A history of depression part 1

Hey I just thought I should update this since I haven’t in awhile. I’ve got this huge writers block called depression. I thought I got better and that it was gone, but I guess I was wrong.

I think I’ve made some reference to my mental health on here, if I haven’t…well now you know. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me. The first diagnosis I got was depression in 10th grade and ADD for good measure. This was because any time I went to the pediatrician I was listless and didn’t talk much or something. I was depressed though but the Zoloft and Adderal didn’t really help, maybe they did a little because I did start making more friends. I still felt depressed though. Looking back I was like the cliche depressed teenager in some after school TV movie. I actually remember sitting in the empty bath tub fully clothed and just crying for no reason. I seemed to get a little bit better I even had periods where I was really happy.

Those really happy periods ended up getting me diagnosed as bipolar sometime during the summer when I was 20, I think. I remember the doctor telling me that based on my symptoms blah blah blah. I just sat there stoic and stone faced, nodding along and saying I see. When I got to the car I started bawling. How could I be bipolar? Did this mean I was a crazy person?

The treatment I got was a joke they just kept trying different antidepressants and mood stabilizers. I was put on Prozac, Lithium, Zoloft(again), Paxil, Depakote, and Seroquel. I was also on ADD medications, anxiety medications, and sleeping pills. I wasn’t on all these pills at the same time and that isn’t even the full list. Sometimes I would take the pills and sometimes I would lie and say they didn’t work. I think that is how I got to the point where I was taking Seroquel.

Those years at school are hazy to me. I would get up, shower, go to class, come home do my work and lay in bed staring at the tv. I was pretty much a zombie. I mean I was functioning on some basic level, but I was on so much lithium I was just oblivious. So early in 2010 my sister and I flushed all my pills down the toilet.

The spring and summer of 2010 were great for me, I was still taking anxiety medicine, but other than that I was off all the pills and spent that summer living. I had my first back surgery that year, but that didn’t keep me from going to see the Flaming Lips and taking the greyhound to visit friends. Then for some reason in the fall of 2010 I was put on Seroquel and I actually took it. By February 2011 I was in a psychiatric hospital for the first time. See when I was on the Seroquel I got to the point where I wasn’t sure if I was real, and that is a scary feeling. I started cutting myself to see if I could feel anything and to see if I would bleed. Thankfully part of me realized this was not normal and I committed myself.

I have a lot more to share about this. I’ll be bringing this story up to date in my next post.

Sick of it

I went to my first pain management appointment yesterday and pretty much all of my worries about it were confirmed. The doctor walked in didn’t ask me anything and said first things first is these opioids have got to go. He then went on to say I was taking too much and there was no need for it. Then he asked what’s wrong with your back anyways. It wouldn’t surprise me if he hadn’t read my file or looked at my xrays and MRIs.

They had me fill out some paperwork and apart of it was a questionnaire. One of the questions was do you ever feel judged for being on pain medicine I thinkin circled sometimes. I should have circled all the time and attached a note saying that yes I feel judged every time I have to see a new doctor or nurse and tell them what I take and why. I feel judged when they assume I enjoy having to take narcotics to be able to get around during the day. I feel judged because it took doctors a year to believe there was anything wrong with my back in the first place. Just because I’m young doesn’t mean I didn’t have problems with my back. Maybe if they had taken me seriously and done an MRI right away I wouldn’t have needed three back surgeries. And maybe I’d still be able to do the things other people my age do without ending up in serious pain. Maybe I would be able to pick up my niece and nephews to give them hugs and kisses like I used to.

I didn’t just have a degenerative disc. I have severe scoliosis, stenosis (which is the narrowing of the spinal column), arthritis, scar tissue, and nerve damage that effects my right leg. I didn’t have much of a choice about getting the spinal fusion surgery, my back would just continue to degenerate if I hadn’t had it performed, but the pain hasn’t gone away. And as if dealing with that wasn’t bad enough I have to deal with the stigma of being a young person on pain medication. But doctors know best right? I don’t really need it, I’m young!

I have no choice but to go see this doctor again next week to get pain medication, a different kind and a lower dose, he told me himself if I don’t like it I should find another doctor. So that’s what I’m doing I’m going to try and find a doctor who won’t treat me like a junkie because I take pain medicine for something that is beyond my control. I didn’t choose to be born with a bad back, I didn’t choose to fall down the steps 5 years ago, and I sure as hell didn’t choose to have back pain for the rest of my life.

Stuck in a funk

I’m sorry I haven’t updated this in so long, but I’ve just been caught in a bit of a funk lately. Sometimes I just don’t know how to get out of them. I’m not totally stuck, but enough that it’s bothering me a little.

