Life-changing help

This is a blog I've been meaning to write for some time now, as I want to ensure I do not forget about what has happened with me.

From my last blog post, I'm sure many were worried about me. I was worried about me. All throughout March, I was really struggling... Well, I've been struggling a lot longer than that, but I hit a new level of low I had never reached before and felt entirely like giving up. But, I'm getting ahead of myself here. I want to try to tell the story of Mell.

When I was a kid, I struggled in school. Reading in particular seemed difficult. I took way longer to read than most other kids in my class and for some weird reason if I saw someone complete a test way before I was even near halfway done, I felt inferior and like giving up completely. I don't know why I felt it was a competition, but I do know I struggled with reading and felt like somehow I was different. I didn't know how, but I at least knew that.

In grade 4, I went to 3 different schools within a couple of months of each other, first one I went to in Calgary was Thorncliffe, and somehow transferred to the other school (Greenview) that I guess was a French Emersion kind of school, as I remember being in a smaller class trying to learn what other kids had already learned in French by grade 4 in that school, but was there very briefly. Shortly after that, my parents made the decision to move to Strathmore, so I changed my school again. I was lost. The different county curriculums, plus having to learn a new town, new people, new social dynamics, and so forth was confusing to me, but added to my problems with struggling with reading. Other subjects were also confusing. The teachers tried to help me and I did try really hard, but near the end of the year, they tried to convince me to stay behind another year, which I eventually gave in to. I wound up repeating the fourth grade. To this day, that episode of The Simpsons in the first season where Bart fails the 4th grade makes me cry because it actually happened to me, except I didn't have the grade change due to showing the teacher about knowing how someone in history felt. I really failed the year.

This was a defining moment in my life. I felt that no matter how hard I tried, I would never succeed at anything. Life was too hard. Learning was too difficult. I would always struggle. To top it off, I wound up being made fun of by the kids who I used to be in class with for failing, then got stuck in a grade that still has one of the worst reputations in that town for jerks. I was insulted and made fun of, ostracized, and treated like I was some kind of disease at times. Teachers used me as a punishment for bad behaved kids, and I'd have to hear them audibly complain about how they didn't want to sit next to me, and eventually just them constantly berating me with insults, which made concentrating on school even more difficult. From these bullying moments, I learned I could not trust anyone; that I was truly alone in this world.

These were terrible life-lessons to learn at a young age. Not only did I feel no matter what I did, I would not succeed, but I also felt like I couldn't trust or rely on anyone but myself, who even I knew was a deeply flawed person. I grew up with these thoughts and they became a part of my internal dialogue.

When I was a teenager, the concept of Attention Deficit Disorder started to really gain some media attention in terms of talk shows and so forth. I remember thinking that the description kind of sounded like me, but I don't think I really reached out for help or knew where to go for help. I grew up in a conservative province, town and county, where you were supposed to "buckle down" and "do the work" and I didn't know if there were any resources or how one would get a diagnosis or any of that. Just heard the term and thought to myself, "huh... that sounds like me."

It's a thought that never truly went away and always stayed at the back of my head throughout my life, as an occasional "I wonder if this is ADD?" thought, but I never bothered to do anything about it. I didn't know what to do about it even if I did want to do something.

Now, throughout the remaining of my life, I kept this mindset. That life was too hard, no matter how hard I tried, I'd always fail or be unsuccessful, and I can't trust anyone. This set up a very rocky start to adulthood and I was deeply depressed. I mean, how could you not be if this was going on inside your head forever and ever? So throughout my college years, work years, 20s, 30s, these were my hardcore beliefs about life. I set my life up around those ideas, albeit subconsciously. All the while, I kept trying to "fix myself", because I knew something was wrong. I would set up goals or long term tasks that would go uncompleted because I didn't know how to focus on them, or I would get swept away with something else, or even avoid the work altogether because it was too hard.

When I was about to turn 40, I finally reached out to my doctor for help, because the deep depression was getting so bad I had a hard time seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. He first gave me an anti-depressant, which helped a little bit. Then later on, I started complaining about being tired all the time and feeling overwhelmed by things. He thought I had anxiety and gave me an anti-anxiety pill, which I think I started taking at 42 or 43. This set me down a dark path that was so hard to get out of. I lost all motivation, any kind of enjoyment I had before, I no longer found enjoyable. Life sucked. I felt terrible. I didn't know it was the pill at the time, but the deep thoughts of "life is too hard, it sucks, people are terrible, I hate everything about my life", etc. began to affect and alter my mind. I struggled just to get motivated to get out of bed in the mornings. Some days I could, but quite a lot of them I could not. My attendance at work started to go downhill. But I didn't seem to care. I hated everything about me and my life. It was so hard to get out of bed feeling that low.

