been around since the 1930’s which has thankfully been updated over time since the days of “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”, but still carries with it many of the same stigmas. ECT works by using electricity to induce seizures as a way of relieving the symptoms of many mental illnesses.

When I entered the hospital in October 2014 ECT was quickly presented to me as an option for treatment. I declined right away, but 2 months into my stay I was left feeling so defeated from the many medications that were failing me, that I decided to revisit the option, mostly because I just wanted to go home. I had observed many other patients regularly being scheduled for the treatment and I thoroughly trusted my team of doctors in my care. That was until I began my own treatment and almost immediately regretted my decision.

To have the best possible outcome, ECT is done a few times per week at a minimum of 8 to 12 sessions. Every morning that I was scheduled for a session a nurse would come into my room around 5:30 am, turn on all the lights, wake me up and start taking my temperature and blood pressure. Then the real fun began when she started pricking me with a needle in order to put the IV pic in my hand. I then could choose to go back to sleep or what I did instead was anxiously await my turn to be called down to the OR which could sometimes be many hours later. Once I was wheeled downstairs into what felt like a dungeon, I lay down on a cold hard table and the next thing I would feel was a sharp coldness burn through my veins as they injected me with the anesthetic before I drifted off to sleep.

Once the procedure was done and I was awake they would monitor me for about an hour until I was stable enough to go back upstairs. The days that I had treatment were extra hard for me as the immediate side effects were usually exhaustion, headaches and muscle pain. But I also began to experience terrible panic attacks from the whole treatment in general. My doctor tried to ease some of my panic and fears by making sure that I was first on the list of patients every time treatment day rolled around but after my seventh session and of course no sign of relief in sight I decided I couldn’t do another day.

If there was any sign that some of my symptoms were lifting I may have fought through the agony it was causing me but if after seven sessions of torturing myself to get through just one more, left me thinking there’s no way one more is gonna make a difference (but never doubt that my feeling like a failure again doesn’t cross my mind daily). And I was also beginning to understand the severity of how much memory loss I was having. Much of December 2014 and well into that new year have been pretty much erased from my mind and maybe that’s for the best, but it never seemed to have fully restored to the capacity I functioned at before I began the treatment.

I know ECT has saved many lives, but it just couldn’t save this one. I saw it save lives right before my eyes. I’ve seen brightness again in someone’s eyes and hope in another’s heart. They are the brightness and hope I’ve been longing for and the memories that never leave my mind.

My Vicious Circle

Depression and anxiety suck the life right out of me, both literally and figuratively. They make me feel inferior. They make me feel angry. They make me feel exhausted. They make me lose my sense of self-worth and they make me lose my will to live. Basically to sum it all up in one word, depression and anxiety make me feel useless.

Depression and anxiety create a vicious circle for me, one which can cause injurious results when trying to change one bad situation or behaviour that may be caused by another situation or behaviour and in turn often causes more damage to the original situation.

I try, I really do. I can even present myself to the world sometimes as eager and enthusiastic when I engage in tasks or chores that may be seen as appealing and enjoyable to most people but for me these simple tasks and chores quickly create a newer or greater problem by exasperating the old one and triggering a continuum of that vicious circle. Those seemingly simple tasks or chores rapidly become too overwhelming, too intimidating and darn right near impossible to follow through with, creating a wall (way bigger than Trump’s wall) which I don’t have the strength to climb over, precipitating further anxiety, panic and self-hate.

At first my eagerness and enthusiasm seem like a great idea, especially when looking on from the outside in. I want so badly to prove to the world that I can do it, but then without warning those emotions fabricated by my depression and anxiety cause me to feel worse, cause me to feel like a failure and most definitely cause me to feel useless. It’s as though I will never be able to accomplish anything at all and these overburdening emotions have taken away my will to want do anything at all anymore.

