Tag Archives: mental-health

Sep26

Rerun: Anxiety vs. Depression — A Primer

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I’ve been having a terrible time lately and I thought it would be a good thing to write a post about, but then I remembered I had this post that I originally published several years ago and reran another few years ago. The information is still accurate and it describes my current struggles, so instead of reinventing the wheel, I thought I’d reprint this one. I really hope it helps someone who needs it.

I have been enduring one of the worst stretches of anxiety and depression since I was in high school. Lately I couldn’t cast Expecto Patronus if my life depended on it. The dementors would just have to take me. Budge assures me it is not, in fact, THE worst since I haven’t been hospitalized but I think I probably could have been sent to the psych ward two or three times in the last seven weeks were it not for the fact I refuse to ever voluntarily give up my freedom to a doctor’s whim again. If I am ever hospitalized again, it will be with a warrant, a straitjacket, and several large orderlies. It may help some people, but it just terrified me. So, I’ve been thinking — analyzing my condition and rather than just a single side of my mental health coin showing up, the last seven weeks have been categorized by mental “coin flips” and it seems the coin is always in the air and I have no idea or control over how it lands. I can only hope for it to land on the thin edge because that edge is where normal, calm, relatively happy days exist.

In the process of analyzing my current situation, I realize just how isolating these conditions are. I don’t think people are monsters. They want to help me, but they have absolutely no idea how. It leads to a lonely existence, especially when I’m alone most of the time anyway. Another thing I’ve noticed is how interchangeable in some people’s minds the concepts of anxiety and depression are. While the two are intertwined in many subtle ways, they do have their distinctions and, as the old adage goes, the devil is in the details.

Depression targets motivation and self-worth. When I’m depressed, and I don’t mean just in a bit of a funk, but really manifesting clinical depression, I have a hard time standing up. The first thing I have to do every morning is make the decision to get out of bed. I literally have to urge myself to stand up, cut the light on, and start the day. Depression becomes the “why bother” disease. For instance, take laundry, which we all agree is a task everyone has to deal with unless he is a nudist. A rational thinking person will look at a pile of laundry and she may think, “damn, I don’t want to do this laundry!” However, her motivation kicks in and she begins to think of all the reasons why this needs to get done now as opposed to later. Depression looks at laundry differently.

When I’m depressed, I see a pile of laundry as an insurmountable challenge. I think, “there’s no possible way to get all this sorted, washed, dried, folded, and put away.” Then the “why bother” kicks in, as in, “why bother doing laundry at all? As soon as I get one load done, two more will take its place. It’s not like I go out anyway, so how dirty can these clothes be? I just want to go back to bed.” Then, depression’s second insidious attack begins — self-worth. The laundry sits there in a pile and you can hear a voice in your head saying, “you’re pathetic! If you’d just man up and do this shit when you get a load together instead of waiting so long you wouldn’t have this problem! You know what? You’re right, go back to bed, you don’t deserve clean clothes anyway. People who DO stuff deserve clean clothes. Losers can wear the same things again.”

It’s a devastating one-two punch. First, you have to fight just to get up the momentum to take care of a task only to have your mind screaming at you just how worthless you are for not getting the task done already. It can be about ANYTHING, too. Right now I can name off a twenty-five item list of things that need to be done around the house. Just looking at the list in my head makes me tired which triggers the idea of “why bother?” After all, nothing you need to do will actually be done because grass grows and bushes grow and oil in cars wears out so no matter what you do, you’re going to be stuck. See, a rational person sees these tasks as a part of life; a depressed person sees them as almost punishments and of course you have the peanut gallery in your head screaming, “You bloody loser! You have the worst looking yard in the neighborhood and you deserve it! Losers don’t get clean yards OR clean oil! Just sit there and cry like a baby . . . it’s what you deserve!”

Another characteristic of depression, at least for me, is a seething, roiling, barely contained anger bordering on rage. I don’t know where I heard it but someone said “Depression is anger turned inward.” Whoever they were, they knew what they were talking about. I’ll just sit sometimes and think about throwing my phone through the wall or something along those lines. At times like that I feel like I am a single giant exposed nerve with no skin and the environment is scrubbing me with sandpaper. I’m never mad at anyone but myself though because I always think I should do better, or should have done better. I was a bit of a cutter when I was in high school and it actually was quite soothing, but the world is hard enough on teenagers who self-harm, it’s down right ferocious on middle aged men who cut themselves. We’re supposed to know better.

