My name is Aaron. I have bipolar depression. I have taken more psych
meds that I can count, and I'm here today to share my story, and most
importantly, to say that there's always hope. The reason I feel
confident in saying something I always thought was so trite is that I
know now that we never run out of things to try. Like many stories
worth telling, mine is one of going through the darkness and into the
light.
There is about a five year period of time that I don't really
remember. While my friends went to college and did all the fun things
that you can only really get away with when you're that age, I went to
psychiatrists. I firmly believed that I had a terminal disease and that
I was fighting a losing battle. It certainly seemed that way, too. I
just got worse and worse, and I was a topic of discussion for my whole
family. To be the problem everyone is
talking about is a most unsettling feeling.
Over time, most of my family became convinced that I was lazy and
that I wasn't trying. I didn't really disagree. But my mom tackled my
depression head on, and over time I think she became nearly as
depressed as I was. I remember her lying on the couch, staring at the
wall, with a look of utter hopelessness and defeat on her face. I knew
it was because of me and I remember feeling so sad and powerless that I
couldn't seem to keep from destroying her life. That was the worst
part, feeling like I was to blame for her despair.
I tried to kill myself twice. After the second time I was
hospitalized. I felt hopeless, largely because I felt I had already
tried everything and that nothing was working. I had learned a fair
amount about psych meds over the course of taking so many of them,
because I wanted to be knowledgeable about what I was taking. I learned
about SSRIs, tricyclics, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, and so
forth. I knew I had tried many of the drugs in each of these
categories, and others, and that I was running out of drugs to try. But
what I didn't know was that there is a whole world of options out
there, and that psych meds make up only a small number of the
options available.
When I was in the hospital I agreed to try Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT),
because I felt like I'd already tried everything else. The point of
ECT, as you may already know, is to induce a short seizure, which
supposedly realigns something in your brain. Well I didn't get my brain
realigned, and instead of one short seizure, I had a series of long
seizures the doctors had trouble stopping. I spent that weekend in the
ICU and don't remember any of it. My psychiatrist was never able to
figure out why that happened, but he did suggest that I try again.
Fortunately, I declined.
I'd been taken off my meds for the ECT and after that failed, I was
put back on them. I was still in the hospital and was having
uncontrollable crying spells. I wasn't allowed to go outside and all
there was to do was to sit for hours in front of the TV (which I
despise) or to read, in between the various sessions they held. Much of
the material they presented in these sessions was good, but was a
repeat of another outpatient program I'd been to previously. I wasn't
allowed to leave until my psychiatrist decided I was ready.
I was still depressed, and the hospital was only making things
worse. I hid my crying spells and feelings, and manufactured what I
hoped would be a believable story of feeling a little better each day.
Talking to my doctor, I felt like a prisoner talking to his parole
board. I guess I'm a good liar because they eventually let me out. I
remember the day I got out, driving to buy new strings for my guitar,
with the windows down and the wind in my hair. It was one of the best
days of my life.
The hospital was my rock bottom - I was determined to never go back
to a psych hospital, and resolved to either get better or find a better
way to kill myself. I spent a lot of time working on both. I got out
of the hospital in February of 2005, and over the course of that year I
quit taking my psych meds and starting getting acupuncture. I started
paying more attention to what I ate and I started exercising. I had
some mind expanding experiences, and I really grew up a lot.
I gave up on psychiatry as a solution for my problems. And I'll
admit, I had gone into it with an immature attitude, expecting the
doctor to fix me instead of working to fix myself. I know psych meds
help some people and I am not suggesting that anyone quit taking their
meds if they work. There is no uniform treatment that works for
everyone, and that is one point I wish to make: Everyone is different
and gets better in their own way.
Treatment has such a narrow scope in many people's minds - it means
doctors and pills. But treatment and recovery encompass everything from
what drugs you take to whether you like your job, to what you do with
your free time, to where you live and the people you surround yourself
with, and much, much more. It's about being happy, and everyone has
factors that affect their happiness, whether or not they have ever felt
depressed or been to a psychiatrist.
By far, the biggest and most important thing I've learned is that
you're never out of options. You never run out of things to try, and
any time you feel like you've tried it all it just means you're not
looking hard enough. It means it's time to branch out and investigate a
totally new aspect or approach. I let doctors give me a seizure before
I had tried things as simple as exercise, nutrition, or acupuncture.
It's really crazy, looking back.
The few years following my release from the hospital were far from
perfect and I experienced plenty of dark times and what I guess you
could call relapses. But the overall trend was a positive one, and I
have made a long uphill battle to where I am today.
Nowadays I work in IT, working on computers, and I live in an
apartment I like on the east side. I have a wonderful girlfriend, and I
spend a lot of time on creative endeavors. These creative outlets have
been very important to my recovery. I play guitar and sing, and I
draw. I write on a blog. I still get acupuncture, and I trade guitar
lessons for my treatments. I take Lithium, which I've been back on for a
few years, and it helps keep me on an even keel. I'm working on saving
money to move out of Texas, which has been a dream of mine for years. I
love Austin, but I really want to live someplace with cooler weather.
I still have times when I feel depressed and I'm by no means
magically cured and happy all the time, but who is? That's
unrealistic. I am happy overall and I would consider myself to have
recovered. I have a good support system in place of people I can talk
to when I need to. I look forward to the future and am glad I have
persevered and made it this far.
I value openness and welcome any questions anyone has. I am here
because I want to share, and would rather someone ask me something they
feel awkward about than hesitate out of fear of either asking something
too personal or me judging them. I also have business cards for the
acupuncturist I see at South Austin Community Acupuncture. His name is
Mike Sobin and he works on a sliding scale, with prices as low as $15
per treatment. It's been an effective, affordable treatment that has
made a big difference in my life.
Finally, it doesn't matter who you are, where you've been, or what
you've done. The past is the past, and all you can change about it is
how you view it. It can either be a situation that's depressingly
similar to the present, or it can be that period in your life when you
were just crazy screwed up. It's up to you. All that matters is that
you continue to try, because giving up is the only way anyone really
loses.
