Depression, Menopause and gasp, anti-depressants

I don’t think the healing process ever ends. I just think there comes a time when you decide that your wounds aren’t going to stop you from becoming the person you want to be. Self-love is a lifelong journey and sometimes it’s harder than others. You just have to commit.

- Unknown

I’m not sure why my writing is the first to go when I get busy but it’s as if something turns off inside of me. The free-flowing spout of words turns to a light trickle until the last drop drips from me and the well runs dry. By the time I realize I am parched for meaning and context again six months have gone by.

I’ve also been pretty depressed. Not your run-of-the-mill ever so often blues. More of the “it’s hard to get out of bed and find joy about much of anything these days” version.

It’s no secret that I’ve struggled with depression since I can remember. Sometimes I like to  joke that I was just born sad. It’s confusing though because through the waves of sadness, I have a lot of memories of being a really joyful and enthusiastic kid too. I was always just wanting to make people laugh and be in the spotlight.

Over the years I’ve experienced a rollercoaster of very high ups and very low downs which, through a lot of therapy have come to deduce as the result of traumatic life experiences (ie: cancer, cancer, divorce, and then more cancer), a very volatile home growing up, and more than likely some off chemistry in my brain that I never wanted to admit to myself because then I’d also have to admit that I was not perfect. 

I developed a pretty significant eating disorder at the age of fifteen that I thought was just normal because it seemed like every other girl I went to school with had some variation too. We were all fighting our inner demons and the pressures of thinness equating to being loved and accepted or whatever our reasons were. The last time I purged my food was at age twenty-six but it really just turned into me being somewhat obsessive about eating gluten and dairy-free or vegan when I was one, or making sure I got my work out for the sake of “staying healthy.” It would be years later when I would realize it was never really about the weight or the food or the workouts and that the struggle would always be living just below the surface waiting to say hello again.

I think one of the harder parts of dealing with mental health, besides just everyday life, is the shame that comes with it. Like, get over yourself, Amanda. Snap out of it already. You are missing it. Life. It’s passing by so quickly and you are too busy being depressed. What do you really have to be depressed about anyway? I’ve always wondered, why can’t I just “fix“ myself as the wellness world touts so easily can be done?

With the yoga and meditation and breathing exercises coupled with the raw, vegan green potions and inner child work I’ve done, you’d think I’d be walking around levitating right there with Jesus with a rainbow-colored aura. But alas, I still can not walk on water.

Over the last year, I found myself thinking, “I’m done with this spiritual stuff. It doesn’t work. I’m still just as broken.” But healing isn’t linear and maybe there is something bigger at play here.

It wasn’t until the last few months when even the things that brought me back to life in the past, like my art, were not doing their job any longer that I started to get worried.

No sugar coating it. No skating around it. No fluffy filler words to lighten the hard edges of a not-so-pleasant part of being human. This was more than just passing sadness and it has been going on a lot longer than the last six months.

And I have felt and still feel terribly guilty that I feel this way because I have a really good life. Despite the hardships I’ve experienced, I have so many things to feel happy and grateful about. I know this. However, the thing about depression is, it’s confusing.  Sometimes it makes no sense to your logical mind.

If you struggle too then you understand this well. Most of the time you don’t get why you feel the way you do and because mental health is only now becoming a more mainstream topic of conversation, for a very long time you probably suffered in silence just like me and so many others. There is a whole lot of fear of being judged, fear of losing people, losing jobs, losing status, credibility, being labeled attention-seeking or dramatic. You name it, I’m scared of it.

I can’t help but think of all the lives that could have been spared had mental health been as natural to discuss as your physical health. Like, “Hey, I’m heading to the gym to do Zumba then I’m going to my therapist to talk about my trauma and attachment issues. I’ll be home by 8!” Followed by a response that sounds like, “Okay honey! Hope you get to the bottom of it and have a major breakthrough!”

What I’m currently experiencing is actually a mix of grief and depression and the extreme mental backlash of menopause. Maybe you’ve heard people joke about women going through menopause feeling like they are going crazy and I’m here to tell you it’s true. But nobody who's actually gone through menopause tells you this. Mainly because they can’t remember it because what comes with menopause is a whole lot of brain fog and forgetfulness. And dry eyes. God the dry eyes are horrible too.

My brain feels both flat and overstimulated and fuzzy all at the same time. This is never a good combination because what follows is a lot of confusion, a kind of out-of-body experience, and a loss for words. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in mid-conversation over the last six months and I can’t remember what I was talking about.

So yeah, I guess you could say I’ve been a bit depressed and trying to adjust to a body that doesn’t even feel like mine any longer and I haven’t really known what to write about because I’ve been in this very confusing metamorphosis of some kind. I am no longer the person I was but not sure who is left standing in her place. And I can’t help but wonder: Is this depression, menopause, or is this what so many refer to as a mid-life crisis?

