Severe Depression, Self Harm and Understanding

I am doing fine so far today. Still fighting infection, but I have always felt that if you are doing well mentally you can handle the other things a little better. Much better. I haven't worked out for a week, due to feeling sick so I'm looking forward to being well enough to start back at it. Maybe tomorrow. No side effects today. I have transitioned pretty well from this last med reduction.

I want to thank those of you who have read my blog. It is like journaling with people who support you. I told one friend that I used to have a column and the best part about it was that I could say whatever I wanted, without interruption, delete if necessary without worrying about what someone else thought. This is a little different in that I am hoping to help people who suffer from bi-polar disorder and depression. I have had some comments and they lift me. But today I am going to write about what months of severe depression is like.

I will warn you, what I am about to write will be graphic. I'm not proud of my previous "coping skills", and as I have said, I have been "clean and sober" from self harm since July 1, 2009. I do not have thoughts of death and I have no self harm thoughts. I don't condone any behavior to which I am to admit. I just want someone who is dealing with depression and self harm to know that there is someone out there that understands and that there is hope and help on the other side. If you or someone you know exhibits these symptoms or thoughts please go, or get them to the nearest emergency room.

Take the most painful, guttural grief one can imagine and transfer that to your mind. It is like climbing Mt. Everest everyday. Sleep is refuge. Pitch black with no dreams. Then it ends, the blackness, to awaken to the immediate hell of consiousness.

The life of depression is... No. The death of oneself through depression is relentless. The faith and will contstantly try to convince the mind that death is not the answer. Always believing that I could never take my own life, the agony that flows through my mind and body, the sickness and pain no one can see, the appeal of death keeps winning.

I must counteract the wretched agony that grips my brain and body.Pain from another source, slamming the crow bar against my calves, shins, my hips and my arms until I can dissociate, then to the point where I can't take the pain anymore distracts me.

Razor blades, an exacto-knife, blade size 11, which being an artist I usually have around, or I go to the store and buy a new one with new blades, covering my tracks by saying that I have a project for which I need it. I find reasons to go up and down crafts aisles giving me a hint as to what I can do to justify buying the tool.

It hurts a little at first, but then I begin to dissociate and the blade goes deeper and deeper making long lines on my skin. I must bleed. I must see the blood. I feel a release, a relief.

My mind becomes more and more skewed. The depression does not leave. I cannot take if for one more second, and God says I can't kill myself. I don't believe, or I didn't believe in suicide until this depression. I yell at God. Surely He knows just how much I can take.

I go for a ride down highway 218. Driving 80, 90, 100 miles per hour looking for a good sized tree. I scream at God, praying at the same time for Him to take this away. I can't do it.

At work, as an art director, my depression permeats the production department. They try every method to "cheer me up" with no success. They begin to ostracize me. I cannot take part in any conversation. They just look at me, ignore what I say and go back to talking among themselves. It is difficult for others, I understand. It is tough to be around someone who cannot have their spirits lifted no matter what you do. Eventually everyone gives up. But I am still here and I have a soul. Just because they don't acknowledge me does not make me extinct.

During talks with my daughter I try to explain to her why I have to kill myself so that everyone will be happier. I can't comprehend grief. I can't convey to another living soul why I can't again "pull myself up by my bootstraps" or "snap out of it." If I hear one more person tell me to "snap out of it," the only thing snapping will be their neck.

Taking a batch of family pictures, I cut my face out of them. I realize that in most of them my face is red and blotchy from crying before the picture was taken. And it hits. I have felt this way forever. When I try to sleep, I hear my husband and daughter downstairs laughing about something. I can't feel joy. There has never been joy in my life. Just what is laughter, is it mechanical, how is it created? I go downstairs to sit and watch them laugh and try to figure out just how they are doing it. They look happy. What is that?

The nightmare skewing my mind fully understands that suicide, putting a gun to my head and pulling the trigger would be as easy as walking into Wal-Mart. Why can't anyone understand this? I ask a minister to hook me up with someone who knows what grief feels like and why doing away with myself is not a good idea. I ask about the Church's stand on suicide...just how a funeral is conducted for someone who does this. And I'm assured that a funeral would be conducted in the very same way that is done for anyone else.

At work I wear ear buds and listen to Josh Groban. No one wants to speak to me, so I take myself away from conversations. Every other second I think about death and how to accomplish it. I have a suicide hotline number next to the phone. I talk to the publishing editor trying to explain what is happening to me.

Having been hired with wonderful references I tell her, "Imagine that you are awesome at pinball. And there is one game you have down to a science. You rock that game and you've told people you can do it, and others have testified to the fact that you are great at your machine. But one day the game is broken. The right side levers have quit, no matter how many times you press the buttons for the right levers they won't move. No one else sees this however. They just see your score and judge you and ridicule you for not knowing that you are working your brains out to win the game. It is just not going to happen."

My creativity is gone., I am ignored at staff meetings, I cry uncontrollably. My supervisor points out to me that I upset the production department. And I explain, "Do you think I'm doing this on purpose? I have a mental illness. I can't help it. If someone with epilepsy fell on the ground and had a seizure in the production department, that would upset the department too, but it is still not their fault."

I resign. If a marble was tossed into the Grand Canyon and went straight to the bottom it would still not be as low as I feel. The physical and emotional, mental pain would not let me read a sentence. I go to the emergency room. When asked if I have a living will I reply, "no." I have never had such pain in my life. Torn cartilage in my knee, two herniated disks, my foot sliced badly, hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat, child birth, hysterectomy and other surgeries, and the grief for my father's death, none come close to the pain I'm feeling.

The nurse asks me if I believe in God. Yes. But I can't take it any more.

And this, this is what severe depression feels like.

This experience was from the fall of 2000, before I was diagnosed. I did resign my position at the publishing company. I have been hospitalized ten times. Twice in an in-patient trauma unit in a psych hospital which teaches cognitive therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, art therapy, guided imagry, boundaries, EMDR (Eye movement and desenetization and reprocessing) and distress tolerance skills for PTSD. The other times were for medication adjustment or self harm issues.

When I say that I know how severe depression feels, maybe I'm right.