I know I declared this “The Year of Kelly” and I am sticking to some of those things. I’m still watching what I eat and I do stretches as well as physical therapy. I have also lost somewhere around 20 pounds since having surgery in November. I just haven’t joined a gym yet and I’m not sure I can afford to join the Y. The reason I need to join there is because I need a gym with a pool, my exercise options are going to be limited for awhile and swimming is the best thing I can do. I could join a cheaper gym but it doesn’t have a pool and there isn’t much that I can do there so that would be a waste of money. I can apply for a scholarship at the Y since I don’t make much money though.

Another thing that’s frustrating me is my back, it still hurts and I’ve been getting new pains. I saw the doctor this past Wednesday and he told me I still have three months to go before it is fused and at that point if I’m still having pain then that means it’s permanent. I knew getting this surgery wasn’t going to make my back 100% better it was just to stop any further damage, but the thought of having some of these pains permanently gets to me sometimes. I start going to pain management on the 18th and I hope they can help, but I’m also afraid they might put me on something too strong. I have a history of drug abuse, and I’ve been doing alright so far, but I don’t want to screw up again. As far as my social life resolution and plans to move out let’s just not get into that right now, but I have been doing well with something I hope.

I have been working on essays lately. Just amusing stories from my life, some of them are embarrassing, but still pretty funny. A good friend of mine gave me a beautiful journal for my birthday and I have been trying to write as often as possible. I would love to be published some day and I think this blog and my journal of essays are great practice. So really I guess things aren’t all bad I just need to try and stay positive and focused and some day it may be where I want to be in life

Love Yourself Today (and every other day too)

So today is Valentines Day, as I’m sure many of you are aware or maybe you’re not who knows, but I know people have a lot of different feelings about this holiday. I’m sure some of you love it, or hate it, or maybe you are indifferent or think it’s silly. I just wanted to share some advice about today for those of you who don’t have a valentine today. I just turned 26 so I guess I’m in my late 20’s now, but this is mostly for younger girls, and boys too.

First I’d just like to say I’m bad at relationships and love in general. I’ve never really been in a relationship that lasted longer than a few weeks, with the exception of one, but we didn’t live in the same state so maybe that’s why it worked for so long. I’ve been in what I thought were relationships, but weren’t that’s sort of confusing though and maybe for another post. I guess what I’m trying to say is I know a lot about not being in a relationship, so I thought I’d share some of my wisdom on that subject today.

I still remember the first year of elementary school that you didn’t have to give valentines to everyone in the class. The day before in class we still all made our little bags for cards and candy to place on our desks, that night I spent a good two hours filling out cards for the whole class (I went to a small school with only about 25 people in my entire grade) I picked cutesy ones for the girls and put serious consideration into which cards to give the boys and what to write on them. I think I ended up throwing out all of the boys ones and redoing them, but being sure to put a heart on the envelopes of the two boys I had crushes on. The next day I went and gave everyone their cards and quickly hurried back to my seat. I had about four cards in there, but people were still handing them out, when all was said and done I had about eights cards in that bag I’d worked so hard on. Needless to say I was crushed, I didn’t have many friends, but at the time it still hurt a lot. I decided that day love was stupid and that I hated Valentines day.

I made it a point to skip valentines day from that point on even though we did have parties and stuff, I continued this until about junior or senior year. I went to school, but I still felt like a loser and when I graduated and got a job as a hostess I would request the day off and if I had to work I’d just feel depressed.

I felt like their was something wrong with me, this is a holiday where you were supposed to be shown you were loved. My parents would send me cards and get me things, but I felt like the only people who loved me were my family, it all made me feel like I must be unloveable. The fact that I suffered from depression as a teenager and young adult didn’t help.

Eventually I realized that there was nothing wrong with not having a date on valentines day or any other day for that matter. You don’t need someone else to make you happy. Happiness comes from with in. I myself am still working on learning to love myself, but the past few years I’ve stopped dreading valentines day. Instead of worrying about going out I devote sometime to myself. I give myself a facial or paint my nails. I just make sure I’m making myself happy and it’s for me.

So the point of this post is that it’s ok to be by yourself and as corny as it may sound corny, but just love yourself. Because people come and go in life and it may hurt to be alone sometimes, but it won’t last forever. I’m still single by the way and I’m ok with that.

