Depression, The Secret We Share - Andrew Solomon

To Save A Life

Some time ago, I'm not sure if it was last year or the year before, I watched a movie called "To Save A Life". It was a movie about a kid who killed himself in front of all students in his school and one of the kids who used to be his best friend and moved away from him to walk with the "cool kids" started on a journey to find out what was going on with his former best friend that led him take his own life and what he could do to prevent this to ever happen again.

Enough of spoilers. Well, after watching the movie I found their webpage and signed up to receive emails talking about all these taboo issues so I could share the stories through my social networks with friends, family and everybody else.

If you feel interested, go take a look at their page and you will be able to read the stories of amazing people sharing their struggles and strength, stories of hope, healing and redemption, breaking the barrier of stigma and trying to save lives!

Sharing My Story

I was a happy child and I just noticed after I started to suffer also from anxiety how it all happened.

I always dreamed of being a singer and dancer, but never had the support of any family member, specially not from my mother. I was about 13 years old when she took me out of dancing lessons to prepare myself to go to a public technical school only genius kids went to.

I had the test and passed in first place. The first semester was ok but in the second semester my mood started to change, get more and more negative and my colleagues noticed it too. But only many years later I was diagnosed with dysthymia. Still I finished high school and went to the university with no problem. I had chronic depression but was a functional person. And we all know how people see teenagers. For everybody I was just a rebellious teen.

I would have to make this post a big journal if I wanted to tell all the details, so I will just go to the point telling when and how everything changed for real.

In 2004 I started to feel nauseated a lot, but I was in the university, university choir, having singing lessons and music theory lessons, so I was very happy, but I think I was doing too much taking six to seven buses a day so I went to the doctor, did the exam and he found nothing abnormal so he told me it could be stress.

I went with that for many years, every time I had a stressful moment in my life I would feel nauseated and throw up but it was just the stress. Until one day I decided to go to the doctor, did the exam and I had already a hemorrhagic gastritis. Many doctors told me to try not to throw up not to make the bleeding worse.

So after trying many medications for nausea I found by accident that xanax actually stopped my nausea and I spent two years taking it on a daily basis. No doctor that prescribed it to me ever told me I could get addicted or have any problems with this medication.

Then 2 years later out of the blue my mother made me stop taking it abruptly, I knew it was dangerous but didn't know how dangerous it actually was to stop taking this medication "cold turkey"... now I do. I had four anxiety attacks and after that started to suffer from GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder). And now I am not a functioning person anymore. 

Bit by bit I am getting treatment with antidepressants, therapy and integrative therapy (reiki, cristals, celular regeneration  and so on), lowering the dosage of the black stripe meds slowly.

I have no family support to fight this disorder, they still like to think I just need to get a job and the miracle of healing will happen and unfortunately mental disorders are invisible illnesses, they can't really know what I'm going through. 

What about me? I'm praying that some day I will be able to beat this disorder and have a "normal" life again.

International Suicide Prevention Awareness Month

It's amazing how we can fool people so easily. Just smile, pretend it's okay, everyone thinks you look great, and that a depression, an anxiety disorder you have it's because you have nothing to occupy yourself with (I just heard it today). "Get yourself a job and it will go away."
 
I guess that's why we lose so many brothers and sisters to suicide every day and we wonder why, he/she had everything, his/her job was perfect.
 
In this yellow September Suicide Awareness month and during the entire year, let's pay attention to our loved ones, not only in what they say or do, but especially in what they do not say and do not do. Not everyone can demonstrate their vulnerability or ask for help easily.
 
Let us not forget that in our world today feeling sad is a sin. Just look at your friends on social networks, everyone has wonderful lives all the time isn't it? Or at least that's what they want others to believe.
 
It is better to give support now than to regret it later.

The Idea Of Today

Today I woke up like... you know those days Ventyou think you should not have gotten out of bed? Well, more or less like that. So I took a higher dosage of clonazepam to give myself a little vacation from the anxiety and went on with my day, well my pajamas day.
 
At some point of the day I was talking to my mother about the people I receive in the Holistic Center I get treatment and work on two days a week. I'm my psychiatrist's secretary. Talking about my treatment and so on when...
 
It's A Bird... It's A Plane... nooooooo....
 
here comes my brother (that I'm sure was a donkey in his last reincarnation) to give his science based opinion, not asked by the way, that I should stop the medications and drink cachaça instead (he's an ex alcoholic) and he didn't understand why I was anxious cause I had nothing to be anxious about.
 
Later on he complained that the coffee was over, "what a disaaaaster!!!!"
 
Then I got pissed and had the idea to make a blog about mental health issues and the day by day life of a person with mental health disorders having to live in a society of emotional illiterates.
 
I hope this helps someone out there that has nobody to talk to about it... anyways I'm still pissed so I gotta go eat...
 
PEACE!