I’ve spent time today thinking about the past and now I’m pretty depressed. I also have no hot water and no one to talk to. That doesn’t help. I’m thinking about just going to bed. I feel fat, ugly, and old. Did you ever have days like that? I was listening to the ACF worship cd and the COTS worship cd this afternoon. I wish I could sing. I’ve been told that I can, but I’m just not sure I believe it right now. I remember when I was involved with stuff, when I had places to go and people to see. I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t listen to Godspell. That would have really depressed me. Time for something more upbeat, I think.

I start physical therapy tomorrow. I drove over there tonight so I would know where it is. It’s not that hard to find and I’ll be able to make it in time – if all goes well. I just hope it does. Mom called to tell me that she’s okay. The doctor got all of the cells out of her. So that’s good news.

Eh, forget it. I’m taking my pills and going to bed. Night.

I worked today. OT. 6 hours. It was hard to get up at 430 am, but it went well. 6 hours isn’t nearly as long as 10 hours is. I worked and listened to my music. I bought lunch on the way home and Tom ordered pizza for me for dinner. Isn’t he sweet? I took no pictures this week so there’s no weekly winners. Sorry guys. I took some this morning of the sunrise so there will be some next week. Please have some patience.

My neck feels much better. I working on ideas for my story, but not reallly getting anywhere with them. I’m going to take a bath and go to bed. 430 comes quite early in the morning. Night all!

I’ve been up since 330 am and boy am I tired! I just had to sneak in a post before I go to bed. I’m not sure what to write. I’m not completely sure as to what I’m doing tomorrow. I know I’m working from 7-1, but after that I don’t know. There are tentative plans to gather at Charissa’s but I haven’t heard anything concrete. I should ask. I just took a bath and finished a book. There’s nothing like a nice hot bath and a book. Now I’m talking to Tom. I’ve just taken my pills, including the muscle relaxer. I swear between that and the anti inflammatory I’m feeling tons better. Even when the anti inflammatory wears off in the morning it still hurts much, much less than it was hurting. I’m so happy about that. You just have no idea. I have another book to start, but I’m think I just might wait till tomorrow to do that. I’m not sure. I’m not really sure about working tomorrow, though six hours of OT would be a great blessing. I just hope God can get me through it. I’m also hoping to get some laundry done. I tried to do it on Thursday, but the washer was full. Not being used, but full. *sigh* I’m hoping it won’t be full the next time I go to use it. I don’t know if it will be or not. That’s the annoying thing about being in a building with only one washer and one dryer.

Well, I went to see the doctor last night about my neck. It’s been hurting since last Tuesday and I really want it to stop. Well,appartenly I have a rotated or rotating vertabrae. She gave me a muscle relaxer (for at night) and an anti inflammatory to take twice a day. I have to do physical therapy. That will be expensive. I hope I can afford it. But I want this pain to go away, so I’ll do it. If it still hurts in a month I’m to go back. I hope it still doesn’t hurt in a month. That would just be way too long to be in pain.

My neck has been hurting since last Wednesday. I keep hoping that it will go away, but it hasn’t. Tylenol was kicking its butt for a few days, but yesterday afternoon it stopped working on it. Okay, so it still helps a little – I’m just in constant pain. I made an appointment with my doctor for Thursday because by then it will be over a week. Tom told me to do it and I’m listening. I get sick of hurting fairly quickly. It’s only one side of my neck – the right side. Turning my head, well moving my head hurts. Okay, it hurts all the time. I’d take ibuprofrin but since I’ve been told I’m allergic to it (since I had an allergic reaction twice out of all the times I’ve taken it, both when I’ve had the same rash, both years apart *rolls eyes*) I’m not. Heat doesn’t help. I’ve tried hot showers and heating pads – no luck. I wish I could say that laying my head down or keeping my head still helped, but it doesn’t. There is always some level of pain. Put that together with the ointment in my eye and you have a very cranky Krissy. Put that together with the fact that I don’t get to talk to Tom tonight and you get a very cranky, very lonely, very unhappy Krissy. I want a magic wand so I can make it all go away.

