5 Years

5 years ago today I took my first anti-depressant. That day I went to my doctor and asked him to help me. He gave me the medication and put me off work on sick leave for a month. That days was brutal. I was in no shape to be making big decisions like taking meds, frankly I was in no shape to be asking for help either.  Somewhere inside I knew that I needed to though.

The weeks, more like months, leading up to that day were awful. I was descending further into the black hole daily. I was trying a lot of things to make it better but nothing worked. And I was certainly at a point where I was no longer able to hide that there was something wrong. Depression is awful. When the idea of taking my own life started to be appealing (not the first time in my life) I knew something had to change. I went to the psychologist I was seeing at the time in a desparate state.

She did something that was awful at the time and so helpful. She looked at me straight and said, " you have depression and you should see your doctor about medication because it is obvious that just therapy isn't working". Hard to hear and harder to act on. I did it though.

That black hole is a place that I never want to return to, and that I live in fear of. The memory of it is what drives me to continue to see a therapist, to see my doctor 4 times a year to make sure the meds are still working, to continue to find ways to live better with seems to be a chronic condition, and to talk about my experiences.  All of these things help me, and I hope that by talking it will help others.

The last 5 years have been a pretty wild ride. Much of it has been really hard. Dealing with some of the causes is an ongoing and tough process. Living near the top of or out of the black hole, depending on the day, makes it all worth it. In this place there is joy, there is happiness, there is sadness, there is grief and all sorts of other emotions. The biggest thing there are here are love and light. Two things that are essential for me to feel alive and the 2 things that I was deprived of in the dark hole.

And so the journey continues....

Stress, or the lack therefore

I was talking to someone at work the other day.  She is at a fairly high level in the organization, and currently she is working on a special project.  She said that sometimes she feels guilty because her job is so much less stressful than a number of other people who are at the same level.  Then she said that she guessed the same could be said for me and my job (as I am one level lower than she is, and and working on a special project).

It got me thinking about where the assumption comes that we feel we are overpaid if our jobs are not stressful?  I think this is a difficult notion, especially in relation to mental health.  Then, I got to thinking about my job and if my colleague is correct?  I've concluded that in my case she is not.  There are really three types of circumstances that cause me a lot of stress, unreasonable time pressure, unclear expectations, and interpersonal interactions that trigger PTSD for me.  Currently, none of those circumstances are present.  Should they be for me to be paid at the level I am?  I don't think so.  For the work I am doing currently, being well thought through and accurate is more important than getting it done in a hurry, and the expectations of what I am supposed to be doing are clear.  As for the PTSD, well I never quite know when that will flare, but that is less about the work environment and more about me anyhow.

I have been in my current job for just over a year now.  When my doctor took my blood pressure 2 weeks ago, it was lower than it has been in a long time.  And the lack of feeling a lot of stress at work has made me more productive, not less.  I make a lot fewer errors, and the quality of the work I produce is certainly better than it is when I feel a lot of stress.  All the things the experts say are playing out in my world.

And, as an added bonus, I feel like I have energy to deal with more of the things in my life that cause the PTSD.  This is not a fun process, and it requires a lot of emotional energy.  In the end, it does make me better able to deal with the situations that can trigger it.

I wonder if there is anything I can do about the automatic assumption that so many people make that work has to be stressful all the time?