How do you deal with getting older?

so yesterday was my birthday, I turned…26! Oh my god that’s four years away from thirty which yes is a long time, but the last four years have gone by pretty fast for me. I’m just kind of freaked out because I’m still living at home and haven’t finished my degree yet. I know what I want to do with my life. I’m finishing with a liberal arts degree and then going to a fashion and design school, hopefully, online to become a buyer for clothing stores. I also want to to write, but I know that writing isn’t exactly something that I can be sure of as far as financial support goes. It’s more a passion than anything else, but the problem is I haven’t finished any stories or poems in a long time. It would be wonderful if I could become a publish author or become a freelance writer for magazines or something, but I can’t know that any of these things will actually happen.

I just feel as though I have wasted the last four years of my life because of drug addiction, rehab, relapses, and go back to rehab. That and a couple of stays in a psychiatric hospital the last of which lead to spending about four months in a long term care facility. I’ve also had three back surgeries, this last one was pretty serious, over those last four years. I know that those surgeries were something that I couldn’t control, but it still took time out of my life and lead to some of my drug problems. My physical therapist said that although my spinal fusion should be completely healed in three more months it may take me up to a year of PT and just working out to get my body  close to where it should be, I mean I’ll never be 100%, but in a year if I do exercise and do the physical therapy I may not need pain medicine anymore.

That is something that really scares me. What if I do need to stay on pain medicine, even if it’s a low dose, for the rest of my life. I don’t want that for myself. Right now I’m on really strong pain killers and I’m still in pain 80% of the day. I just wonder if it will be better in a year. I know I won’t be in pain that much in a year, but what if I’m still in pain? I don’t like the fuzziness that comes with pain killers and how tired they make me. I’m just afraid I won’t be able to write very well while taking them.

I guess I’m just afraid that the next four years will go by and I still won’t have anything accomplished. I am moving out though this summer if everything goes well. I’ll be living two hours away from my family and friends, but I will have a roommate. I’ll be going back to school too, just at a different college. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to meet new people and make new friends and maybe get the kind of support system I need in my life that I feel I am lacking right now.

In other positive news I have started trying new things. In my last post I wrote about how I want to try things that are new and do things that make me uncomfortable. It is a small start, but I tried sushi for the first time! You have to understand that I thought I hated fish. I tried fried fish when I was younger and I just did not like it, so my entire life I’ve just never eaten anything with fish in it, although I do like shellfish, about the only thing I would eat were salmon patties but they had bread crumbs in them and I covered them in ketchup. So a friend of mine took me out for an early birthday lunch to a place that had a sushi buffet. I tried just about everything they had and I used chopsticks! I was really surprised I just ate the raw salmon off the top of one piece and it didn’t taste fishy at all really it was delicious, I even tried the eel sushi, which is cook, and I liked it! I can’t believe I liked it so much, I’m ready to go get more. This is actually very good for me as far as eating healthier goes, now I know that I don’t hate fish so I can learn how to cook it (without deep-frying it of course) and have something else to add to my diet that is actually really good for me.

I also had a nice birthday party with my family yesterday. I wore this really cute dress I got from Modcloth

and I got this awesome Betsey Johnson bag!

My parents also bought me a tablet, it just hasn’t arrived yet, so hopefully I will be able to post more,because I think my computer is on it’s last legs :(. A good friend of mine also sent me a journal to write all of my ideas, short stories, poems, and anything else that comes to mind in. So I guess I just need to stop worrying, keep writing , and enjoy the ride.

Tiny Gods

This is a poem I wrote a few years ago, I’m trying to get inspired to write again so I’m sharing this because I think this is one of the best things I’ve ever written.

I spend more time watching people than actually talking to them,
As I observe them, like some unknown god, I create their universe around them.
I give names to their faces, decide on their lives and what they are feeling.
Do they stay up all night aching, unable to sleep?
Or are the happy, picture perfect, with a family, like things should be.

Generally I make them lonely, strange, and beautiful.
I send them home at night to empty houses to count their ceiling tiles and talk to themselves.
Sometimes I give them an addiction.
If they have a home there is a bottle or pipe or needle waiting there for them.
Sometimes I do not give them homes at all.
I give them very little
No money and few clothes,
but their vices are many.

A restless god can not create a whole universe.
These lonely people are not always sad.
They embrace the solitude.
They fill their lives with words and music made by other gods.

I could ask these people about their lives.
Was I right in my decisions?
Will they deny my existence?
Will they reach and long for the touch of god, to bend the ear with stories of hope, love, longing and loss? But I don’t want to know.

I don’t want to see that what I created is real and pulsing and growing.
Writhing and groping blindly for a foothold in the dark vast universe.
Everyone hopes to leave their mark
Something to let faceless generations know that they were alive and breathing and had a story.

Their stories, their souls are written in their eyes.
every old woman sitting alone in a restaurant is the history of my world,
her memories, the images of her life.
I see and feel them all.
I see the work of the gods before me.
I am not happy with all they have done to the world they left me with which to toy.