Yesterday morning I woke up and my eye was gunky. It itched, was dry, and was red. My first thought was pink eye. I decided to go to the Take Care Clinic at Walgreens after work to get some meds and hoped that I wouldn’t have to miss work on Friday. Why? Because if you don’t work the day before and the day after a holiday, you don’t get paid for the holiday. So I went through work without touching my eyes, got my car (I had it inspected and the oil changed) and went over to Walgreens. I was seen by the nurse practicioner who looked at my eye and said “you might have iritis. Go to the ER.” So I went to the ER. I waited FOREVER and finally say a physician’s assistant who said iritis hurt like hell and my eye would be practically swollen shut if I had it. She numbed my eye and looked at it with dye and nothing was wrong. She gave me an ointment for my eye and ordered me off work today. I have a doctor’s excuse, but I don’t think that’s going to help when it comes to getting paid for Monday. *sigh*
Was that the end to my excitement? Of course not. For the third day in a row today I have a terrible pain in my neck on the right side. Tylenol helps, but doesn’t make it go away. Last night as I’m trying to go to sleep I get a charlie horse in my right calf. It too hurts today. I have to wash my bed tomorrow and hope I feel I’m up for church cause Tom wants me to give them a tithe. I don’t feel like going anywhere. I put the ointment in my eye and I can’t see cause its blurry in that eye (my left one). I just want the pain to go away. Is that so much to ask?

I’ve been having a rough time of it recently. The weather was nice for a while, but has gone bad in the past week. Rainy and coldish. Although the rain wasn’t as bad as I hoped. I’ve been very depressed. I’m thinking of starting to take the Welbutrin again, but I’m afraid to bring it up to Tom. He wants me off of the meds as much as I do. I’m still not off the Risperdal. I tried and it was just a mess. I missed my last appt with my psychiatrist. *sigh* That’s what I get for not listening to my messages. I worked 12 hours on Monday which sucked. I was exhausted for most of the day. Right up until it became time for me to go to sleep. *sigh* Today was tiring, but went much faster. I’m worried that Tom won’t be home for our anniversary. Mom’s having surgery. Small surgery, but surgery none the less. Debbie’s being a bitch. She upset me when I was feeling suicidal so I had a rough trip home last Thursday. I got the invitation for her bridal shower today. *sigh* I don’t have the money to buy her a gift. Somebody shoot me. I’m feeling very discouraged, unloved, unwanted, unlovable, unwantable, and like a failure. I suck.

One of the hardest things about my depression was that I didn’t know what was going on for years. Its not hared to be clueless about depression because, if you go the slow road, it doesn’t feel like anything is wrong. This is what I did.

I will warn you that this is a rather long post. Depression is a difficult subject and I didn’t want to just toss off ideas and not include the thoughts and feelings that surrounded them.

The first several things I can look back into my high school career and recognize now, although I didn’t realize what was going on then.

1. Self Esteem
One of the first things that went by the wayside when my depression was developing was my sense of self confidence and self esteem. I had always been quiet and somewhat unpopular, but it high school it became more apparent. I simply chalked it up to being a teenager. I was always tense and somewhat unhappy. I did not feel like I deserved friends. I did not feel like I deserved anything. No, my grades did not fall and I did not act out terrifically, but I knew something had changed.

2. Bad Reactions
Another reason I trace my depression back to my high school days is that I had a bad and unusual reaction to something that went on in my life. I had a small car accident far from home. I was in tears, but as I was far from home and with people that I didn’t know very well it wasn’t all that unusual. What was unusual is that about a week later in the middle of rehearsal I was lying on the stage shaking and crying due to the incident. I had never done that before. It wasn’t easy to stop and it wasn’t easy to hide. Another indication I wasn’t handling it that well? When I wrote a paper on the incident a year later I had to write it in third person. I was only able to think about it rationally as long as I treated it as if it had happened to someone else. By the way, my English teacher wasn’t impressed.

3. My (half-hearted) suicide attempt.
An incident that occurred at home that I didn’t tell anyone about was my first attempted suicide. It wasn’t all that impressive. I tied the arms of a sweatshirt around my neck and pulled. As it didn’t really do anything I quickly gave up on it. I can still remember the which sweatshirt I used. Why didn’t I know right then that something major was going on? In the world 13 or 14 years ago depression was not talked about, especially with high school students. There was no internet and any information that I could have found out was hidden in the library. Since I didn’t know that such a thing as major clinical depression existed, I didn’t know that I was developing it. Luckily, these days the information is more readily available and frowned upon a lot less.

