In case you’ve been wondering how I’ve been doing with my bipolar depression, here’s an update.

1. Starting Monday, I’ll be at the therapeutic dose of my mood stabilizer. Right now, I’m at 75% of that, and I feel great.
2. Do I still have good days and bad days? Sure, we all have them. But my bad days aren’t so bad, and my good days aren’t so good that I want to quit the drugs and go back to the highs of hypomania.
3. Speaking of those highs: what I’ve come to understand is that a lot of my negative self-image stems from the fact that the only times I’ve felt right the past few years have been when I’ve been hypomanic. Let’s be honest: I’m a high-functioning overachiever. My hypomania maximized my potential for awesome, which is why I liked it so much. But I’ll also be honest in that the highs are not worth the lows that I have. Not in the slightest. Further expanding on this point: I’m aware that people really value me, but I don’t feel that way. There are some roots to this problem, and I’m exploring them. It’s hard work, but it’s so necessary to getting my head straightened out.
4. Therapy continues to be good, if hard. [See above.] A lot of my actions in the last 20 years have been to insulate myself from pain. Fixing this is not unlike debriding a burn: painful, but necessary. I’m just starting to unlock things inside my head, and it’s so good.
5. I had to get biochemically balanced to make therapy be fully efficacious. This isn’t to say that the last eight months have been a waste, because they haven’t, but I’m feeling like I’m just now starting to get somewhere. We’ve been laying the foundation, and now it’s time to raise the walls. [Or, well, lower them, as it were.]

And if you didn’t care, well, you read this far anyway, eh?

I only wish I was talking about the band. No, that’s my DSM-IV diagnosis as of this moment. I can now see the pattern all the way back through college: I’ve been an undiagnosed bipolar depressive. I’m more of a bi-polar II type, really—I never go into full-blown mania, but I do go hypomanic, often for long periods.

This explains so much about me, and yet I am not even close to settled with it.

I can choose to be my diagnosis, or I can choose to treat the symptomology and see myself as a whole person. Once we came to the idea that this might be what it is—before Christmas, if you must know—I strongly defined myself by that diagnosis. I went into a shell of myself, honestly, living this whole meta-life where I overanalyzed everything. The only reason I was functional at all during this time was because I spent December in hypomania: I wasn’t ten foot tall and bulletproof, but I was at least eight feet high and ready to run through brick walls.

Running through brick walls. That’s a common act here on my end. I get convinced that I can do anything, and being a generally capable chap, I find that I’m able to accomplish much of what I set my mind to—but only when I’m hypomanic. When I’m depressed, I do very well to get out of bed in the morning and put one foot in front of the other. Imagine, then, when I came off that hypomania back to the depths while my good friends Kat and Sean were in town. That first weekend, the only thing that got me out of bed was the knowledge that I’d get to spend some time with them. Spend a lot of time with them, I did; then I’d drive home and the blackness would settle back in.

So, I did what any smart depressive does: ask for help. I met with my psychiatrist a couple days early, then started on a new drug regimen. By the end of the week, I was feeling much better, but the last few days … well, let’s just say that I’m happy that I titrate up to the next dose of the mood stabilizer tomorrow.

This is not easy. In fact, it’s quite hard. But doing nothing would be worse, for me. I can’t go on living like I was, with the antidepressants working some of the time and fighting some of the depression, except when it got worse, and then it would get better again, and that would be because I was hypomanic, and while I never quit my drugs or even stopped the dosages, I’d take my eyes off the prize, thinking I was Fixed.

I wasn’t Fixed. I’m trying to learn how to manage this, this which is so clearly my life and has been for a decade, though maybe I’ve not wanted to face it. But here in my thirties, I’d rather face my demons than be owned by them. I’d rather fight them and lose and lick my wounds than just lie in a pile in bed, unable to move, crushed by the biochemistry being off in my head.

And why the hell am I writing about this on the Internet? In a few hours, Facebook will import this as a note, and all 1200+ of my friends can confirm what they’ve long suspected—that I’m batshit insane at times. Isn’t this a bit of an overshare?

No.