My work became increasingly annoyed or concerned with my frequent absences over those years. I do have a pretty important job position here. I think on some weird level I felt secure in that knowledge, again subconsciously, because no matter how many times I'd try to convince them (and even myself) that I'd work harder at fixing these personal issues, I just had no energy or follow through to do it. I did open up to my supervisor that I was struggling with major depression (which is definitely part of it) and was working on it with my doctor and therapist, but nothing seemed to help.

The start of 2020 saw me start working part-time hours, because I was being punished for too many absences in 2019 and they wanted to be able to plan more about days I couldn't come to work. I was seriously struggling every week with lack of energy/motivation/will to live.

Then the COVID-19 virus happened, which threw a monkey-wrench in everyone's plans, but definitely affected my work here. My work cut all of our hours as most of our customers started closing and no phones were getting answered. By May, we made the decision as a company to go with the CERB payments, as people were noticing the reduced hours wasn't helping them much. I did not want to do this, as I knew it was taxable income and living paycheque to paycheque is not easy. However, my concerns were overruled, and I was told I had to either do this or take a permanent layoff. Seeing as there was no way of knowing how long this would last (it is still lasting, incidentally), or if I'd be able to get another job anywhere at that point, I felt I had no choice.

The subject of ADD started occupying my mind again near the end of the year, so I started following an ADD email magazine, took various online courses and so forth to see if this was indeed what I had. The tests seemed to indicate that was a distinct possibility, so I began asking both my doctor and therapist if I could get tested to see if I had ADD because I highly suspected that might be the reason why simple things like housework were starting to feel overwhelming, or why reading still took me too long to do. My doctor put out a call for a referral to a psychiatrist who worked at a Chakra Wellness Centre, but due to COVID, the appointment was booked 6 months in advance.

Then this year in March, while still feeling like "life is too hard, it sucks, people are terrible, I hate everything about my life", etc., I started to work on my taxes. I discovered through my own calculations that I would owe the government $1900+ in taxes because of CERB. I spent the last year spending what I had in my savings account to try to pay off my credit cards, but wasn't making a dent in anything other than my savings account. So $1900 is a BIG DEAL. I don't have that much.

This was the final straw. I just threw up my arms in despair and felt like "That's it. I'm done. I can't do this anymore. Life is too hard. Too difficult. No matter what I do I will never succeed. Nothing is fair! How the fuck do people like Donald Trump get away without paying off their debts? What is wrong with our society?!! It was rigged against me from birth. There's no way out. No more hope. I am done. I give up!"

Depression had hit an all-time low (or high?) for me. My attendance got even worse. I even stopped calling in or emailing that I wasn't coming in anymore. I'd show up whenever the fuck I wanted to. I stopped caring about anything and anyone. I stopped caring about myself. I didn't care. I just didn't. I was done with life.

After a few weeks of spotty attendance with no notice, I was called in to talk to my supervisor again, asking me what is going on. People worry when I don't tell them if I am coming in. I am becoming a liability. It's difficult for them to do their work because they can't rely on me anymore. Then he said something that struck me. He said he felt like maybe he was being too accommodating to me and felt like I was taking advantage of him.

Ouch! I honestly had no idea my absences was causing other people pain. The nature of my thought process and the depression beast tells me I'm only hurting myself, so who cares? I had no idea I was hurting him or anyone else. That stung me. I felt even worse. I felt like here I am with the world's greatest manager ever, and I'm making him feel like I'm taking advantage of him. And on a deep level, I think I was. I felt like I was too important to fire so it didn't matter if I was there or not. It's weird, but that is how I felt underneath it all.

Earlier that day, I had called into the national crisis line, as I felt like I had totally given up and was unable to do anything about it. They told me I could go to the hospital and ask to see a psych nurse. My supervisor told me to go home after our meeting, feeling exasperated by my absenteeism and that I wasn't getting any better. I even said to him I don't even know what I'm fighting for anymore. He said I needed to think about a plan moving forward and that this would be my second written warning and any further absences would require a doctor's note or could result in a termination of employment. Instead of going home, I decided to follow up with the recommendation from the crisis line and went to the hospital.

I wasn't sure where to go when I arrived at the hospital, so I went in through the main door. As there are many COVID restrictions, I was met with a table who referred me to the front desk. I had assumed I could just go to the mental health area in the hospital for help. The person called upstairs to see what to do, and he was then given a local crisis line phone number to call, as I wasn't allowed in. Well, my mood was already super low, so this made me once again throw my hands up in the air in exasperation and I immediately felt like giving up again, not sure what I was going to do.

While I was on my way to the car parkade, I rounded the corner on the sidewalk and I immediately saw a Canadian Goose cross my path. As I have heard stories that they can be rather nasty sometimes to people, I slowed my approach down. I also love all animals, so I was in awe of it as well. The goose didn't seem that interested in my as it was for searching for insects or worms in the ground, so I started to move ahead again.