College was a lot more difficult. At first it really didn’t seem like anything was wrong. I was living at home, having a blast in my classes and, even more than I was in high school, super involved in activities. Especially my sophomore year. Once I went away for school – something I did when I was a junior – things changed.

4. Alienation
As my usual when I got to State College I began looking for groups to be a part of. It was more intimidating – there were a lot more people and a lot more groups. I joined a church and that became my main activity set. I didn’t make friends easily and I was going away from the friends I brought with me from the Beaver Campus. I did less with them and I talked to them less. I didn’t want people to see that I was getting unhappier and unhappier and of all people, my friends from back home would have seen it best.

5. Physical Sickness
My grandfather became terminally ill while I was away at college my junior. I didn’t handle it well. I was having sharp and severe stomach pains. My neck and shoulders were often tense and along with my jaw were often painful. I had problems with diarrhea to the point that I was spending hours in the bathroom. When he died I went home and while in Massachusetts for the funeral I was vomiting and having diarrhea at the same time. At the time we decided that I had developed lactose intolerance I began avoiding dairy foods. It helped somewhat, but I was still in a lot of pain.

6. Constant Unhappiness
This is where I first had an inkling of what was going on, though I did not yet realize just how serious it was. I moved into a single room my senior year and was calling my mother on a regular basis (remember this was in the days of long distance, so it wasn’t all the time) and crying to her with complaints about my life. My grades were starting to slip and though I had been elected treasurer of my church, I was feeling more and more cut off and isolated. More about that in a minute. Mom was the first one to suggest that I had depression and sent me to the school doctors who gave me Paxil. Unfortunately, it didn’t help much at all.

7. Loss of Interest
I rather quickly lost interest in everything. And I mean everything. I stopped leaving my room except for meals. I stopped cleaning my room and only did laundry because it was right outside my door. I stopped taking care of myself – no teeth brushing or face washing. I stayed in bed all day and watched tv. I easily skipped class when I thought I could get away from it (One professor said she taught from the book and all you had to do was read it, the lecture notes online, and show up for the quizzes and tests. It was easy to justifiy skipping just about every class for that one. Unfortunately, I was losing interest in my school work and didn’t make it to class when I should have). I cried a lot. I was eating maybe one or two meals a day on a good day.

8. The Night I Felt Like Suicide
Finally we come to the night when I finally realized that I had a huge problem. I had been taking my pills regularly and talking to a Christian counselor, but after im conversations with a couple of people I seriously considered taking the almost full bottle of Paxil. I truly scared myself. It was less than a week after Spring Break. Did I attempt suicide? No. By then I knew enough to know it was serious and called a not so good friend and talked to him for most of the night. He was nice enough to come down and sit with me. The next day I had a meeting with my counselor and we decided I needed to go into the hospital. That was when I was diagnosed with major clinical depression and anxiety. I was given more medications and eventually dropped out of college.

That’s it. The eight major indicators of depression in my life. Some of them are described in such articles as the symptoms depression articles at WebMd and the National Institute of Mental Health and others I’ve come up with on my own. For a more clinical description of symptoms, please see those sites.

I’ve had a couple people ask me what happened today and its not just one thing. Its been a day long event. Here we go!

I got up a half hour early due to a closed bridge on my route. I was so happy. Its amazing how things can change. I walked out my door and closed it not stopping in enough time to keep it from closing. Why did I need to keep the door from closing you ask? Well, the door was locked and my keys were still inside. Its now 430 in the morning and my day was just beginning.

Remembering that Tom had told me that it was “easy” to break into our apartment, I tried. With his help and without his help. All I got was a damaged card and some blisters. Oh, and all hot and sweaty. Really sweaty. He said call you mom; she has a key to your car and you can still go into work. I’d be late and half to leave early to get back in the aparment to keep from paying $200+ to get back in. So I call Mom, get her out of bed and she heads up here. We’re having a horrible time staying connected. But she comes.

We knew it was going to set the car alarm off, but having been assured that yes the car would start we went for it. Well, the alarm did go off but the car did not start. *sigh* At this point Mom and I head for McDonald’s to get something to eat. We stay there till 745. Mom says JC Penny’s is opening early so we head over there so she can show me the dress she likes. Its not open. So we go shopping. And finally head over to the office to get the door unlocked.

