depression – Page 7 – Turbulent Mind

December 23, 2019

Insomnia – The Master of my Emotions

I’ve talked about comorbidity between Anxiety and Depression a bit in earlier posts, but I’ve got a third little friend to discuss today. Insomnia. For as long as I can remember, I have had interrupted sleep. I always wake up in the middle of the night for whatever reason, and it can take some time to get back to sleep. I never really knew how important sleep was to my moods and my emotional well being until recently. That day that I hit Rock Bottom was another one of those days where I had almost zero sleep. A lot of my internal conflicts come from when I spend the entirety of a night worrying/ruminating about some thought or some event that happened that day. It carries on to the next day, and completely weighs me down.

I never thought myself to be one that would become dependent on sleep aids in order to function. Unfortunately, I have started down the road of quite a dependence on my prescribed sleep medication. I have read up on these medications and know that there’s a high rate of dependency and addiction toward them, but I still take them anyways. Sleep is so important to my mental health and the way that I process emotions that I will take the risk of having to have to recover from weaning off of these addictive substances so that I can sleep and learn to manage my emotions with a more level-head.

A lot of people I’ve talked to with mental health issues are also fellow insomniacs. I cannot stress how important getting enough sleep is in order to manage the things that life throws at you. If at all possible, build a bed time routine that will train your brain to get sleepy. I use only warm lighting at night and I try my absolute best to keep my things clean before settling into bed.

These last couple weeks I’ve been going through a bad time in regards to sleep, and it’s gotten beyond the point of Ambien helping me.

December 4, 2019December 8, 2019

The First Step Toward Better

As a foreigner in a country that doesn’t quite get mental health quite yet, I was terrified. I had sent an e-mail on a Sunday, and didn’t expect any reply from the office until the end of the next work week. I didn’t know how it would work, since their office was based out of Seoul, and I didn’t know if I would be able to get on their Saturday schedule. Thousands of questions swirled around in my brain: Would I be able to afford it? Am I able to get to Seoul for treatment? Will I like the therapist they assign to me? If this doesn’t work out is there another option for me? Do I go home if I can’t find relief?

That Monday morning, I get a call from a number in Seoul, and it’s the office I had e-mailed. I didn’t expect an answer so quick, and my voice was shaking as I answered the questions the woman on the other line was asking. They wanted to see me in Seoul and in person first, but they were willing to take me on a sliding fee scale. Relief swept over me, but not for long. Having had experience “shopping” for a therapist before, I knew it could pan out to be a long and frustrating process. I knew I might not get it right the first try, and that I could start from square one again. I knew all this, but I was so desperate to at least try.

The day of my appointment comes, and I am over preparing myself. I book a train ticket to Seoul which would arrive hours before my appointment. I remember arriving at the station to the image above this post. A massive herd of people getting off of the train and heading toward the main level of the station. Everyone knowing exactly where they were going. I remember feeling spikes of panic and anxiety as I thought about all that could go wrong. My boyfriend comforted me by telling me he would be available to through messaging the entire train ride.

Anxiety does some funny things. It makes you over prepare for events like, going for a job interview, a dentist appointment, or meeting a friend at a restaurant you’ve never been to. Basically, anxiety brought me to Seoul 4 hours before my appointment, I had no plans other than to just find the place and stay around the area until my appointment. I find out that the office is 2 stops away from Seoul Station, and I glued myself to a bench in the station until time came to go to the office. I overthought what time I should get there as I read and re-read the instructions on how to find the office in this giant 30+ floor building. Panic swept in and out of me, as my Apple Watch reminded me to breathe every few minutes. I was a mess. I could already tell that, emotionally, I didn’t and couldn’t really be in Seoul for much longer than the appointment.

When the time finally came, I carefully followed the instructions up to the office, and checked in. I was offered refreshments, but wasn’t in the mood for anything. I could feel my body trembling beneath my light sweater. When I was finally asked to meet with my therapist I shook even harder. That first session I will always remember as the first moment I knew I had to be completely honest with myself and with my therapist if I ever hoped to be better.

I wish I could say this was the point where everything started improving in a linear fashion. But these sessions were just the beginning

December 3, 2019December 4, 2019

The Day I Decided Enough Was Enough

I studied Psychology, as well as Asian Literature and Languages during school. My intimate relationship between understanding the human mind and also the culture of my surroundings tore me apart as I overthought what would “getting help” actually mean here in Korea. I had no idea. Although I have lived here on and off since 2014, it had never been this bad. I had never felt this unstable. I had never felt so lost.