This is a polytheistic universe, one god grows as its parents decay.
So when I look into the eyes of those younger than I,
Into the eyes of tiny future gods,
I sometimes reel with horror at the emptiness I see.
Post apocalyptic wastelands in their pupils
The mushroom clouds of their irises.

I see separation, loneliness, and desperation.
People enclosed in tombs made up of fragments of computers and television screens.
Wires reaching out to bind them, choking out the heartbeat.
But I do not see only darkness.

My nephew, he too is a tiny god.
In him I see a bright future.
A world flourishing with beauty and light and endless possibilities.
And I know that some of what I see, these visions of the future, they will happen.
And I can lay my head on a pillow at night and feel a slight sense of peace.
I can almost reach the point of sleep,
but gods can never sleep

This poem is copyrighted by me so please do not use or reproduce it with out permission.

The year of Kelly

To reference the television show Seinfeld and it’s character George Costanza’s ‘Summer of George,’ this is the year of me. Hopefully I don’t have the bad luck George did. I know this sounds cheesy, but hear me out.

Over the last few years I’ve been through a lot. I’ve had stays in mental hospitals because I had been misdiagnosed and put on the wrong medications, stays in drug rehab after getting addicted to pain medication after surgery and several relapses, and in a four year span I’ve had three back surgeries. The last surgery was a pretty serious surgery. I had a spinal fusion surgery done in November. It’s been less than three months, which is when the fusion really starts to take place and I am still struggling with getting used to not being able to do the things I used to be able to do on my own.

The point is that through all of these experiences I’ve lost a lot of who I am. I’m not saying I didn’t learn some life lesson from all the things I’ve gone through in the past four years. I still feel like I’ve lost parts of who I am, and like to try to get those back, and with some new experiences be a better person if not the best person I can be.

I set a goal this year to become healthy physical, but I’d like to become healthy physical, spiritually, emotionally, and very importantly to me socially. All of these are important to me because I’ve let myself lose touch with a lot of people that I really miss spending time with.

This year I’d like to try and get back in touch with some of my old friends and learn to meet new ones. I have social anxiety, but I don’t want to use that as a crutch anymore. I’d like to try new things this year and put myself in situations that would normally make me uncomfortable and anxious, and I think I have a friend or two who can help me with this. I want to go out, see concerts, visit museums, travel (even if it’s only a few hours away, try new foods and foods that I didn’t think I liked. Basically I want to start living. I’m 26 and I’m not getting any younger so I’m hoping some people can help me start this journey.

I used to read a lot and also write a lot. I have a journal full of poetry, short stories, prose, and overflowing with short stories. My goal Is to go back to reading daily, even if it’s just a few pages before I fall asleep. I’d also like to change up what I’m reading. I am a big fan of a lot of different kinds of fiction, but don’t read much more than that. I actually have started reading non-fiction, but I’d like to expand on what I read. I want to read more biographies and autobiographies, historical books, books on artists, scientists and politics. I believe that expanding my horizons in literature will help me to start writing again. Whether or not I’m reading I want to start writing everyday even if it’s just what I did that day and want to do the next, journaling my thoughts and dreams, or writing on here.

When it comes to emotional health I’ll keep it short. All of the things I’ve gone through have definitely worn on me and stressed me out, so I’m just going to go back to a therapist. I just need one who will challenge me and make me deal with my issues and learn to handle problems as they come.

Spiritually will be hard because I’m not sure exactly how to define it. I do know that I used to meditate and that would give me a sense of peace and well being. I think spirituality is different for everyone, I think volunteering and doing selfless things would make me feel likes better person and I’ll just figure it out on the way.

When it comes to physical health I’ve been doing very well. I planned to give up pop at start only eating healthy food. So far I have stuck with that I haven’t had any pop, junk food, fast foods, and empty calories in things like ketchup and other condiments. As far as exercise I walk almost every day and do physical therapy. This week I’m joining the gym at the YMCA and going as much as possible and seeing if others will go with me.

I still need to get my degree I was going for English, but I have so many credits for liberal arts so I’m just switching degrees to liberal arts so I can just graduate already. There is a Penn State campus close to where I live so I want to transfer there to finish my degree. My plan is to eventually get an apartment somewhere in the area.

I know this is a really ambitious list of things I want to do this year but, please forgive me for the cliche but Rome wasn’t built in a day and I’m sure to get to where I want to be it’ll take the rest of my life. I’m always going to be learning and changing but I just don’t want to waste any more time. I got a lot of living to do

Some great smoothie recipes

Since I am trying to eat better I have been looking for fun easy recipes, and what is more fun and easy than a smoothie. So here are three smoothies I found on the site Veggie Meal Maker, which is a great site if you are looking for vegetarian and vegan recipes I think they make even have a few gluten free recipes. Just click the titles for the links to the recipes.