Mr Maintenance Man had to come from his house so it looked like I was going to have to stay even longer. Luckily I got my first break of the day. One of the nice ladies who work in the office goes over to my apartment with me and lets me in. Mom gets her cup and I head for work.

I made it to work okay, but then the trouble started up again. They had me crossed off the list. I had called and told them I was going to be late and possibly not be there at all but that I was going to try to make it in. I go to the seat that they have to be in and someone’s sitting there. There is an open seat, but there’s no chair. I steal a chair and log in. I should mention at this point that I’m in one of the new dual stations and unlike everybody else the never trained me to use it. But the girls next to me said they would help. I log in and try to get into Enterprise. It won’t let me. I try again. Still no luck. They say shut down and restart so I do. The say what are you going into. I say Citrix and they say no, you have to go into alpha gateway. *sigh* So I go in there and it lets me in. However it is running like frozen mollasses. So I restart. Again. Still running slow.

I go back to the lead, Greg, and tell him my problem. He says to go to G9. I log out and grab all my stuff (jacket, purse, lunchbox, backpack, and cup) and head there. I log in and the computer won’t let me in on either side (I was in a multiple station which has two computers). I go back to Greg and he says let me see. He then says go to A. I log out and grab a seat over there. He’s still with me and I try to log in to both sides of the A station (it was a multiple, too). One side I have no luck, the other side I hit paydirt. He says stay in singles and try again in about 15 minutes and leaves me be. I go and sign the board because its taken over 20 minutes to get to a point where I can actually work. This gets my punch changed and prevents my numbers from dropping. I start working. I try the other side – no luck. I wait and try again. Yay! It works! So I punch into multiples and start working. I get one done and look! Its time for lunch.

I go to lunch and find out Gerry’s was fired yesterday, just like I had thought. Becky, Stacey, and Maryanne all know that their probation is being extended. I haven’t heard a thing about mine. Lovely, more to worry about all weekend. We hear that the schedules been changed and head over to check it out.

My seat (B33) is now highlighted and it says to go into Tampa. So I log out of the A station, grab all my stuff (again) and head for B33. I log in there and we’re talking. In the meeting yesterday they had said specifically that if you’re in a new dual station stay in it all day. So Becky goes and asks the supervisor on duty and he says no. Go into Tampa. We then realize that the stations we’re working in won’t go into Tampa. Another girl went and asked and we’re told to go to A or G. So I log out and grab all my stuff and head back to my A station. I log in and another break. They both work. So I head back to the board to log my problems and have my punches corrected again. I work.

I develop a really sore knee, a headache, tension pain in my neck and shourlders. By the end of the day I feel tired and kinda cryey. I decided that this would not be good for me to go to the party with. *sigh* I really wanted to go to the party. My friends already think that a) I’m flakey and B) I can’t be counted on and I don’t want to perpetuate that. But I’m basically done in. I also had told the SCK that there was a good chance that I wouldn’t be there due to the fact that I have to get up at 3 in the morning. That’s right – 3 am. I haven’t been able to get a hold of Tom all day (and I’ve tried three times). He did call me while I was working but I couldn’t answer then. He finally calls and I go home.

Nope, it doesn’t stop there. I get home and go to make macaroni and cheese with hot dog in it. I reach down to pull out the drawer beneath the oven which has all the pots and pans. It won’t open. I get down on the floor (with the sore knee, tension in the neck and shoulders and painful back), practically pull the door front off and can’t figure out why it won’t open. I push it in a little and pull back – voila! It opens. *sigh*

I finish eating. The whole time I’ve been having connection problems with Tom. Then I get diarrhea. I try to take a nap, but it doesn’t work. Tom wakes me (apparently I did fall asleep) and I go to take my pills. I get them out, pick them up, and realize I don’t have anything to drink. I grab it, come out to the living room, grab my computer, and sit down. Firefox crashes. Digsby crashes. I get them both restarted and the connection isn’t very good. Most of the FF pages won’t load and Digsby won’t connect. They finally do start working and that brings me to this point.

That is my bad day, but there were some bright points. I got to spend time with Mom. I got to get some groceries. I found out what happened to Gerry. I got to lie down in my bed. Most importantly – I panicked for 15 seconds or less and that was it. True, I did cry a tiny bit after work, but nothing like my depression and anxiety normally would have had me doing. Being off those pills is awesome! Sometimes I think that God does things like this to me so I know how much I can handle. Thank God.