I want the stigma of mental illness to go away. I want people to understand that people they know and love can struggle with these things, publicly, unafraid of who might know or find out. When I took time off at work back in June, everyone there really didn’t want to talk about it. I understood that, but man, seriously … I needed it. I realize now that I was coming off of some hypomania and plunging really, really far down in the hole, to a place where the antidepressants didn’t begin to touch things.

Yes, I need to talk about these things—not out of narcissism, but because others need to know that they’re not alone in this struggle. I’ve had at least two friends who, because I’ve written about my depression in the past, have sought help themselves, saying to me that they felt emboldened because I’d been public with it. In the light of that, how can I not share this fight with you?

I won’t get into specifics on meds or anything, but I’m combining an antidepressant with a mood stabilizer. It takes eight weeks to get to a therapeutic dose of the latter, and that’s proving to be hard, but I’m at least functional. That’s how most people end up fighting this: both barrels. The goal is to get to a normal person’s ups and downs, because those can be handled. I also see a therapist in addition to my psychiatrist, and if you ask if it’s worth it, I’ll tell you that I pay her out of pocket, and when I was seeing her every week last year, it was 10% of my takehome pay. It was worth every penny. I’ve unlocked a lot of wrong thinking in my head, and it makes me a lot more equipped to handle this. Talk therapy is not for everyone, but it’s definitely been for me.

So that’s what I’ve got, and that’s what I do about it. Got questions?

Brandi is struggling with church and why we do it, and I wrote this comment, which I’ll repost here because I think it’s highly relevant to my main consumer of this site: me.

I’m glad that you’ve made the choice to stick it out. Twice, I’ve become overwhelmed and left churches to start anew, for exactly the reasons you’ve alluded to here [although unlike you, I've never been on staff; but I did get asked to be the youth director once when I was in college, but anyway]. I find in the results of this that the problem lies, well, with me: how I balance my life, how I react when challenged by others, etc. Unlike you, I’m still single, so I don’t even have the marriage relationship to remind me that these rough patches are worth trucking through. I envy you that.

I am currently between church congregations for a number of reasons. One, which seems quite silly, is that my overwork at work and at my previous congregation got me to a point where I was overwhelmed and ultimately depressed, and I gave up the thing I could afford financially to give up. Sad, but true.

And yet while I’ve been out of a congregation for more than a year now, I find myself yearning for corporate worship and study. I find that I don’t challenge myself—rightly or wrongly!—in solitude. I find that small groups can often end up having herd mentalities, and I need something bigger than that so I don’t get into those mentalities.

And … in the course of writing this, I think I just talked myself into going to the local megachurch on Sunday. Heh.

I want to expand on that last point a little bit. I’ve long resisted large congregations, thinking they should plant. Part of this comes from my reading of Dunbar’s number and my desire to know and be known by a community of believers. But as I wrote that about small groups, I realized that my need for community can be met at that level while my need for larger corporate worship and accountability can be met by a larger congregation. You know, as long as I don’t buy into herd mentalities and “us v. them” thinking.

I’ve resisted visiting Asbury UMC, Madison’s large Methodist congregation, for all those reasons. But sitting here, I feel this tug on my heart that all that is just flippin’ silly. So… okay, God.

Somewhere in my MSMS days, I took the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, and I came up as an ENTP, which was jokingly called the ENgineering Type Personality. “Cool,” I thought, “I’m going into the right field.”

As it turns out, my T score really was, as I now understand it, a repression of just how much I am ruled by emotion rather than logic. Some of you who know me may dispute this, but let me tell you … here inside me, my heart wins out over my head all the doggone time. I really am an ENFP, or what the Keirsey folks call a champion.

Where this plays out as a problem with me is that I often end up feeling overwhelmed by the intensity of the emotions that I feel about things. A case in point is today: Misty posts a photo of Eli on the way to his first day of school, and well, it makes me cry. Misty was incredulous, but I yam what I yam.

This is, perhaps, the most important thing that I’ve learned about myself in therapy. I sabotage myself when I get overly emotional, because I think I can’t handle it and/or shouldn’t be feeling this [sadness|happiness|fear|anger] so intensely, and so I try to cut it off. That’s acting against type, and honestly, it’s just about the worst response that I can give myself—because then I seek to numb things out a bit. And if you’ve taken one look at me, you might imagine that I do this by stuffing something in my pie hole.