I know that several of my current situations I’m dealing with (and there are many) I have to approach in their own distinct manner as they all have their own distinct set of attributes but once I take a step back, take in a few deep breaths, ask myself some very important questions, set some very important boundaries, cry, yell and berate myself further I just feel more overwhelmed and muddled. I’m desperately trying to stop my vicious circle from continuing to spin out of control because listening to that voice in your head tell you all the time that you are incapable of achieving anything really can make anyone feel useless.

Dear Abby; Signed “Disheartened”

I used to love reading Dear Abby when I was a kid as I’m sure many of you did too (but it’s certainly okay if you were more of a closet reader). I had no idea until this week that Dear Abby was still such a thing, I mean never mind the fact that she died about 6 years ago at the age of 94, but who actually takes the time to sit down and write a letter with a pen and paper these days? (But kudos to you if you do!) Well the good news is that upon further research I discovered that you can still write to Dear Abby with a pen, a piece of paper and a stamped envelope or you can also visit her Facebook page (or website) and send your letter via email too! Phew!! Oh and I should also probably point out as well that her daughter Jeanne took over her very publicized advice column many, many, many moons ago.

So now back to why I started writing this in the first place (I tend to lose my train of thought quite easily these days). As I mentioned above, I happened upon one of Dear Abby’s millions of letters she receives as it pertained to mental health (but of course) and it popped up in my newsfeed from a site I follow and trust immensely. What I read was truly heartbreaking on so many levels, but from a mental health perspective her “advice” was both disheartening and alarming.

The letter was signed “Done With It”. In the letter the reader explained to Dear Abby that he had been suffering with severe depression and suicidal thoughts for many years now and that he was recently diagnosed with Cancer too. He wrote to her to ask her for advice as to whether or not he should share his Cancer diagnosis with his family as he felt that he just wanted to leave his Cancer untreated and let it end his life so he didn’t have to suffer any more.

How I believed Dear Abby would respond to her reader next and how she actually did were both shocking and frightening. I believed she would encourage him to reach out for help, lean on his loved ones and then give him some inspiring words of hope. But instead she did the unimaginable and erased every single bit of faith I had in someone with such an incredible opportunity to help millions of their trusted readers looking to her for aspiration. She told him that “if you have truly made up your mind to refuse treatment, I vote for not telling them, which could be construed as trying to put them on a guilt trip.”

A guilt trip? Are you kidding me? Opening up to others about your ideations of suicide whether they are passive or active ones should never be construed as a guilt trip. Take it from someone who lives with guilt every single day for feeling like a burden to those who love me and blaming myself for all that is wrong in the world while feeling like everyone would just be better off without me. It’s not guilt, it’s my reality, it’s my family’s reality and it’s the reality for millions of other vulnerable individuals reading Dear Abby’s “advice” and feeling shame for being alive.

Instead of using her platform to discourage a person from wanting to take their own life she all but encouraged him to just give up trying to beat both his depression and cancer. In my opinion she made him and many other hopeless individuals feel like it was the most practical option, like hey, what other choice do you have at this point, there’s no help for you and your life doesn’t matter to anyone.

So Dear Abby I have some advice for you this time; be careful how you choose your words next time. We have come so far in our fight to end the stigma against mental illness and you just took us back a generation or two with your isolating vocabulary. Maybe it’s time for you to pass the torch on like your mom did all those years ago, but hey if Dr. Ruth is still giving advice about sex at age 90 then maybe you aren’t ready for retirement at age 77! But the difference is Dr. Ruth’s advice isn’t a matter of life or death to someone you love.

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT! NO “SPECIAL K” FOR ME

Over the last couple of days there has been a lot of buzz on the news (especially CNN) regarding the drug Ketamine as it has recently been approved by the FDA for treating Treatment Resistant Depression. For those of you who may not know exactly what Ketamine is or have never heard of it before I will tell you. Ketamine is actually a very powerful drug which is used as an anesthetic and for all of you with teenagers out there it’s important to note that it is also an illegal street drug better known as “Special K”.