Or worse, what if it’s actually all three?!

The last six months have looked like a whole lot of denial and trying to convince myself that this will just pass. I’ve doubled down on therapy and well, hoping all the “tools” I’ve acquired over the years will help.

Some days I wonder if I’m not really depressed and I’m  just bored because I’ve been practicing not buying into and contributing to drama and my mind and body haven’t quite adjusted yet. Once I realized how addicted I was to it I realized that I had to change it.

Sometimes I’ll call up my good friend Rachael and say in my super melodramatic voice, “Raaaaaaaaaaach, I’m itching. I’m itching for a fix and drama is my drug!” and I always draw out the draaaammmma part to give it, ya know, drama and she’ll laugh. Oh I love her loud laugh which makes me remember that I am actually kind of funny, and then well, we laugh together because she has the same addiction that I do and we remind ourselves that we are done with the drama. Drama = bad. We are better than drama. And we are in drama recovery.

So, I stopped writing because I’ve been dealing with the reality that this has been going on for oh, about thirty years now and maybe it’s time to really confront my depression. Maybe I really am a depressed person. I mean, really.

I stopped my podcast. I stopped sharing from my heart because how do you really write about this stuff anyway? Plus my art started taking off and I got scared that if I was really transparent, people would think I was crazy and stop buying my art. I found myself folding into the space of safety.

Until about a month ago when I started hearing that ever so quiet voice coming from deep within. No, not those voices. This one is just the voice of my intuition. It whispers, “Let me out. You have to share me Amanda because I am part of you and people will get it because a lot of people are experiencing this too.”

So here it is:

Hi, I’m Amanda and well, I have depression. Real, bonafide, not just the blues depression.

And I think it got a lot worse when the dust settled from having my hysterectomy and menopause hit me like a mac truck going at full speed. 

Things have been tough and alongside the handfuls of hair that’s been falling out the heavy layer of grief has felt heavier than anything before and for the first time ever, I decided it is time to go on antidepressants and that both excites me and scares the shit out of me.

After six months of zoom therapy, two weeks ago I sat in my therapist’s office face-to-face because we had both been vaccinated and I stared at the business card scribbled with the name of a Psychiatrist to call about getting on medication and the truth is, all I could think was: “Am I really this person?”

The next morning I woke up with a thick cloud of unexplainable heaviness and the dread of starting my day and thought, “Yes Amanda, you really are.”

So I called. All my friends who I knew were on antidepressants and I asked about their experience with them just to affirm to myself that I am not alone on this antidepressant journey. Then after about the fifth call from my mom who would casually, not so casually ask if I’d called the Psychiatrist yet, I realized that I think I really need to do this.

I called. And turns out they don’t actually take my insurance which inevitably had me putting it off for another few weeks until I realized that if I don’t do this I’ll never know if there really is a light at the end of an often very dark tunnel and I thought, “Amanda, what if this IS the thing that will help? Don’t you owe it to yourself to experience a little peace?”

So I sat with my doctor and explained it all to her with brutal honesty. The darkest thoughts I’ve ever had were no longer a secret.

And I felt a tad bit freer.

I don’t really want to go on antidepressants. I just want the broken bits inside to fix themselves. I really wanted green juice and reiki and the crystals I have lined around my room to transmute the sadness. I wanted to find the hole that makes me feel this way and stuff it full of whatever I can so that I don’t have to take a pill to make me feel better. I want to be able to fix this myself. I didn’t want to be an actual “depressed” person.

The truth is, for a very long time I quietly judged others for going on them. And I hate nothing more than a) that I did that and b) being a hypocrite.

So now I’m a judgmental hypocrite and a bonafide depressed person. 

Great.

Or, I’m human. I don’t know yet. All I know is that I’m definitely not a green juice drinking, levitating Jesus type with a rainbow-colored aura.

(Yet.)

So, here I go.

Saying it out loud feels both freeing and terrifying and I’ve been telling those close to me as if it were some dirty secret as I nervously say, “Hey, I need to tell you something….”

Turns out it’s not really so dirty of a secret because I can’t tell you how many people I know who respond by saying, “Oh, I’m on them. They really help,” Just as matter of fact.

And like so many other things in my life I’ve made this bigger than it needs to be. There is nothing wrong with going on antidepressants.

So this morning I twist the cap and shake out the first pill into the palm of my hand and stare at it and I can’t help but wonder, were you the answer all along?

Bottoms up I think as I swallow it with a little bit of water along with my estradiol for hormone replacement two hours after my taking thyroid medication and laugh at the irony that this organic, green juice drinking, yoga-practicing, reiki getting, inner child soothing, gluten-free ex-vegan now has a shelf lined with prescription drugs.