I’m learning to just ride the waves as they come, because they will eventually go away. If I try to cut it off—or worse, bottle it—it gets even worse. I’m tired of it being worse.

And so concludes this introspection that you didn’t really ask for me to perform. Now, don’t ask me about the bullshit decision by the CCHA today—I’m still too angry to talk about that rationally.

Before [well, a couple weeks ago; I'd let it grow since then]:

After:

I grew the beard in my 20s to look older at work. I had plenty of reasons for this, but the main one is that I was way younger than my peers and wanted to fit in a bit more visually. Now that I’m 30, though, I don’t really care about that kind of thing as much—plus, I’m established in my position. Also, I associate the growth of the beard with the growth of my gut over the same period of time. I’m trying to get rid of one, so why not both?

It’s all in how you choose to see things. This I have learned lately. And I now choose to see myself as a cleanshaven individual. [But yes, I will Whiskerino in three months. No worries there.]

I wrote on Monday that I was auditioning for the Huntsville Master Chorale. My audition was this afternoon, and I was told that I had “a perfect choral sound” and that “I would love to have you in our group”. I mean, that’s not, “You’re in,” but it’s pretty close. Needless to say, I’m happy with it, even though I thought my sight-reading stunk on ice. [She demurred and argued that it was a challenging piece to sight read, which I grant you that it was, but still ... I missed notes! I don't like missing notes!] I was nervous, mainly because the last time I tried out for anything was ACDA All-State my senior year at MSMS.

Also, things continue to be good. I had a dream last night that I went back to work today, where I got yelled at by everyone involved for coming back early. :chuckle: Today was actually the first day I was eligible to go back, as the leave I’m on requires that you be gone at least two weeks. Admittedly, I am tempted, but there are some things I want to get done around the house and with myself before I start back to work. I meet with my shrink again tomorrow, and I think she’ll be happy with my results. I know that I am.

If you follow the mood chart I started mainly for my doctor, you’ll see that I’ve had four good days in a row. The combination of the medical changes I’ve made are really making a difference in my mood and energy levels, and it’s awesome, y’all.

I’ve also been thinking about what I was doing wrong, because hell, it’s not all the drugs, man. To argue that my choices have no effect on my mood is just such utter bullshit, and turns meds into the crutch that so many people are afraid they’ll be. I strongly suspect that one of my friends who is struggling with depression right now fears meds because of the crutch concept. I want to tell you that they are not a crutch but a restorative—and you need that to keep the car on the road, but at the end of the day, you still have to drive, dammit. Kari sparked the thoughts that I’d had going to mind in writing about her issues with overcommitting.

Simply put, I got so busy at work that my fear of overcommitting—which has burned me out in the past—lead me to undercommit to anything that was not my job. Church, family, friends, self … all of you got sacrificed on the altar of my career. It was good for my career, but eventually left me such a broken shell of a person that I couldn’t hold it together to do the one thing I was theoretically trying to save.

It is entirely true that I am an aerospace engineer turned project manager. But to argue that this is all I am is just so, so wrong. I have long prided myself—rightly, I think—on being a well-rounded person. But the only way in which I can be considered well-rounded is in my physical appearance, which is not what I would call a Good Thing. [Just ask my knees and hips, which are both really barking tonight as I sit here in my desk chair.] I’m working on this, though. I plan on going flat out for the 40 [sometimes 45, sometimes 50] hours a week that my job asks of me, but I’ve got to do other things besides that lest I go absolutely batshit insane.

I’ve been working on this in two ways: one is, of course, seeking to get back into a church home. The other is something that finally came to mind today: auditioning for the Huntsville Master Chorale. I go on Wednesday. The time commitment may prove, ultimately, to be too much, but I owe it to myself and my baritone to stretch myself a little bit and have some fun.

Well, I went to Florida, and all I got was a lousy gasoline bill. [Okay, and lunch at Dixie Crossroads.] STS-127 has yet to launch, and as I watched the post-Mission Management Team press conference on Sunday, I had no faith that they’d fly. So, well, I started driving home, making it to Lake City, FL before I conked out on Sunday night and driving the rest of the way home yesterday. Put simply, I’m tired. [Sorry, HSVLocals, for sleeping through Thai Tuesday today.]