The drug is to be sold by prescription only under the name Spravato to patients suffering with depression and have been unsuccessful in trying at least 2 other medications to treat their symptoms (I’ve tried at least 20). Spravato is not intended to be taken orally but instead it will be administered in a nasal spray, under the supervision of a health care provider and cannot be taken at home.

The drug is to be given either once per week or once every other week and is said to be fast acting by restoring brain cells in treatment resistant depression patients. The side effects can be very unpleasant including “dizziness, nausea, increased blood pressure, anxiety, vomiting, suicidal thoughts, decreased sensitivity, sedation and disassociation, a feeling of being temporarily disconnected from your body and mind.” At this point in time since the drug is still so new for treating depression it is also difficult to know what the possible long term cognitive health effects could be as well.

Since the news broke about this potential ground breaking treatment I have literally been flooded with text messages and private Facebook messages from so many of you reading this right now who have been following my journey and want nothing more than to help me with my recovery. Your support and kindness is unfuckinbelievable. Just knowing how many of you are rooting for me is unfuckinbelievable and also knowing that I am in so many of your thoughts and prayers is beyond unfuckinbelievable.

Here’s the thing though, I already tried Ketamine. Two years ago. In one of my many hospital stays I was asked to join a research trial that the hospital had just been approved for. I filled out what felt like 100’s of pages of questions and was explained to in great length what this trial was hoping to do as a breakthrough in Treatment Resistant Depression. As with everything else I am presented with I said okay since my begging to go home wasn’t working, what else did I have going on to pass the time.

Once all the paperwork was approved I was scheduled to begin the next day. This was not a nasal spray, this was instead being done in the OR hooked up to an IV with a dose of Ketamine being administered intravenously. They told me I would receive a low dose of Ketamine for 45 minutes and that when complete I would have to lay there for another 45 minutes while the drug went through my system. I asked if I would feel anything and they said I may feel a little woozy. Well I was more than woozy. For 45 minutes I watched my life flash before my eyes while they were closed and I saw lots of psychedelic colours and images swirling around the inside of my head. In a nutshell, I hallucinated for 45 minutes straight and although I have never done LSD before, I’m pretty darn sure that’s what it felt like. I was beyond relieved when it stopped. I lay there for another 45 minutes afterwards just trying to come back down to earth.

I was scheduled to do this another 5 to 8 times over the course of a 2 week period but upon speaking with my psychiatrist in charge of my care at the time of my stay, together we decided it was best that I didn’t continue with the trial. But I guess that’s why they have trials, to see what works and what doesn’t. I of course just beat myself up every time I feel like I have failed at yet another treatment, no matter how big or small it is.

But what I really wanted to say from all this was thank you for letting me know you are thinking of me, thank you for continuing to check in on me and for taking the time to send me any new or pertinent information on what could possibly be that one promising treatment to help with my recovery. Basically, thanks for always having my back!

Poem: I Want To Live, But I Want To Die

POEM: I WANT TO LIVE, BUT I WANT TO DIE

I want to live, but I want to die
It’s an endless struggle, I will not lie.

I want to live, but I want to die
My heart is heavy, there’s no denying.

I want to live, but I want to die
I find some comfort when I can cry.

I want to live, but I want to die
I dream of ways to say goodbye.

I want to live, but I want to die
My feelings are valid and very justified.

I want to live, but I want to die
Will I ever become that butterfly?

I want to live, but I want to die
I feel so confused and mostly terrified.

I want to live, but I want to die
So I need to ask the question why?

I want to live, but I want to die
It’s so hard some days to even try.

I want to live, but I want to die
I wish the two could see eye to eye.

I want to die, but I want to live
To show my illness what more I have left to give.

