Revelations, I Think...

I've been depressed for the last couple of months. The weather here has been horrible and grey. Oh for a nice white snowfall! I gave in to the opinions of my therapist and GP and finally bought one of those light boxes, and I've been taking my vitamin D faithfully, along with an antidepressant, but it doesn't seem to be taking. It's not just the weather, this has been a problem off and on for me since early adulthood. I believe that my long and torturous history with the food is also linked to this mental turmoil. Researchers have long theorized that substance abuse may be an attempt to self medicate mental illness.

Mental illness. The term just sends a chill up my spine. It sounds so final, so damning. But actually, if I can look at mental illness as something chronic but treatable, like, say, diabetes, it can remove that whole layer of shame and guilt.

I've been looking at my manifestations of depression. Often it consists of staying in bed for long periods because I feel so overwhelmed by the everyday world. But I am starting to wonder if it isn't so much a depressive mood as a reaction to extreme anxiety. When I wake up in the morning, I have a thousand thoughts coursing through my brain, and if there are too many, I just hit a threshold where I feel I have to shut down. It's almost as if a fuse blows. My tortured brain decides it's hopeless, I give up, and retreat from the world.

My father suffered from terrible anxiety. It was obvious in his case: He trembled, he would talk in his sleep, if you happened to touch him (ours was not a physically demonstrative family) he would practically jump out of his skin. And, oh yes, he was also an alcoholic.

Of course, I grew up vowing never to be like him. But I now see that what he did with booze, I did with food. And although I try to come across as a relaxed, fun, funky chick, I am really quite tense inside. Social situations are tough. I come home from choir rehearsals fantasizing about mowing my way through a big bag of kettle cooked chips. But I hide it well. Joking and laughing and trying to be Ms. Social butterfly. And I'm an artist.

But it's a ruse. I'm full of anxiety, I need long periods away from people, and I haven't been in the studio for ages. I worry, I worry, I worry. The social anxiety is the worst. I worry about what people think of me, and I get into these toxic situations where I throw my own mind out the window and get overwhelmingly occupied with what the other person wants or needs. Most of this happens automatically, without me being conscious of it. Habit? Probably at least partly. Growing up in a fucked-up family, a kid gets pretty good at sussing out what they need to do to appease the family members who are acting out. Unfortunately, I grew up with a warped idea of how relationships work.

So, on with the therapy, but I think it's time to talk to the doc again, maybe get a referral to a psychiatrist. I want to investigate some different medication options.