This Place I'm In

Imagine that you're in a vast parking lot and you inexplicably can't remember where you parked your car.

I read a research report a few years ago which said that some people experience depression in a similar way to that parking lot sensation, emotionally and mentally. I can say from my experience of the last few years that I am one of those people.

I've known many people who have struggled with depression, and it never took me very long to figure out what was going on with them. Conversely, depression has felt different to me than I've seen it in other people. Maybe that's why it took me so long to understand what was really happening in my mind. Maybe it took me so long to seek professional help because I was raised to power through hard times without stopping for rest.

Recognizing my struggle with depression has come in stages. In the first year of Charlie's life I pushed away a lot of intrusive thoughts. I always thought it was my hyper-exhausted sleep deprivation causing those problems (and maybe it was?). Then after I went through a miscarriage I wondered if my feelings of grief and anger and sadness were prolonged because of underlying depression. Things continued to trend downward as I spent six months taking anti-convulsant medication last year (to manage my Chronic Migraine, to no avail). I remember last summer when taking Topomax (AKA my Deal with the Devil), I felt like I was in a thick, heavy mental fog all the time. At some point during each of those phases, I considered seeing a therapist or really giving antidepressants a try, but I never did because I didn't think I was "that far gone".

Here's where the parking lot analogy returns: I have shuffled through that lot for years with a sense that I parked my car there, but I didn't fully understand that I had no idea where the car was. In a ridiculously circuitous way, the mental fog I felt kept me from realizing how bad things had gotten in my mind, and the lack of realization led to more mental fog, and on, and on. 

We moved to Texas this year and I decided to get help. I started talking to a (truly wonderful) therapist and working through things, but it was still a few months before I was able to admit to myself just how depressed I'd become--how thick the mental fog had really gotten. After lots of processing, I decided to really give antidepressants a try. 

It's been long enough now since seeking out help that I feel like things are starting to turn around for me (maybe?). The mental fog is starting to lift and I am thinking more clearly than I have in a long time. [PSA: This account of my depression is VERY abridged and simplified. My therapist and I agree that in my case a lot of things have contributed to this depression, namely my Chronic Migraine disease. But this really isn't the kind of post in which I care to elaborate.] 

Right now, I feel like I'm starting to remember where my car is in that seemingly endless expanse of cars. I feel like I am heading towards it; I can almost see it. 

I feel hopeful (for the first time in years) that someday soon I will get in that car, drive it out of the lot and see the parking lot shrinking in my rearview mirror.

Bad times will still happen, but they'll be passing sections of road.