And I head out to my shop to get some work done and realize that hope is resting just below the surface for the first time in a very long time.

Hindsight is 2020, Right? A Life Full Of Cliches

As cliche as it sounds coming out of my mouth, the year 2020 will forever be one that stands out in our minds. It’ll be the year we talk about to our grandchildren as we sit around the crackling fireplace with a whiskey in our shaky hand (due to the unfortunate habit we picked up during pandemic times) as they listen on with wide-eyed wonder and palpable disbelief. It’ll forever be the year that stains our memories with the knowledge of what is really everyone’s deepest fear: a dirty butt and nothing to wipe it with.

Weaved in between the thirty-nine weeks since the pandemic started (at the time of writing this and yes, I actually counted) there has been an onslaught of events leaving us all spinning and mouthing “what the f*&K is going on?” many times over as we navigate this dystopian reality we find ourselves in. Except, it’s not the movies. This is real life and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t, ever so often, looking over my shoulder for the gapping wounded, discolored walking dead hobbling behind me. And I still pray to God that if that happens they are the slow kind.

I don’t know that there is a single person who’s life has not been altered in some way. For some, it’s been devastating and for others, it’s been inconvenient.

For me, 2020 has been one of the most transformative years to date. Yeah yeah, I know, I’m one of THOSE people. The ones that took the lemons of 2020 and made a nice, sugary sweet lemonade with them. But I’m also one of those people who probably added just a touch of Vodka, well, more like whiskey because I hate vodka, in there to dull the pain just a smidgen. Don’t be fooled dear readers, 2020 was both brutally painful and uniquely beautiful in my world too. However, I did garner some of the biggest personal growth and healing since I began walking down this path several years ago.

This week marks one year since mold in my yurt had me homeless and displaced wondering what the hell was happening. Looking back though, I see clearly what was going on. I’m stubborn and often the only way I will make the change my heart really wants is on the heels of a catastrophe. And yes, I’m working on that one too in 2021.

A year later and there is not a day that goes by that I am not utterly grateful that life took the twists and turns it did to get me to move home. Seattle is and forever will be my sweet, wonderful, heavenly, perfect idea of home.

And here I am lying in bed writing this thinking about how in just a few short weeks we will turn yet another calendar page and “gracefully” glide into 2021. All I can think is, what the f*%k is in store for us this year? I suppose by gracefully what I really mean is tripping and stumbling over the wreckage that is 2020.

On a global level I pray that this pandemic finds a way to slow down and with recent news of a vaccine near ready, I’m filled with mixed emotions. I’m not necessarily anti-vax but I’m not necessarily going to be first in line either. On one hand, I want to be able to do the things I love freely, on the other hand, I don’t want to preemptively put something in my body before we know the full effects. And therein lies the paradox. I want my old way of moving through the world back but I’m not sure I want to do what is required of me to get there.

I, along with the rest of the world, wait with bated breath to see if the January presidential transition goes as smoothly as I hope but then I remember who is our current president and my belly contracts as I think about all the ways in which the narcissistic maniac will throw a seven-year-old tantrum on his way out. I will have my popcorn ready and my couch cushions fluffed as this horror film that is our government slowly unfolds.

Then there is my own back yard. What will my own life look like in the year to come? As I think back over the last twelve months I’m kind of in ah at what has transpired. The rollercoaster of events has me realizing that, as the painfully annoying but ridiculously true old cliche goes, “life is, in fact, short.”

I don’t know that I need to give you a rundown of what has transpired in my life over the last year. I feel like I do a pretty good job documenting it on social media. As I reflect though, I feel a deep sense of gratitude for the tremendous growth I’ve experienced and all the hard work I have put in to feel like me I was born to be. (I can just keep going with all the cliches. I both loath and love them.)

And so I sit here and think about the new year. I’m not really a resolutions person because when I make resolutions I always find that I fall very short of them and then I feel even more shame for my budding list of failures. However, I also recognize that I don’t “reach for the stars” and “set my eyes on the prize” because I am scared of falling short. So, it’s basically this ever-persistent juxtaposition really.

So, I’m going to do it. 2021 is going to be the year that I “think I can” and “just do it.”

So here it goes.

Here is my list.

Here are my goals.

Here…is what I resolve to do.

A DEEPER SENSE OF SECURITY

Let’s be honest, my life is a revolving door of chaos. It’s my comfort zone. I get bored when things are going smoothly. I know this. I’m addressing it in therapy. What I’m learning through EMDR is that it is mimicking the environment I grew up in. It’s what I know. It’s what I know I can survive, even if it is painful. My hope though is that through consistent therapy and EMDR sessions I will learn to live more comfortably in the calm and less so in the storm. Fingers crossed.