The day I decided enough was enough was another day where my boyfriend and I were trying our best to adjust to our long distance situation and have a “date.” We spend hours doing an activity together, and talking. At this point, it was a 50/50 chance that the date ends in a disagreement or in total disaster where some insecurity, some fear, some sort of overthought belief would consume and take over what was supposed to be a pleasant afternoon together. At the worst of my anxiety, I thought to myself, “Wow, how much longer until I lose it again? How much more can we hang on to this if I can’t even hang onto myself?” And with every passing day, I felt like I was losing myself to panic and anxiety more and more.

That Sunday was a normal Sunday. It was a beautiful spring day, and I remember observing that the cherry blossoms were hanging on to their last thread. I remember looking out the window as I slowly spun out of control. I started to unravel, and the moment it starts to unravel, it feels as if I float out and away from myself. Depersonalization. Heading down that nasty road of not being connected but still aware, my boyfriend started to argue with me, and eventually pleaded with me to please, find help, he was going to go to lunch with my family, and if I couldn’t find help, he’d take matters into his own hands, and get me some help int he form of an intervention involving my family. Boom. Lost it. I remember hanging up and I remember desperately trying to hang on to my control as I spun out again and again, falling over, and knocking into my furniture. I stumbled around my little apartment as if I was a zombie. Trying to find a way to stop the panic and finding nothing, panicking further. I remember begging him not to tell my family of my struggles, I remember telling them I don’t want them to worry. He said that it wasn’t about them worrying about me, it was about me getting better and help, and I needed it. I hung up again feeling that same feeling of needed relief from the panic and being wracked with guilt.

Now, the worst thing about describing all this is that I know where it’s going. Having been very interested in the human mind, I think I know a bit too much about it for my own good. Self-harm is not a fun route to go down, especially for someone who knows that it does nothing but make you feel worse than before. And it’s an uncomfortable place that my mind, admittedly does go to during panic mode. I am full of guilt and shame for what I have done to myself during these panic attacks, but I’ve been told that I should not be afraid to talk about it. I should not be silenced because this is a real, actual thought that comes into my mind. At the height of my panic in the early Spring, I remember thinking “The only way to stop this panic, is to distract myself with another sensation.” Self-harm isn’t always in the form of slashing and cutting, for me… when I am anxious I beat my hands and fists into my wall, until the feeling of pain overcomes the feeling of my heart that is about to burst out of my chest. It became a habit. Bruises on my knuckles, swollen hands. And on that Sunday when I looked down at my hands in panic and all I saw was purple, blue, and green bruises around my fingers and knuckles… I knew my boyfriend was right. There is something terribly wrong, and I can’t pretend to be strong enough to do it alone.

First thing I did was I picked up my phone, and I called my Dad. He is, admittedly, the only person I want to talk to when everything goes wrong. I told him, “Dad, I’m scared, and I’m not happy. I am not well. I need to get help, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to do it, and I’m scared.” Between all the sobbing, all my father could say was to tell me to come back home. I knew that wasn’t the solution. Going home wouldn’t solve the problem that anxiety had taken the driver’s seat of my life, and going home to hide in my parent’s house and “take a break” from working would solve nothing. I knew it would probably just reinforce the idea that when shit gets tough, I can just retreat and ignore it, and it’ll go away.

Enough was enough. I hit the Internet and typed out my first e-mail for consultation at an office in Seoul. The first step was to see if this was even going to be possible, but it was a step in the right direction.

November 25, 2019September 1, 2021

Depersonalization/Derealization

This post has seriously been in the making for a long time, as I have not really fully come to an understanding of how these symptoms have developed and why they come up in certain situations.

I experience Depersonalization on a day-to-day basis as there are definitely periods of the day where it seems like I run on “auto-pilot” and I’m watching myself operate as if I’m a third person. Of course, I do have control of my actions, but it doesn’t feel real in any way. As I have continued on my journey of becoming stronger in the face of mental health issues, I have started to have a hard time recalling and remembering details. I’ve been told by people close to me that I tend to tell the same story often, because I’ve forgotten that I’ve told them. Much of my life feels like I’m living it in a fog or a dream like way. Just typing out this entry has taken me days of pulling myself back out of a depersonalized state, and focus on the task at hand.