As the title indicates, taking this much time off is an exercise in separating What I Do for a Living from Who I Am. My life is radically unbalanced in this regard, and I’m trying to restore it to balance. I’m also going stir-crazy. I have no profound insights as of yet; I have two more weeks for those, I reckon.

Tonight’s musical allusion comes from Ferraby Lionheart:

Give yourself a break and laugh awhile
We’ll laugh until our bellies bleed
Give yourself a break and laugh awhile
Your smile does something to my knees

– “The Octopus and the Ambulance”, Catch the Brass Ring

My colleague Jaime [hi, Jaime!] and I were talking at work today about me taking time off; she knew it was coming because I import this site’s feed into Facebook’s Notes thing, and we’re Facebook friends. She was very supportive, and hell … she’s the person who probably gets the absolute worst of me taking time away from work to get my head back on straight. Nothing says, “Right decision,” to me more than that.

The meds are working, slowly. I don’t feel as overwhelmed by life, although knowing a break is coming at work certainly made life easier this morning. Jaime said it, and she’s right: I’m incredibly blessed to be in a situation where I can take time to do this. I work for and with some of the greatest people I know, which is why I took less money coming out of school to stay where I’m at. [Well, that, and I'm vested in the pension plan. But it's mostly the people.]

I’m trying to look at this as a learning opportunity for me. That’s the best way to approach it, I think.

I wrote you from a deep, dark well on Thursday, which was an M. Ward allusion for those of you playing along. Today, a little from the Boss:

I ain’t nothing but tired
Man I’m just tired and bored with myself
Hey there baby, I could use just a little help

Now, Bruce’s protagonist was looking for love, and while I’m single, I’m just trying to keep my head above water right now. I feel bad for keeping the loved ones and friends in my life in this cycle of “I’m better / I’m depressed”, and I wouldn’t wish adding that trial to a relationship right now on anyone. [And my married friends can tell me I'm stupid, and they're right, but this is how I see it.]

We adjusted my medication, and I already feel better. I had a great day hanging out with friends yesterday, and I was productive in working downstairs today on clearing out the junk and sorting things, etc. [Aside: my PS2 and games are gonna be available real soon, if anyone wants them.] My furniture is now finally fully delivered, and while I’m still figuring out where to put it all [because I have old stuff to get rid of; thanks, Paralyzed Veterans of America, for picking that up in a week!], it’s all starting to come together. I’m digging it. [I need to paint the living room, though, but ... meh.]

Tomorrow, I face a tough decision: whether or not to take any time off, and how much if so. I’ve been offered use of my long-term leave, provided we can get it approved, and I have eight weeks’ stored. I clearly don’t want to take anything close to all of that, but in my head, 2-3 weeks off seems like it would make sense. But as soon as I say that, I get guilt pangs about leaving work for that long. So prayers and hopeful wishes for wisdom and discernment? Appreciated.

Others writing about their depression is what encouraged me to seek help last year, and while I started to just send those people an email, I realized that the best thing I could do is to pay it forward.

I’ve actively been under treatment for major depression for fourteen months, but what we’ve been trying for the last four or so just isn’t working. Things seem to work for 4-6 weeks or so, and then they stop. That, in part, makes me think that I’m seeing a placebo effect.

I should have seen my psychiatrist yesterday, but she was sick, so I’m going tomorrow. I met with my boss today, and if I need it, we’ll go after extended medical leave. Hospitalization is not out of the question if it is necessary—I was certainly ready to go there yesterday if it came to it.

I find no shame in any of this. My brain is not working as it normally does. That’s simply it. My concentration is shot, my memory is diminished. I am a knowledge-worker. I know if I am off of my game. I definitely am.

Friend, do not be ashamed of what’s going on inside your head, no matter what it is. If it’s not normal and needs to be treated, you should treat it. Societal taboos about mental health issues are starting to subside, and I think that the generation of those of us who have the power of self-expression through the power of personal publishing are likely to help with tearing those down.