Then a small grey bunny hopped out from a bush that was right beside me and in front of the car parkade. It was so cute, that I decided I would take my phone out and take a picture of it and the goose. As soon as I reached for my phone in my jacket pocket, which it was a hot day and I was carrying it, I noticed my cell phone was ringing. I answered the phone. It was the mental health office that the guard steered me away from trying to get in touch with me. They told me I could go to the emergency department and ask for help there.

In retrospect, I should have gone to lunch first, as I only had eaten a protein bar and 2 bananas for breakfast, but I did not think of that and just headed to the emergency department. I would up waiting hours to be seen. Now, I’m not an insensitive idiot. I know there are people who go to the ER for life or death emergencies or broken bones or whatever, and my “emergency” of losing my momentum wasn’t as severe. But that wait was getting on my nerves. I finally got into the triage at about 3:30, then waited and waited. During this wait, I got a call from my therapist who said this was the best place I could be right now and that she’d follow up with me over the weekend about how it went (which actually didn't happen, as she was about to head out on vacation).

When it hit 6:30, my stomach started to grumble and I was in fact getting quite hangry. So feeling like I’d never get called, I went to the intake place and asked how much longer it would be, because if it would be awhile I could run to my car and eat some chips or something, as I had purchased potato chips prior to going to work. They of course said they have no idea and usually they don’t let people in the ER eat prior to being seen. So I grudgingly returned to my seat.

Not even a minute later, I finally got the call to go ahead through the doors... squeaky wheel, am I right? They took me into a much smaller waiting room where I was alone. Then I waited awhile longer, to finally talk to the nurse or doctor (not sure...). I told her what had been going on and she first wanted to run some tests to rule out any underlying health issue that could have caused my mood crash, then she’d order me a sandwich and an apple juice. I had a blood sample taken, then waited some more. Then had an EKG, then waited some more. I finally got my sandwich and juice at 9:30-ish. Then waited some more.

The good news is my health was fantastic, so there were no underlying health issues or thyroid issues found. She then told me it wouldn’t make much sense to keep me overnight as I didn’t want to harm myself or anyone else. She referred me to a program called Acute Home Based Treatment.

I spent a about 6 weeks time going to see the team. I got a full assessment from a psychiatrist, who shared a last name with my physician (which was weird), but they were not related to one another. He evaluated my meds, and diagnosed me with severe depression or major depressive disorder. He recommended I stop taking the anti-anxiety medication, so I weened myself off it in a few days. The different was already starting to show itself, as suddenly I felt more energized and less overwhelmed by everything.

In the midst of these sessions, I finally got that referral phone call for the ADHD diagnosis. It was a phone appointment. He asked me a bunch of questions similar to those I've already answered on online assessments, then recommended I try taking Ritalin to see if that helps. He said if I immediately notice I am able to concentrate better, then chances are I have ADHD. If it makes me more anxious, then to stop taking it. The day I started taking it the difference was night and day. I was able to follow along with a phone call from my therapist that same day who finally came back from her vacation and wanted to see what was going on. Even reading has improved so much.

I am still working with my doctor to work out the medication dosage to see what works best, as even with the improvement I felt like there was still some room for improvement. What I really need to realize is that I need to find courage to ask for help more often. I keep trying to fix myself, or try to ignore it completely, and that clearly hasn’t been working for me. Maybe giving up and surrendering is a good thing. Maybe Buzz Lightyear was wrong.

I was also referred to a book for ACT therapy, or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. It's basically therapy with mindfulness. I've also been referred to another therapist and will start sessions on June 24th so work through my issues with social anxiety, depression, and goal setting.

I am now working full-time again, as when my medications were sorted out I didn't feel like I hated my life anymore. I actually found myself enjoying my job, as mundane as it can be sometimes. There are not a lot of jobs left in the print graphic design field anymore, so the fact that I work for a company that creates art and craft kits and books for people of all ages to learn to be more creative in their lives is quite inspiring to me. I feel so grateful that my supervisor did not fire me and am striving to do better and better every day.

I have noticed that my lack of cleaning issues are resurfacing again, as well as my binge eating issues. I've probably gained some weight in the last couple of months but am so scared to hop on that scale to find out. My previous therapist thinks I'm binge eating because I'm lonely, which is very true. I am hoping this new one will help me develop some good socializing skills and help me learn how to make and keep friends. It's something I have struggled with since my school days. Also, I do need to work on keeping the same sleep and waking up schedules as mornings are still a bit chaotic. Then there is my sinus congestion issues due to sensitivities to smoke, fog, rain, scents, and various other things that can set them off, as well as some digestive issues I have, as I am finding some food just doesn't agree with my system anymore. I am going to be working with my doctor to assess to see if I have developed new allergies or whatnot, but yeah, an ongoing thing.

For the most part, I feel normal, or at least what I thought normal would feel like. I still have some work to do to develop my depression coping skills and so forth, but I do feel so much better than I did before.

Thanks for reading this, for those who do.