This is what my MDD feels like:
I woke up today filled with dread, the worst, most crippling sick-to-my-stomach dread... unnamed dread... it had no source, but the feeling was very very very REAL, and that combination only amps up the anxiety... making me feel like something horrible is right around the corner and I don't even know what to expect, but it's coming, it's definitely coming, and it's very bad.
I knew it was gonna be a bad day right away, even after I popped an anti-anxiety med. The force of despair inside me was rising way too fast and furious for mere pills to curb the tide.
Things just got worse as the day went on. My skin is crawling. I feel hollow inside. My hands won't stop shaking. My throat is closed up tight as a fist. It's hard to breathe. My torso hurts with every movement. My limbs feel numb and heavy and hard to manage. Nausea is burning in my stomach and I feel dizzy and weak. I feel faint every time I stand up. My blood pressure is soaring and I am covered in a cold sweat. And that feeling of creeping dread has grown 100 times more intense as the day goes on.
This is MDD. This is the illness that I am living with. It sucks monkey ass. At times like these I feel like a freak. It's embarrassing. It makes me hate my body; it's like my very being is sabotaging me. My brain is telling me to run, to hide, to be afraid for no valid reason. How retarded is that??
How do I even explain something like that to anyone? "Oh hi there, I'm Shady, and I'm freaking out for absolutely no reason right now! My brain is wrongly misfiring fight-or-flight chemicals into my system and making me panicky, but hey, I'm just peachy, I'm not an insane freak, wanna be pals?!" *facepalm*
It's hard to see the light of reality when everything is buried in this treacherous shit. I tell myself over & over- 'breathe, you're ok, nothing bad is happening'... but my body doesn't care. The dreadful paranoia just rolls on. It's scary to not be in control. It's scary not to be able to stop this. There are days when I can... sometimes the meds do help... well, mostly they do help. But some days they don't, nothing does. Today I thought about death, today I got into fights with people I love, today I sat on my bathroom floor in the dark and cried. Today is one of those days. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.
And this is what my MDD feels like.
*flips MDD off*
7 comments:
You have the making of a great writer.
Hey Shady,
I am so sorry you are going through all of this and there is no control or reasoning to make it better.
Try to keep your eyes on the horizon. I think that is the remedy for sea sickness and vertigo as well, but the horizon is a point of focus until the madness passes. I hope it passes quickly and doesn't return too soon.
My heart goes out to you.
Jen
This is an amazing blog, Shady. When I get my own blog going, you've inspired me to do an occasional post about what it's like to love someone who is bipolar.
Again, you've given me some valuable insight that will make my own situation a little easier. I could no more walk away from her than she could walk away from her own illness, but damn it's tough sometimes.
Sing it, sister.
I'm gluten-intolerant, the main symptom of which is (for me, at least) chronic low-grade depression (dysthymia). So I totally relate, to a degree. If I cheat on my diet I'm back to crying for hours each day and contemplating my demise. I have repetitive thoughts which usually make no sense, a single random sentence that I can't help but think over and over... when in that state, I require constant distraction. I have to look at a magazine while I talk to people because otherwise my thoughts will go off in their own direction.
Even now, knowing what was causing me to feel that way, I still have a sense of impending doom, or incredible guilt. I go over all of my personal interactions that day, searching for what I could have done wrong, how I could have offended or hurt someone... I basically look for reasons to feel bad.
So, feel free to vent to me. I love to read your writing.
Whoa Shades,
I so much wish I could cut that MDD cage open and set you free forever.
It's amazing that you can take your distance and manage to describe it so detailed for non-MDDers. Just describing it must take a bag of courage to face the paranoia.
It reads scarier than the scariest horror movie.
Crying in the dark, deathwish in your head. Amazing that you're able to pull thru it time after time.
You have no idea idea how fucking strong you are Shades..
All of you who reads this, let's all pray for our Heather Shades, beautiful creature caught in an on/off flickering cage of MDD-terror.
Let's send her positive healing thoughts every day we get up or lie down to go to sleep, or when you think of her.
Pray to your god to set her free, to spiral her health up to a level where she can function as who she wants to be, continuously, medication-free!
Gods make it happen! Amen.
Heather we love you, please stay around in the land of the living.
Every day for me now.
Dude. I've been gone a few days. I hate that I missed this, as it happened. BECAUSE OF COURSE MY COMMENTS ARE THE BALM THAT FIXES ALL. Pffffffffffft!!! But...anyway. I've been gone, friend. I'm back. I'm still useless, but I'm BACK, YO. I'm sorry I haven't done the myspace thing yet. I'm on my way. I loves you. Hang in. ~Randi
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