Anxiety works in an entirely different way. Anxiety is the “What If” disease. A rational person knows if he wants to eat he has to go to the grocery store, but a person dealing with anxiety sees the trip as nothing less dangerous than a trip to the headwaters of the Amazon. What if you have a panic attack? Remember, you had one last time and had to hurry out of the store! Anxiety is usually much more talkative than depression. It’s a constant chatter of “why hasn’t anyone called you? Is it because they hate you? Did you offend someone without knowing?” Sometimes it’s all about the future, “Oh dear, you know what could happen if we do X! We can’t do that! It’s too much risk.”

That’s another difference between my depression and my anxiety. I can only speak for myself, but depression is much more past focused and backward looking while anxiety is almost exclusively future oriented. One way I’ve analogized them is two huge, dark oceans, the Ocean of the Past and the Ocean of the Future and they swirl together in a maelstrom until they crest and break with unendurable force on the Beach of Now. Anything on that beach is going to get crushed: plans, hopes, dreams, normalcy itself, all drowned in a tide of voices.

Depression looks towards the past. Sometimes it can look almost telescopically into the past. It’s not unusual at all for me to agonize over things that happened to me as a child or bad experiences I had in high school. Most of all, depression expertly hunts out mistakes. If you screwed up, no matter how big or how small, a bout of depression WILL find it and like bamboo under fingernails push on the soft, tender spots of your psyche until it bleeds, and it’s accompanied the entire time by the chorus of “you idiot! How could you do something so undeniably stupid! No wonder you’re in such a sad state; you’ve never made a right choice in your life! Just look at all the people you hurt; look at all the damage you caused! IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!!”

Anxiety, on the other hand, peers into the future and it never, ever likes what it sees. Anxiety also like to do its talking at night. You’ll just be lying in bed planning to go to sleep when you think, “Wonder why my arm has been hurting so much lately? Is that related to why my hand is shaking? Have I got Parkinson’s Disease? Am I going to die? What happens if I die? Who will take care of Budge?! Budge . . . did she check her sugar enough today? Did you make sure she didn’t eat gluten? What if she dies? You’ll be all alone! You’re going to DIE ALONE!”

Sometimes, they team up with depression dredging up some awful pain from the past and tossing it like a downfield pass to anxiety who says, “Ah yes! Remember this bit of idiocy on your part? What’s going to keep you from doing it again? You know every time you open your mouth something stupid comes out? This is just proof. I’m just going to have to make sure we don’t go anywhere or do anything that might cause a repeat of this mistake.” Of course, depression piles on with “That’s right! Stay home! Stay in the bed! You don’t deserve to go and do because you’ll just screw it up!”

Those “voices!” Now when I say “voices” please understand I’m not “hearing voices” in the classical schizophrenic sense. I’m just anthropomorphizing my thoughts. I will say sometimes though it can feel like the voices actually are screaming. It happens at my lowest and when they start pounding on me and I’m in tears and near the fetal position, I have entertained the one way to shut them up entirely . . . but so far I’ve always managed to claw out of such darkness. Honestly though? I never come back from the edge for myself. If it was just me, I’d have punched my ticket a long time ago. Someone’s always needing taking care of though . . . Mama, Granny, Budge – of course. I always come back.

The amazing thing about dealing with anxiety and depression is the amount of expertise you encounter. For example, one of my favorites is have someone say, “You know, there’s nothing really wrong with you? It’s all in your head.” Awesome! Thank you random person or perhaps family member. I have a board certified psychiatrist and a board certified psychologist who would disagree with you, but thank you for letting me know a mental illness is, in fact all in my head. I do hope the irony is not lost.

Another great healing balm is “You just need to get out more and face the world! Face your problems head on!” Again, I appreciate the sentiment and as soon as I uncurl myself from the fetal position and cut the lights on so I can put some unstained clothes on, I’ll get right on that!