1. Mango Spinach Green Smoothie

I’m going to try this tomorrow for lunch or an afternoon snack since I have all of the ingredients. The only thing I’m changing is using raw unfiltered honey since agave nectar is just as bad for you as refined sugar. I’ll let you know how it tastes, I’m hoping to try all three smoothies. When I do I will let you guys know how it tastes and if it worked well as a meal replacement or is better as an in between meals snack.

2. Vanilla Peach Smoothie

This is the smoothie that I am looking forward to making the most. I am going to try this next month when I have money to go grocery shopping. Instead of soy milk and vanilla I am going to use coconut milk because I accidentally bought vanilla flavored coconut milk ( which is delicious and unlike soy milk and almond milk it did not bother my lactose intolerance.) Also I’m going to just use frozen peaches instead of the ice cubes so it will be a little thicker. I am a huge fan of peaches so I’m really excited about this one. I plan on using this as a snack between breakfast and lunch or along with my breakfast which is usually just oatmeal or eggs with a piece of fruit. Again I’ll let you know how it tastes and how filling it is.

3. Triple Berry Smoothie

Want longer hair? Then this is the smoothies for you berries are rich in vitamins and nutrients, including iron which helps blood carry more oxygen to your scalp which will allow your hair to be healthy and grow longer and stronger. Berries are also rich in anti-oxidants and fight against free-radicals which are believed to be a cause of cancer. Again I am substituting coconut milk for the soy milk, it also says you can use rice milk or nut milk (which I’m assuming includes almond milk,) so if that’s what you prefer you can use that. I haven’t really seen rice milk at the grocery stores or Walmarts around here  so I may just buy unflavored coconut for this one, although I’m sure the vanilla taste would go well with the berries. This recipe doesn’t call for any sweeteners, but if you don’t like the tartness of berries be sure not to add refined sugar or agave nectar, go for either real local honey(or the raw unfiltered stuff from Colorado they sell at a lot of grocery stores) or some Stevia.

Like I said I plan on trying all of these and doing a follow up as to how they tasted and whether or not they work better as a snack or as a meal replacement when you are in a hurry.

Little update

Sorry I haven’t updated in over a week, I don’t know if I have the flu or what, but I’ve been been exhausted and have hardly been able to get out of bed or eat for the past week.

I’ve been sticking with my resolution to become healthier though. I haven’t had pop since New Year’s Eve and no longer eat junk food.

My skin is super clear now and for my next post I plan on writing about my skin care regimen and what I’ve been using to achieve the results I’ve had. As well as a post about how I’ve changed my diet and my future plans to continue becoming a more healthy person.

Girl Problems

This post was supposed to have gone up in December, but it never did so I’m posting it now.

This post is pretty personal just to let you know, like about female health issues. I know it’s 2013, but that still makes some people uncomfortable ha.

This year has had a lot of ups and downs. I’m not going to go over all of them right now, but I’m just happy I made it through the year in one piece. I feel really positive about the upcoming year and hope that I can really make some changes for the better in my life.

I know my last post about depression was a bit jumbled, but I think things are starting to get a bit better. I did some research and it turns out the birth control I take Jolessa, which is kind of like Seasonique where you don’t get a period for 3 months, can have some pretty intense side effects. Some of which involve anxiety, mood swings, mild paranoia, and depression. That pretty much hits the nail on the head for me. I am not surprised to be honest. I am on birth control because I may have endometriosis. Over the summer and fall I was having issues with very painful cramping, cysts and growths on my ovaries, and missing my periods for months at a time. So my doctor decided to give me the hormone provera to jump start my period so I could get a ultrasound. The first time I took it I had no problems whatsoever, but then I had to take it again in order to start birth control and I basically went insane. I was taking it so I could get the Depo-Provera shot because that helps a lot with endometriosis, but since the provera itself gave me such severe effects I decided not to take the shot. So I have been on the Jolessa for about two months now and over the last two months the anxiety and depression have been worsening. So I decided to stop taking it and see if maybe that will help and also keep me from having to go back on anti-depressants.

I really am hoping that I can begin to get over this depression and anxiety with the aid of therapy. I would really like to focus on more positive things. One thing I’d like to do more of on here is makeup tutorials. I got a lot of makeup and a book on how to do different kind of eye makeup styles. So I think that would be something fun to do.

Since writing this I did stop the birth control and my depression has definitely decreased.