DATE WITH AN OPEN HEART

I want to believe there is a person out there that matches my version of weird. The past few months with dating have been interesting, shining a big bright light on all my wounds and abandonment issues and the big, grey elephant in the room. Which is, being vulnerable enough to allow the kind of partner I want into my life TERRIFIES ME. But I really do want to have that kind of love experienced in this lifetime. The kind of love that shakes me to my core. The kind of love I trust like I never knew was possible. The kind of love where they stay instead of leave. And I know now that this requires me to be a bit more open to receiving it.

STRATEGIC SOCIAL MEDIA TIME

Hi, my name is Amanda and I am a social media number. As much as I want to get off of social media all together I can’t quite it. I’ve tried. Many times. For starters, I have a small creative business and most of my art is sold via Instagram and my writing pieces circulate the web too. This one kind of went viral.

Second, I have actually met some really amazing individuals on social media and it has been a lifesaver in pandemic times. However, I can be more strategic with my time on it and that is exactly what I plan on doing. No more scrolling to numb.

PODCAST

Everyone has a story. This is a fact I believe deeply in. Even if you don’t think anyone would want to hear yours, I beg to differ. I started a podcast in October with this in mind. Then I got overwhelmed and took a six-week-long break. Between all the emotions circulating around the election, my last minute idea of a Christmas ornament that sold way more then I thought it would, and then getting trapped in a coffee shop with a mentally ill man who was just released from prison and crouching down in a corner as a fight broke out (yep, that really happened), I kind of got overwhelmed. I’m back though and developing a strategy to keep me consistent. You can listen to it here.

BLOG MORE

Writing for me is transformative. It teaches me so much about my thought process and the inner workings of my being. I also have been getting a lot of feedback from people that they would like for me to share more. I also think it’s partly what I am here to do. Write. Share. Hopefully make people say, “Huh. Interesting.” So, I’m going to do more of it. Write.

Write for other publications

As I just said above, I’m a writer. There is no more denying that and I deserve to make money writing. So, that is what I intend to do. Build an audience writing on other publications. I even have this secret dream of writing an op-ed for The New York Times on my famili’s experience with Lynch Syndrome and Cancer and a million other topics.

X AMOUNT IN WOODWORKING SALES

I think I need to finally just admit that my woodworking is no longer a hobby. It’s one of my main jobs and I deserve to make good money doing it. So I’m setting quarterly sales goals and creating spreadsheets and graphs and all the stuff that my Virgo side’s dreams are made of.

PAINT

I keep getting that quiet whisper to start painting landscapes. I’m not sure where this one is going but I’m excited to begin when I have a little more time.

READ A BOOK A MONTH

As the world’s slowest reader, this is a lofty goal. I typically only have time to read before bed but by then I’m too tired so I read, maybe a page, and then put the book down. At that rate, I’m looking at, well, a book a year. I guess I need to step up my game a bit. With my more strategic social media plan, I suppose I will have more time.

So, there it is. No majorly crazy goals. All realistic. All doable. Looking over this list nothing seems too out of reach. It’s really just taking the things I am doing now and building consistent habits around them.

But then again, consistency and me having never had the best of relationships. I guess I’ll add that one to the list too.

Waking up to frost and remembering your dream

Well, the seasons have changed and I’m finally back to living somewhere that actually experiences winters. It seems as if in a matter of a day we went from above average warm temps where I was still having to open the doors and windows to freezing cold and waking up to frost.

I’m not complaining though. This kind of weather makes my soul sing with joy. I’m a PNW kind of girl through and through and although I’m not ready to head back now if ever, I was definitely ready to get back to a climate that felt like home.

My biggest challenge so far has been trying to figure out how to keep the yurt warm. It is, after all, a big tent. And since I’m on a limited budget, I’m having to get clever. I did purchase insulated curtains that are supposed to help but I also have three space heaters that aren’t the most efficient but are definitely better than nothing. But I like this exploration process. It makes me feel like I’m living.

The farm has totally different energy now too. It’s amazing how something like that can change with the turning of the weather and seasons.

I feel different as well. I feel more internal. Hibernating if you will. Which is exactly what part of my intention is. To flow more with the seasons and this time of year represents slowing down and turning inward more.

My days have been spent baking and cooking and yes, more relaxing too but I’m still struggling with the rewiring of my brain a bit. The go and do more equates to self-worth mentality is a long-time story of mine that I am working on daily. Living out here is helping.

With the change of the season, I am reminded of why I am here. To remember who I am and my dreams and the frost reminded me of living on the farm in Oregon and that part of me that felt so alive planning for the spring planting season and that is what I am doing now.

It feels good to remember your dreams.