I need help. You might, too. If I can seek it, so can you.

So yeah, I’ve got anxiety about church. When I was in Nashville on Monday, Andy asked me about the situation, and that conversation set me off on a Five Whys path to figuring out the core problem.

1. Why have you not been going to church? Simply put, it became a point of anxiety in my life, and I was trying to cut out those things if I could. I really couldn’t [nor did I want to] quit my job, but church was something that I felt I could quit—right, wrong, or indifferent.
2. Why was church an anxiety point? Because I’m one of those Pareto 20%-ers who get caught up in doing 80% of everything.
3. Why are you that way? I think I’m wired into servant leadership because a) I find that it’s the best way for me to lead b) I like to lead c) I show love for people by doing things for them and giving them gifts. My love languages drive me to servant leadership—and while that is a great and admirable thing [or so I tell myself when I can't sleep at night], it’s also terribly draining.
4. Why is it terribly draining? Because I have a hard time saying no.
5. Why do you have a hard time saying no? Because, in my love language, it’s tantamount to saying, “I don’t love you.”

And there you have it. What I need to internalize, of course, is that saying no isn’t a love language issue, for the following reasons:

• I am not always the best person for the job. [Work is slowly teaching me this, although I'm still the best scheduler I know and also the best clerk. Neither of these is terribly value-added, though, because I'm awful expensive to be doing either job.] Arguing that I am both stretches me too thin and keeps other people from getting to serve. Neither is a good thing.
• Even if I am the best person for the job, I have a finite resource of time, some of which I have to learn to selfishly withhold for myself.

There probably are more … and you can sound off in the comments. But I needed to go through this. Of course, now that I’ve squared all this in my head, I’m sick this weekend and better not sicken others.

As of yesterday, I’m down to quarterly visits for management of my depression. What we’re doing now seems to be doing the trick.

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Play that … I recorded it back last year, and the whole show is worth downloading, but I couldn’t not share this as a background for this post.

It’s been a long year, like a sleepless night
Jacob wrestled the angel but I’m too tired to fight
Every Wednesday for two years we’ve met
I’ve showed you all my anger, doubts, and bitterness
There was no judgment in your eyes
Just the silent peace of God that felt so real in you

Will you hold the light for me?
Will you hold the light for me?

– Caedmon’s Call, “Hold the Light”, Overdressed

It’s been a year since I first sought psychiatric attention:

The crisis point was one day at work when the stress level got too high and I … well, I broke down. I shut my office and was alternately crying and catatonic for the better part of two hours. After pulling myself together, I did the hardest thing I’ve had to do professionally—walk into my boss’s office, explain the situation, and tell him that I needed time off. I worked the next day [it was our monthly program review with the customer, and my absence would've been conspicuous], but I took the rest of that week off and sought help.

On April 1st, I did the most wise thing I could have: walked into a psychiatrist’s office and started treatment. This coming Thursday will be my fourth visit, but I’ve got to tell you that I saw effects quite quickly. I’m aware that many folks suffering from chronic major depression struggle for months and sometimes years to find an anti-depressant that works for them; I had noticeable results almost immediately. In fact, I almost wondered if there was a placebo effect for what was going on with me, but as we’ve adjusted dosages, I’m aware that there is, at least for me, better living through chemistry.

And honestly, if I hadn’t sought help, well … the biggest stressor in life—my job—would’ve eaten me alive. It is not that I hate my job—I absolutely love what I do. I don’t love every day of it, but viewed from a perspective, I do really value the work that I’m doing and have a passion for doing it. Seeking professional help for a mental health condition was the best professional choice I’ve made in the last year—and in this last year, I’ve been heavily involved in bringing the company eight figures’ worth of business. My job does not get easier as Shuttle end-of-life approaches; rather, it gets harder. Had I not sought treatment when I did … well, I really don’t want to speculate what I might’ve done. I did not ideate in this round of depression, but I have in the past, and this low was far lower than the rest.

This is not to say that it’s been rainbows and ice cream and puppy dogs since then; in fact, I have had some bad times, too, including an incident where again I was crying and losing my shit. Work has gotten more stressful, not less, but I’m also managing it far, far better. I’ve had to modify my drug regimen, but it all works now. And if it stops working, well, we’ll try something else.