The worst, however, is to be a Christian and suffer from depression and anxiety. You get a whole different batch of advice and well meaning helpful hints. Let me just list some of the things other Christians have said to me over the years when I’ve been stupid enough to talk about my depression and anxiety in front of them:

  • If you prayed enough you wouldn’t feel this way.
  • You can’t possibly be a REAL Christian because REAL Christians don’t have mental illnesses . . . . they’re of the devil!
  • If you just focus on Jesus instead of yourself you’ll be fine and it’ll all go away.
  • You don’t need all those medicines; prayer is the answer.
  • You must not be very close to God. He wouldn’t let you suffer like this! (When I get this one I always want to say, ever read Job, asshole?)
  • Real Christians don’t think about suicide because suicide is an unforgivable sin!

That’s just some of the more common pieces of wisdom I’ve had sent my way by well-intentioned believers over the years. It’s not as bad now that I’m in a different church but, no offense, growing up Pentecostal with a mental illness, it’s a wonder I made it out alive.

So that’s it. That’s what I’ve been dealing with the last several weeks. Hopefully you got some information out of it that will help you connect with someone you know who’s struggling with depression or anxiety. Maybe you are one of the brotherhood / sisterhood yourself and you came across this post at a low point. I hope you know you aren’t alone and let me leave you with two pieces of advice that have sustained me through many long dark nights of the soul:

  • Suicide, no matter HOW tempting it can be at times, is ALWAYS a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
  • It’s ALWAYS a temporary problem because you’ll get past the hump or you’ll eventually die and it’ll be over then, but be sure to follow Item 1.

Love y’all, I mean that, it’s not something I just use as a tag line. Not enough people love each other so when I close with “Love y’all” I’m not just talking to hear my brains rattle. Anyway.

Love y’all and keep those feet clean.

Jan30

Musings on Being Gen X

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I turned 55 earlier this month. I’m at the speed limit age now. From that bit of information, I’m sure you can deduce my birth year was the Year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Seventy-One. I’m squarely Gen X. I see in my scrollings on Facebook and Instagram that Gen X has a pretty noticeable presence online. I follow three separate content creators, and I love to hear their takes on the music of our time growing up as well as the things from our childhood and teenage years and I thought I’d give some of my thoughts on what it’s meant to be part of the Gen X crowd.

First off, most Gen Xers remember harsh physical discipline. Lots of reels talk about the difference between the “gentle parenting” of today and what we went through. I can’t relate though because I never got so much as a swat on the backside growing up. I was raised a de facto only child after my parents’ divorce, so most of my time and conversation was with adults. As a result, I adopted more adult ways and that wasn’t conducive to getting one’s rear end blistered. Long explanation short, I didn’t do anything much to deserve a spanking and the handful of times I did, it was around Granny Wham, and she wasn’t going to let anyone touch me. Now I did get paddled at school one time in the second grade for talking during nap time. Yes, we took naps in second grade; isn’t it grand? Mama found out when I went home and told her. She didn’t take it well. She took me all the way into school the next day and stopped by the principal’s office on the way in. I’d never heard Mama speak at that volume or use those words. I think it would have been different if they’d told Mama first, but I’m not really so sure.

One thing I did do in common with my Gen X comrades was the Saturday morning ritual. Saturday was Mama’s only day to sleep in so I was on my own from the time I woke up until she got up around ten o’clock. I filled the time productively by pouring myself a nice big bowl of Cocoa Pebbles or Cocoa Puffs, and turning on the Saturday morning cartoons. It was a great way to spend a morning. I’d watch Looney Toons and Thundarr the Barbarian and a host of other half-hour shows from eight o’clock until Bill Cosby and the Cosby Kids came on at 11:30 AM. They were the last cartoon of the morning on the clearest channel we got, but sometimes I would watch Pink Panther through a little static snow. Either way, once they went off at noon, it was time for Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling! I spent the next hour cheering my heroes in the “squared circle” and booing the bad guys. Mama would watch with me while she folded clothes, and I think she got as much entertainment from me as she did from the show.

Another thing I shared along with my compadres was the mandate to be outside. Saturday morning cartoons were the only acceptable time to watch TV on a day off and once they went off, my friends and I were expected to be outside. I would ride my bike in my slow fat kid pace over to the Willis boys’ house and we would play all sorts of ways. We’d go on grand adventures in the woods behind their house, or maybe if the weather was right, we’d go fishing. Sometimes we’d go to their grandmother’s house up the road a ways. I loved their grandmother, but I hated getting there because I couldn’t keep up on my bicycle. They were all just too speedy for me and any size hill resulted in a dismount and walking my trusty two wheeled steed up to the summit. Summertime and vacations from school were no different. No matter how hot it was outside, we were out in it from morning to evening. We did get our water from the garden hose, which is a great way to get stung on the lip by a yellow jacket by the way, but unlike what I hear from the Gen Xers on line, we did get fed around noon. Whichever mom’s house we were at would make us some variety of sandwich and pour us up some sweet tea or Kool-Aid to wash them down with. We didn’t go hungry.

