My New Normal?

Here I am, about 6 months out from my incident.  How am I doing?

Immediately following my incident in February I had received many cards and well wishes and flowers.  Many people stopped by the hospital to visit and encourage me.  At the time it made me feel okay and I thought just maybe I could do this thing called life after all.

I have been working with the therapist I have had for a few years and my assigned psychiatrist, trying to get me to a positive place.  The hope is that I can get to a positive place that will be sustainable.  My therapist has always been very positive herself and it has always been helpful to have a session with her.  I guess the time spent there is to try and heal my emotional well being. 

Since February my psychiatrist has been adjusting & changing my medications.  This would be to heal my physical well being.  Supposedly depression is caused by a lack of something, or a messed up something in my head.  And drugs are supposed to fix that.

My therapist has been helping me with coping skills, relaxing techniques and methods of gaining a more positive outlook on life. 

The medication mix I am currently on seems to be the most helpful so far.

There is no magic cure that will erase the issues causing depression.  All the garbage in me that had ever caused depression will always be there.  The best I can do is learn to cope, learn to be happy, and find a medication that will help prevent another downward spiral.

Sue has been my best friend, the love of my life and my soul mate.  She has been giving all the help she possibly can to build me back up.  She listens to me, trying to understand what I am going through.  She such a positive, bright light in my life.

So, how am I doing?

The depression isn't affecting me as bad lately.  It's all still there but I don't have nearly as many episodes of feeling dark despair or sobbing uncontrollably.  I guess my emotions are a bit more positive and more stable.  Although occasionally one of these episodes will still grab ahold of me.  I always used to have issues being in large groups of people, and that seems to have worsened.  A few times over the past few months I have experienced more pronounced panic attacks while in a large group, more than I ever did before.  A couple of times it was bad enough that I had to leave.  Another symptom that seems to be hanging on with me is nervousness and anxiety.  I lump them together since they seem to go hand in hand, and the most troubling effect of these is a physical jitteriness or shaking.  I never had that before, and the jitteriness or shaking is occurring more frequently and for no apparent reason.  It started small, just in my hands.  But lately I can feel it all over, hands and arms and legs.  And there have been more headaches.  I have been back at work on my old job but that has become almost overwhelmingly stressful.  Anymore it's difficult to focus on what I'm doing and to get all my work completed every day.  I read quite a bit, watch shows & movies.  These last have always been my best method of escape.

Is there hope for me?  Sure.  Can I get back into a happier life?  Sure.  Will it take time?  Sure.

I counsel everyone else to be patient.  I need to maintain my own patience.

My Doorways

For the greater part of my life it seemed that I was stuck within the doorways between male and female.  The body I was born with, my physical self was male.  But the mind I was born with, my soul was female.  My family and the world could only see the physical part of me so that is how I grew up.  That is how I was socialized.  That is how I had to live.  I never felt safe to allow the world to know who I really was, not even those closest to me.  For a very long time I lived this way with this huge secret always there, lurking around within my being.  After much too long it got to be too difficult to continue living this way.  People aren't meant to remain stuck in this doorway.  We're meant to be fully on one side or the other.  I had to force myself through that doorway into the side where I felt I belonged.  Fully as a female.  I was able to close the door to the male side and use my key to lock that door.  I have tried to do as much as possible to take my place as a female.

It turns out there has been another doorway I've been stuck within.  A doorway between a larger space.  A doorway between light and dark.  I'm not talking about the sides of good and evil here.  It's more like the sides between sunshine & happiness & life, and sadness & anger & nothingness.  That doorway is open to me now and I am straddling the threshold. 

The side of this door that is full of light and life and happiness appears very nice.  There are many people there that know me and care about me and are trying to help me through.  I yearn to jump over to this side but it seems so very hard to do. 

The other side of this door is dark and full of nothing, but it still has something of a hold on me.  There is a surprising feeling of calm and peace coming from there.  Falling back to this side would seem to be so very easy.

As with the gender door, people aren't meant to remain stuck here either.  I know I need to move to one side or the other of this door, lock it and throw away the key.  But for now I cannot make any move.  The dark side holds all my depression and is locked onto me as if with a chain.  I will never be fully on the side of light & life until I am able to break that depression chain holding and pulling me back.

.....does not glitter

I have been thinking about the title I chose for this blog:
"All that is gold does not glitter....."

One thing that is supposed to be golden is life.  And it sure does NOT glitter.  There is so very
much selfishness and greed in our world.  There is much too much racial and religious distrust
and disparity.  Way too much gun violence, way too much of any kind of violence.  There is just
an unbelievable amount of hatred out there.  I could go on and on but everyone knows what our
world is like, what it has become.  I've said this before.....it's NOT supposed to be this way.

Every couple of weeks I see this saying:
"Life is a journey and only you hold the map."

Whenever I think of this saying I usually paraphrase it to myself this way:
"Life is a journey and only you hold the key."

It seems I have apparently spent my entire life stuck in doorways related to that life, where
opposing things exist on each side.  I guess only I hold the key to my doorways.