HELLO, Are You All Still There ?
Dropped my journal a while back, as I was feeling sorry for myself AGAIN, sick AGAIN, and depressed AGAIN (but more than usual). Decided that I would only write to people who were asking for help and to the folks who are my friends, you know, those of you who I feel connected to and are on my friend's list.
I suddenly felt like I was sharing too much of my private life, and with strangers, no less. I also felt that I was being critiqued, for my writing skills and sometimes my opinions. I withdrew back into my private little life.
This is not, (as a friend tells me) my "shrinking violet routine." This is what happens when a person suffers from clinical depression. How could this be me?? I'll tell all of you how - heredity, genetics, change of life, a major lung surgery with a pulmonary sarcoidosis diagnosis and family and friends who disappear when the chips are down and you are desperate for a shoulder to lean or cry on. My husband does, after all, need to show up at his office most every day for work.
My family is littered with suicides, schizophrenia, bipolar, depression, drug addictions, sociopath and, yes, even psychopathic disorders. This is noted back at least three generations on both sides of my family, both maternal and paternal.
How did I escape the looming, almost certain diagnosis of mental illness? I didn't. But, I was lucky as I was diagnosed with major, depressive disorder, severe, in 2005 right after my lung surgery. I realize now that I had always been too sad, too tearful, too upset and insecure for most of my life.
This has never been anyone's impression of me, as I am very good at presenting myself in a fashion that is suitable for public consumption. Just look at the career I chose.
Does the disease of Sarcoidosis make my mental illness (depression) worse? Most likely, says my fine psychiatrist. She and I, after many months of discussing this, came to the conclusion that I had functioned as well as I did, throughout most of my life, simply because I made some good decisions early in life.
I got out of Dodge at the age of 18, away from the insanity of a huge family with many siblings. I was hired by 3 airlines at the same time, but 2 of them required I turn 19 before I could start flying. I went with the airline that hired stewardesses at the age of 18, thereby getting away from home one (very important) year sooner. It was 1968.
I've been all over most of this world. I had a career I loved, and I flew for 35 years.
I had one other time in my life when I could not function due to a depressive episode. In Feb.1991, I had a miscarriage, my twin boys, and only pregnancy ever. Then my dear, sweet, Dad passed away on April 3rd after a 5 year battle with an extremely rare form of blood cancer. I lost it. I was devastated. I took a leave of absence from work to recover, and sought psychiatric care. It was not the good care you can receive today. This was also the first time I seriously considered suicide.
I stated earlier that I was lucky for two reasons. I could have been diagnosed with a mental illness so much worse than major depression, given my gene pool, and the medications today are wonder drugs to me. I take an antidepressant and an anti anxiety medication. I feel I react normally to life's issues 99% of the time.
Let me add one more point that is very important to me. I want all of you know that my Dad was mentally and emotionally very healthy. Perhaps I was the one who inherited that one good gene, the one I needed from my Dad, not to lose my mind like so many others in my family. He was a WW II veteran. He served in the South Pacific for the entire war. I'm his oldest child and I just know I was his favorite. That's my story and I'm sticken' to it.
I'm back because some of you wrote and said you missed my journal. I'm back because BeachBumJan wrote a lovely journal and had such kind words for me. I'm back because I care about you. I'm back because I miss you. And finally, I'm back because we're all in this together.
I will return my previously written essays to my journal because they are part of our story and might help someone else. I will always be here if you need me and please never forget that I need you too. God Bless... JanetG