Depression and Therapy: Making the Appointment

Ok. I surrender. My white flag has been raised, and I am going to make a therapy appointment. I have just spontaneously cried into my bong for the last time.

I wrote a post before asking my readers to share their experiences with mental health and therapy, and so many of you bravely came forward and told your story. Not only did you share your story, but I was blown away with how detailed you all got and how much effort you put into your comments to me. It did not go unnoticed, and I will (someday) get back to each and every comment that is left on my blog because I do appreciate you. Your insight was incredibly helpful, and really cemented what I was already thinking and feeling. Each and every story I read inched me closer and closer to making that call (or most likely email or online appointment – let’s be serious here), and getting my head turned around.

I’ve had a series of things happen to me in the last year or so (by my own hand or otherwise) that have left me teetering on the edge of okay and not okay for the past several months. I’ve had a couple mini-breakdowns, but it’s nothing that has led me to self-harm, or anything more serious than laundry and dishes piling up.

However, there is clearly a malfunction in my brain. I have the tendency to feel powerful emotion over the slightest things. I don’t blubber about all the time or anything, but my heart seems to feel way more than it should. When I see a McDonald’s commercial that features a father and daughter bonding, my throat tightens and I literally have to fight bursting into tears, much as I’m doing right now just typing about a hypothetical commercial. There almost isn’t one Grey’s Anatomy that goes by where some death scene doesn’t make me choke up. I come by it honestly though, my dad just revealed to me a couple months ago that the same thing happens to him. He said just the way someone looks or says something can nearly bring him to tears, and I understand what he means.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this, but I’m actually a vocalist, and I taught myself piano. Music has been probably the #1 thing that has saved me my entire life, and it will forever be a part of my family and me. Singing has always been my ‘main attraction,’ if you will, and it’s the one thing in my life that I’ve always been confident about. I stood out in every one of my choirs in school, church, and competitions, and it was just something that set me apart. I’ve sung in an exclusive national choir and have even sung at Carnegie Hall when I was 16 – but sadly, singing is not something I do much of anymore.

There has been a lot of talk about Adele’s new song Hello, but I only just heard it for the first time a week or two ago. While she does kinda come off as a douche in it, I still think it’s a beautiful song and I can sound exactly like her. So while I was procrastinating instead of doing work I needed to do a month ago, I decided to pull up the karaoke version of Hello on my laptop and see how I sound.

Well, I still don’t know how I sound because I simply couldn’t sing it without choking up. It was absolutely bizarre. I have no feelings toward the lyrics and I have no experiences I could link to the song, yet I just couldn’t sing it. My estimation is that the song just sounds so damn sad, and I really feel bad for the guy(s) she left behind. Sitting Indian style on my bed with my bong between my legs, I tried clearing my mind and pushing out the lyrics, but I finally crumbled and burst into tears. As I hunched over hanging my head and clutching my bong, I cried and cried while asking myself what the fuck is wrong with me.

There is no reason for this, I see myself slipping, and I know what I have to do. One thing that I am immensely grateful for is my ability to be able to recognize my patterns, notice signs, and realize when something isn’t right and get the proper care for it. Since I’ve always had a pretty good grasp on my depression and I understand a lot of the science and psychology of it, perhaps the therapy is the final piece I need to finally end it.

 

Stay tuned, I’ll keep you informed on the journey.

 

-Ophelia