My Own Depression
In my last post, a little over a month ago, I shared that I was dealing with my own major depressive episode. The reason I haven’t posted is that, frankly, I haven’t felt able to write until today. Depression is one weird state of being. I’ve been here, but haven’t felt here. I’ve been going through the motions, doing the things I’m supposed to do (well, most of them) when one is depressed. I’ve been keeping my engagements, eating as well as I can, getting out for walks, trying to get enough sleep.
The thing is, no matter where I’ve been, or who I’ve been with, I haven’t felt present. I’ve laughed, but I didn’t feel the humor; I went to dinner with friends and talked, but I slowly disappeared from the conversation as I found it more and more difficult to interact. I slept, but I constantly felt as though I could fall right back to sleep.
Therapy. I went to therapy, too. Twice. The therapist was nice enough, but I don’t think that she understood the depths of my despair. My office mate, a seasoned child psychologist, says that she believes we psychologists make difficult patients. We know how to avoid, we are critical in the consulting room of what we are experiencing, and we are thinking ahead of the therapist we are seeing. Maybe that’s all true. So I’m looking for someone who can really call me on my stuff – someone who is more experienced as a therapist and parent than I am.
A Little Light
At the same time, just yesterday I experienced a little lifting of my mood. Even the hubby noticed it. The reason, I’m pretty certain, is that I found something that’s given me just the tiniest bit of hope, and the belief that there is something we can do to begin to make changes with what’s been going on with Blake. I feel just a little bit empowered.
A few weeks ago, while I was at a professional conference on anxiety, I met a very experience therapist at dinner one night. As we got to know one another and shared about our respective children, I shared a bit about what we are experiencing with Blake – days where he doesn’t get out of bed, his despair about life, his frequent missing events that would have been important to him.
“I’m not letting you go through this alone,” she said, reaching out to me, as she shared a bit of her own personal story. “This isn’t going to continue. We are going to get him help and I’m going to stay with you through the process.”
That evening, we plotted and planned. We agreed on who I should call. And I promised to stay in touch and follow through. Within a week, the hubby and I had an appointment with Blake with a longtime expert on kids and young adults who, like Blake, have a mixture of depression on top of OCD. What’s more, he’s had lots of experience with treatment refusers. We went with hope that, this time, Blake would agree to getting help.
Blake Rejects Treatment
Blake rejected treatment – no surprise there. On the way out the door he claimed to understand how “desperate” his dad and I are. He promised he would change things, but offered no concrete example of how he would do so. And then he fell asleep at 7 pm that very evening, missing dinner and sleeping until 3 pm the next day, forgetting he had a lunch date with his grandparents who were in town. And then he did the same thing the next day, missing his beloved grandparents once again.
Meanwhile, the hubby and I haven’t given up. Yesterday, we saw that expert on our own. He is prepping us to gradually work to increase the likelihood that Blake will enter treatment willingly and ready to work. We don’t know if it will actually work, only that we have several assignments to do ourselves over this next week. We also know that this will be itty bitty steps. Yet, I left the office yesterday feeling just the tiniest bit better. I have something to do, a direction to go in.
I noted to the therapist yesterday that the saddest part of the last two years is that we’ve been repeatedly told that there is nothing to do if Blake doesn’t want treatment. He shared with us his belief that the population of depressed/anxious young adults (and teens) whose lives are spiraling rapidly downward has long been neglected. For now, the hubby and I will be the catalysts for possible change. I understand that it is going to be a difficult road – but I’d rather be moving toward something than sinking deeper into the the muck that I’ve been in.
OCD In The Family 