Get Me Off This Hamster Wheel

It’s been a really hard week for me. There isn’t just one thing in particular that has made this week really hard but instead it’s been a combination of many things much of which I will not disclose of today or maybe not ever because even though “I would love to tell you, then, I’d have to kill you!” Okay you know I’m just kidding around on that last part but sometimes I feel like I utterly can’t catch a break.

I’m sure you’ve all felt this way from time to time but when you are relentlessly battling with depression and anxiety like I do and continue to try everything in your power to make it through just one more day yet you are persistently being met with one roadblock after another it can make it seem near impossible. Trying to push through each day or find any motivation at all to do so is really hard when you just keep spinning around and around on that hamster wheel that just doesn’t seem to want to stop.

I wake up every morning (well not that I really sleep) to a brand new day and as soon as I get my body moving, my heart rate elevates and begins beating a mile a minute which more often than not will then lead to feeling nauseous and metaphorically speaking my hamster wheel is only just warming up for the day ahead. On a typical day the wheel will spin uncontrollably, getting faster and more worn down as the day gets on leaving me so physically and mentally exhausted.

Where do these hamsters think they are going? Who is threatening them? What are they running from? Why are they spinning around and around with no end in sight? How do they do this night after night? Don’t they realize that they aren’t actually getting anywhere so how are they to ever catch a break?

These are all questions I wonder about as I spin on my hamster wheel day in and day out while trying to figure out how to make the damn thing stop. I mean it’s fricken claustrophobic on that wheel and boy oh boy is it ever tiring to say the least. I mean when you think about it, even those sweet little rodents catch a break to sleep sometimes. Don’t I deserve to catch a break too?

Just Breathe

The last few days have been particularly difficult for me and one of the most important things I need to remember when I am feeling especially vulnerable is that I need to breathe. Most people take breathing for granted as it’s just something we do without giving it a second thought but for me when my emotions are running awry breathing can take a great deal of effort. There are so many days that I wish I didn’t have to breathe at all and when my emotions become exceptionally clouded where I feel an overwhelming sense of powerlessness to this disease, finding the right tools to help me breathe are more important than anything. I know that it’s okay to not be okay, I know that it’s okay to reach out for support when doing it alone just seems too hard and I also know that I’m not alone when it comes to my emotions so I have added some videos below which were created by a friend of mine to help anyone looking for that additional support, teaching us the proper techniques on how important it is to just breathe.

Sticks And Stones

I’m pretty sure we have all been guilty of doing this at some time or another in our lives but as we try to collectively move toward a stigma free society we need to start by remembering that mental illnesses are not adjectives. An adjective (for those of you who may have forgotten their grammar lesson from grade school) is “a word or phrase naming an attribute, added to or grammatically related to a noun to modify or describe it”.

When we use words or phrases to negatively describe another person that may be suffering with a mental illness or whom you may feel ill-will towards we are only enhancing the stigma surrounding it. We all know that using politically incorrect jargon, harmful expressions to describe a person’s disability or gender-specific stereotyping to describe another person or group of people are both offensive and very hurtful but yet when it comes to using those same offensive and hurtful words associated around mental illnesses many people don’t seem to bat an eyelash.

Whether or not you are using the words or phrases to describe yourself or someone else or whether or not you are doing it intentionally or in a malicious manner, the negative connotation is still the same. Using words like psycho, schizo, bipolar, loony and mental as adjectives are all words that can cause further damage to how we see mental illness.

It can also be just as destructive to someone suffering with a mental illness to hear phrases like “You’re so OCD!” or “I’m so depressed that my favorite tv show was cancelled” or worse than that is when you hear someone say something like “I just broke my nail, I think I’m gonna kill myself!” All of these phrases may be in jest but to someone who is actually experiencing these emotions or has been diagnosed with any type of mental illness including OCD it only further exploits the individual suffering.

Living with any type of mental illness is challenging enough so choose your words or phrases wisely and remember that adjectives help express the quality of a person so let’s try and build each other up instead of tearing each other down.