"I talk about sex a lot in my act, because, let's face it, if I was hungry I'd talk about food." — Adam FerraraB*ll let's talk day (hashtag B*llLetsTalk) is upon us again, the annual reminder to bring mental illness, particularly depression out of the closet. Sometimes literally. I was ambivalent about using the opportunity to blog about my mental health, which I've been meaning to do for a while, just because I talk about this kind of thing a lot. Especially on Facebook. My feelings toward the corporatizaton of mental illness is summed up beautifully by my friend, whom I will call HL until I get permission from them to actually use their name. But I'm stealing their opening Let's Talk Day post.
This was prompted by the annual marketing campaign of a telecommunications company. How I feel about the marketing campaign is not black & white.. I've read stories of the unsupportive way they treat their own employees that are dealing with mental health issues, then there's the concept of co-opting a mental illness for tax cuts and corporate gain, etcetera. However. Every once in a while, years later, I'll receive a message out of the blue from someone who read my first depression posts and is writing to tell me how it made them feel less alone, how it prompted some action on their part, how it helped them talk about their own struggles, how it changed their life. And that to me is so incredibly humbling and makes so clear the value of talking about depression and mental health, even if it's just once a year, even if it's a corporation reminding you to do so. To have an effect for the better on someone's life, just by sharing a little bit of what you're going through, and for them to tell you about it years later... It is profound to contemplate. So I am grateful that a corporation, benefit as they may, is reminding us all to talk about mental health.For those of you not paying attention, I was diagnosed with major depression in about 2004, and have been in on various antidepressant meds ever since. Major depression is an acute (meaning it happens suddenly) form of depression (manifesting anywhere from catatonia to vague lack-of-energy, accompanied or not by physical illness, pain, and low mood). I rarely have non-functional days, days where I can't get out of bed, days when I can't make appointments or show up for classes or whatever. I have, however, for the first time in my life, had days where (in the absence of a class or a meeting or appointment) I find myself climbing back into bed and unable to contemplate anything for more than 3 minutes, until it's evening. Actually night. Like 8pm, Rob finally emerges from the bedroom to take his pills, have a headache-reducing coffee, and eat something horrible.
For me major depressions are occasional acute manifestations of my chronic (meaning it doesn't happen suddenly, but is basically just always there) persistent depressive disorder (the DSM-V has merged my previous diagnosis, dysthymia, with something else, into PDD). In my case, PDD is basically chronic low mood and low energy, but not as low as when in a major depression. A previous therapist described it as 'instead of being at close to 100% much of the time, you're hovering around 80% much of the time. If a 'healthy' person hits a setback and goes down 20-30%, they're still functional. If you hit a roadblock, you're down to 50-60% and in crisis'. Having PDD is like having anemia--you may be basically okay, day-to-day, but you're not 100% like other people, and it takes less to take you into emergency territory.
So my update is that this year, with the encouragement (and assistance) of my regular doctor, my dean, and my HR department, I am seeking help. I'm in talk therapy for the first time in 15 years, monthly, by myself in a comfortable little room with my therapist (actually 'counselor' because 'therapist' is apparently a separate certification in Manitoba). Only seen him a few times so far but he's helping me re-shape my narrative, more than anything else, and keeping me on track with all the stuff I should be doing anyway: breaking down large tasks into small, manageable, and most importantly achievable, tasks and following through with them.
This means changing a lot of habits. I tend to procrastinate because I don't like starting something I don't think I can finish in the sitting time I have available. So marking stack of papers, I like to clear a fwe hours and mark, rather than doing a page or two of each, or one or two papers, over several sessions. But I no longer have the concentration power to sustain 3 hours of marking at a time, so I have to learn to take shorter available patches of time, try to settle in to do part of something, and then move on.
So aside from helping normalize my experiences ('that's common enough', or my first breakthrough 'no, you're not a sociopath') and encouraging any small progress I can make (and teaching me to do so) he's also helping me reshape my narrative (I'm no longer just stupid, or forgetful, or lazy, I'm just having trouble keeping my brain in gear and have to concentrate more in small bursts rather than just despairing at how out of control and unproductive my life is. I love my therapist.
I spent much of the last few years dodging added responsibilities at work, for fear of overloading my limited neurotransmitter. Now, with the help of my doctor and HR department, I have registered some of my difficulties (the PDD, the sensitivity to light and constant noise, the pain in my foot, and so on) as factors that limit my abilities, and finding reasonable accommodations. This has been pretty successful, actually. I now have someplace to call when 'there's no place to sit in my classroom', 'the lights in my office are too bright' and 'I don't like keeping my door closed, but when I don't people interrupt my fragile train of thought'. Workwise I'm feeling a little optimistic and am slowly getting back into doing stuff regularly, this time in small bursts of productivity. Still working on not starting something and hitting a burst of productivity and getting derailed having to go teach a class or something, but at least stuff is sort of happening.
I have a new plan for the textbook I started writing, which is going to work much better. I have an interesting project that will probably result in at least a conference talk but I'm going to try to sell it to a journal. I have some new tools to deal with bureaucracy that will hopefully head off complete frustration and anger and total roadblock in my own work. I've volunteered to run a workshop for students next month, and invited to give an invited presentation at a conference in May. Productivity is occurring, which is more than can be said of the previous few years.
So it's all about nibbling away at problems, like the mess on my kitchen counters, my research. Even my teaching responsibilities, Even if I teach in blocks pre-scheduled blocks of time, I no longer feel like I have to sit down and prep a whole lecture all at once. It means I have to prep several lectures at a time, all at different stages, but apparently this is how grown ups manage their time.
Another breakthrough I had with the therapist "oh, this must be how grownups do it". As in 'ah, housework never ends. You're never 'just done'. The trick is to stay on top of it so there's no pile of crap building up around your desk that would take Herculean effort to clear out. Or having achieved such a pile over time, understanding that it's going to take time to clear out, and better to deal with a couple of small things when you can than just leaving it to get worse until you feel 'ready' to tackle it. You're never going to be ready for all of it, and you're just going to have to develop the habit of doing the small things (continually) instead of big things all at once.
In the housework realm, I'm being helped and amused by a book called Unf*ck Your Habitat, which is a housekeeping book aimed at people with mental or physical disabilities. You don't have the energy to clean a whole bathroom. Guess what. You don't have to, and no one actually expects you to. But can you take 10 minutes and scrub the toilet? Can you take another 10 minutes some other time and clean the mirror?
So anyway this is me talking for Lets Talk day, without acknowledging the corporate sponsorship of the activity. Time to prep part of a class and write part of a test. Then later, there's a huge block of teaching, but tomorrow there are about 7 clear 30-45 segments of time when I could actually hack away at a couple of different projects. And I'm not really dreading any of them, because I don't really expect to finish them, so none of them seem very hard. This is progress. #robsbrain is no longer an excuse, it's just a factor in a new way of living.