I remember when the first Atari 2600 came out. The Willis boys got one the Christmas they came out. We weren’t allowed to play on it during daylight hours. That was for being outside. When night feel though, we could come inside and after supper play Combat and Pitfall until our thumbs ached. It was the same several years later when the original Nintendo showed up. We’d try to sneak in and play during the day in the glorious air conditioning, but inevitably, we’d get caught and shooed outside. I was and to this day still am, hopeless on a video game. I was fairly good at some of the arcade stand up games we could play at the mall and in some stores in Fountain Inn when I was with one of my papas, but home consoles were the death of me. I got laughed at a lot.

That was something else about our growing up I shared with the online Xers. You had to have a thick skin. Sensitive kids need not apply. Whatever was different about you would be a target of ridicule. Mine was my weight and pale skin. I was easily sunburned and I was fat for a kid so I was given the nickname at play and at school of The Great White Marshmallow. You know, it stung a little at first, but the difference between that kind of ribbing and out and out bullying was nicknames and such weren’t malicious. No one was trying to hurt you or your feelings. It was just a way of showing where you stood in the pack. Now we did have bullies. We had some terrible bullies. Unlike today, there was no zero tolerance policy or anything like it to protect people from getting bullied. Teachers were notorious for turning a blind eye to some pretty bad stuff. I got a little crap because of my weight and because my parents were divorce, but nothing like some others I knew. In our jungle, the only way to defang a bully was to stand up to them. I saw some much smaller guys get fed up and take on some bullies. Thing was, you didn’t have to win. The act of resisting showed you weren’t a victim. The same teachers who turned a blind eye to getting bullied were also just as blind when a playground bully got his just desserts as well. Unlike today, we had to sort our problems out on our own.

I don’t remember everything fondly about those times though. For one thing, mental health wasn’t paid much attention to. I know today if a child or teen seems “off” it won’t be long before they are in some kind of therapy, and rightly so. Wasn’t that way when I was growing up. You pretty much had to figure it out on your own. Childhood and teenage depression weren’t talked about and I don’t know when it changed, but they weren’t even acknowledged to exist when I was coming up. I know I would have benefitted from talking to someone. My parents’ divorce when I was small did a number on me mentally. I went mute for several months. I wouldn’t go outside no matter how much I was coaxed, and I withdrew from my friends. All I wanted to do was sit in a corner of the couch and read and deal with a sadness I couldn’t articulate and that no one tried to help me through. I was told, not unkindly, that it was part of life and I just had to get through it. Years and years later when I started going to my excellent psychiatrist and psychologist, I talked to them about that experience. They both said similar things. At the time, children’s mental health wasn’t understood well, if at all, and even if the adults around me had tried to get me help, there wasn’t really any help to be had. It was just the way of the times.

One last thing I’ll discuss about how different things are now that from when I was a kid is working. I got a job the day after I turned fifteen and worked until I went on disability thirty years later. Barely missed a day. Most of my friends worked a job. Grocery store bagging and stocking was my chosen vocation. I’ve got to be honest, I’ve never enjoyed a job as much as I did working at Community Cash bagging groceries and stocking the canned veggies aisle. Now though, I don’t see teens working as a general rule. Sure, some do, but for us it was expected. I never got an allowance at any time growing up. If I wanted to put gas in the car my father so kindly bought for me and my mother kindly paid the insurance on, I had to earn the money. It was just how it was. I’m not sure what changed, but I know today’s generations don’t seem to have the kind of work ethic we did, but I don’t think it’s a mark of character, I just think the times have changed.

Now I could go on for pages, but I’m going to leave it here. I may pick up on the topic in a later post. I think I’d like to talk about all the things we were scared of in our Gen X child and teen years and how it’s different from today, but that’s a story for another time. So keep your feet clean, and know I love y’all!