It is not easy to admit that you need help, or to accept it. It’s actually damnably hard, but it’s so very much worth doing. I want to quote some things written by Heather Armstrong, one of the people whose writing about depression openly and honestly is one of the reasons I actually sought help:

I cannot be emphatic enough: I will continue to take [Prozac] or something like it for the rest of my life. I will not ever be off medication. I continue to see my therapist, not every week or even every month, but whenever I hit a road block and need someone to help me talk my way through it. Sometimes I have bad days, sometimes bad weeks, but the medication enables me to cope, to see a way out and over those times. I am not ashamed of any of this.

I think many people are afraid that if they take medication or even agree to see a therapist that they are in some way admitting failure or defeat. Or they have been told by their boyfriend or their mother or their best friend that they should buck up and get over it, and that asking for help is a sign of weakness. Well then, let me be weak. Let me be a failure. Because being over here on this side, where I see and think clearly, where I’m happy to greet my child in the morning, where I can logically maneuver my way over tiny obstacles that would have previously been the end of the world, over here being a failure is a hell of a lot more enjoyable than the constant misery of suffering alone.

– Dooce.com, “Because I couldn’t say it on the phone”

I have friends who are depressed as well. Some blog about it; some write songs about it. [I wouldn’t argue that “Hold the Light” is about depression, but I’ll be honest … it was a lifeline to which I grabbed hold many a time over the last few months. Specifically:

I wanna feel redemption flowing through my veins
I wanna see with clear eyes beyond lust and hate
I want the war to be over and know the good guys won
I want love to hold me and know I’m not alone

If you even think you should see a psychiatrist, go. What’s the worst thing that happens? You go and they tell you, “No, this is just normal, and I won’t keep taking your money.” But the best thing that happens is hearing these words: “I can help. You are not alone. Lots of people feel this way, and it’s a combination of physiology and psychology. Let’s work on this.” Those are sweet, beautiful words to hear, because they bring hope when hope can be very, very hard to find from deep within.

Of late, my depression … it hasn’t been good. I think it’s a lot of things, but mainly that I haven’t dealt well with the stress of my position at work. It’s to the point that it’s affecting me physically [vicious headaches], and all in all, it’s not good. Randomly this morning [but are subconscious questions ever really random?], I asked myself, “Hmmm … could the five whys help me figure out what’s stressing me out here?” And I decided that yes, they could.

I’m depressed.

Why are you depressed?

Because I’m stressed out.

Why are you stressed out?

Because of my job.

Why is your job stressful?

Because of the schedule pressures we’re under and my lack of control over things, even though I’m the public face of my company to the customer.

Why is the lack of control a problem?

Because I’m held accountable for our actions but feel powerless to resolve them.

And see, that’s it right there. Now, you don’t always get there in five whys; sometimes, it takes more. Honestly, this is not the conversation I had in my head this morning; it was far more specific, and started with “I’m stressed out because of work.” I went another couple questions deep—and actually, there were two branches to this problem, because there were two whys to ask myself:

1. Why do you feel powerless?

   Because as a manager, I have to delegate, and I’m used to being held accountable only for my actions and not the actions of others.

   Why is this a problem?

   Because I a) am still learning to delegate and b) still learning how to hold folks accountable while not being an asshole.

2. Why do you feel accountable?

   Because at the end of the day, it’s my job to be.

   Why do you not pass that accountability forward as appropriate?

   Because I’m still learning how to hold folks accountable.

See, my problem is that I learned to be a project lead in the context of being a good cop to my boss’s bad cop. The problem with that is that I don’t have anyone under me to be either a bad cop to my good cop [which I like to be], or for me to switch roles with. I sorta have that with my colleague Jaime, but not really.

So now that I’ve come down to the actual problem here—accountability—I’m a whole lot more settled. I have come to the root of the problem, and now I can act on it accordingly. I won’t just be going, “O woe is me, my job is stressful, waaaaah!” It will be more, “I need to hold my people accountable for the mistakes they make that end up making me look bad to the customer.” After all, my instinct is to always jump on the grenade, but after a while, you’re not alive when that happens.