How does this come around? This may be a reaction, for me, when things change in my environment. Believe it or not, I don’t deal well with changes in any way. I like to think I’m superwoman and I can handle it, but I’m not. I have issues with change, saying good-bye-meeting new people. And all of that has happened in the last week, month, and year. I’m more disconnected than ever. I said good-bye to my significant other as he returned to the States after an over a month long visit. I said good-bye to a friend who will be returning to the States, and I’m saying good-bye to the rigor of my life as I know it, because it’s going to get so much worse this next term.

Even as I look at the photo of me at Gyeongbokgung, it doesn’t feel like it could have been real.

November 18, 2019November 19, 2019

The Certainty of Uncertainty

Earlier in the week, I had a discussion about how one of the scariest concepts for me, with Generalized Anxiety Disorder to wrap my head around is uncertainty. For those that do not experience anxiety in this way, I know it seem so simple to wrap your head around. “Life is life, you can’t predict it, you just live it.”

What started this slow descent into a panic freak-out about mortality? Well, I am living my life without any concrete deadlines or dates that I wish to go back to my home country by. I am currently acclimating to life here alone. I’m receiving great care, and I’m making huge strides in recovery despite being thousands of miles away from my family and friends. So what’s the problem? Things are going good! The problem is I don’t have a plan. What’s next? What do I work for? What if it doesn’t work out? And if it does work out, then what if it changes my plan?

Uncertainty has become a sure-fire way to send me through an unending chain of “what ifs” and “do you think it will happen?”

I decided to get a tattoo done of my oldest family dog’s face after coming down from a bit of a cycle of insecurity and fear of the unknown. “When will I get to see my Yuuki again?” I thought, well… I better tattoo her face to my arm so I can have, at least, a piece or essence of her on me forever.

I still wake up frozen in fear of the uncertainty. I don’t know when I’ll go home to see my family. I don’t have any trips back to Minneapolis planned, and, as far as I know, no one has trips planned to see me. The uncertainty is making me restless and makes me go overboard with lists of things that I want to achieve. It could be simple, like, “Get a new recycling bin” or “Finish that game you were playing on Switch.”

Right now, almost every facet of my life is uncertain. My job is uncertain because… I don’t know if I want to stick around after 2020. My relationship is uncertain because we don’t know if we’ll be able to grow together in the way that will help us as a couple. The only thing that is certain for me, is that I need to keep doing this job that I enjoy, save money, and meet my financial goals. While reaching my financial goals and all that are uncertain, the most certain thing about my life situation is that I will survive through the anxiety of being in an uncertain situation and I will, hopefully, flourish under the pressure of it.

November 14, 2019

My Relationship with Depression

Comorbidity between Depressive Disorders and Anxiety Disorders is such a common thing. One would think they’re similar and work together to make a person feel like crap. But in all honesty, I think that these two are opposing forces that end up pushing people back and forth between not caring at all anymore to caring way too much.

I’ve known when my depression flares up because I won’t want to do anything. Like… anything. I don’t eat, don’t sleep, don’t check my phone, and I do the bare minimum for the dogs to be happy. I have had a much less turbulent relationship with this part of my mental health, because it’s like she’s always there. Depression is there to remind me that when I reach too far or stretch my resources too thin, I will feel like shit.

It certainly does sound like I’m saying my depression is a good thing, but that is anything but the truth. Depression has taken a lot out of my life, and many other people’s lives. Depressive episodes has caused me to miss weddings of my closest friends, good-bye parties of people I won’t see again, and after work drinks where coworkers bond together. Depression likes it when I isolate myself from everyone other than her, and depression loves it when I continue to pass up on behavior activating activities.

Luckily for me, depression rarely takes the driver’s seat of my life. She usually reserves that for Anxiety. I think it’s because my depression knows, that if she lets Anxiety run my life for long enough, I will get exhausted enough to run back to her. Anxiety is a state in which I overanalyze, care about, and worry about a lot of different things. The most triggering thought for my anxiety is the uncertainty of life. Depression knows that something is bound to pop up that will remind me that life is uncertain, and she knows that once Anxiety’s had enough of driving my life, she’ll park and have a full on panic attack break down. In swoops depression to tell me that I don’t need to do anything and I don’t need to care. I just need to lay in bed and let depression do her work. Like I mentioned in my last post, anxiety has her purpose and is a friend that has “helped me out” before. After a period of letting depression halt everything, anxiety always gets restless. Anxiety fuels my desire for perfection and starts to set impossibly high standards for me to reach. Of course, anxiety is setting me up for failure, but at least she’s got my back when depression’s being that destructive friend that doesn’t want you to do anything but commiserate with her.