Frustrating "Treatments"

By Darcy Thiel

It is well-known that sometimes when you treat a condition, you create another problem. All you have to do is listen to the medication commercials and hear all the possible side effects. My dad went through this recently. He had a hernia operation. That was successful, but for no known reason, it threw his bladder into chaos. He got a catheter to relieve that, then got a UTI (most likely from the catheter) and developed severe sepsis. The only way to treat that is with antibiotics, but they also had to drain the urine with the bacteria. Catheter back in. If that’s not a vicious circle…

I was recently talking to a close friend about depression. I probably have known this for a long time, but I had never consciously articulated it. I don’t know any official statistics, but I think the majority of people who suffer from more severe bouts of depression tend to isolate themselves. Sometimes you don’t know for days or even weeks because you don’t see them or talk to them. For whatever reason, I am the opposite. I am like, “Hey! I’m depressed. I need you to get over here ASAP.” I have no idea why, it’s just the way it is.

After recently falling into record lows for myself, as well as interacting with people I love who also struggle, I am reminded of what I have been telling clients for years. Medication is definitely helpful and probably even required. There are a whole lot of other “interventions” that have been deemed useful as well. Most of them are common sense things that relate to health in general. Eat healthy (avoid sugar!). Exercise. Do activities that you love and/or fill you with pleasure. Interact with support people.

Here’s the frustrating part. How the heck do you do any of those things when you are depressed? They are helpful in preventing depression. They might even be helpful if you struggle a bit with the blues but don’t really cross over into actual depression. But if you are really depressed? Forget it.

Eat healthy? Lots of people eat nothing. How can you when you don’t get out of bed? Lots of people eat crummy foods. I go back and forth between the two. Eating healthy requires more prep and work. If I am lucky enough to move around the house, I’m going to grab what is easy. AND… I’m going to eat what I like instead of what I should. There’s another vicious cycle. Carbs taste great on the way down, sometimes briefly lifting my mood. Then you crash even harder after the sugar high goes away. Plus you feel bad about yourself because you know you are going to gain weight and not feel so great about your attractiveness level.

When I crashed a few weeks ago, I had gone out to the pool. I was out of earshot of my son that way. Plus, I didn’t feel as bad about the friends who were staying with me if they were sitting in the sun. The problem was, I knew I was starting to get sunburned. It was also contributing to my light-headed feeling, which then was adding to my panic symptoms. I knew it was happening, but I couldn’t move. Eventually, my peeps took a beach towel or two and soaked them in the pool water. They laid them over my body so I would at least stop getting burned.

If you’ve never experienced this kind of debilitating depression, that probably sounds crazy to you. How could you not just get up and walk back to the house? I remember a brief conversation about moving to the gazebo but that would have required moving furniture around. The mere thought paralyzed me. Way, way too hard.

Simple solutions. Impossible to do at certain moments in your life. Sure, do these things to get out of depression. Just know you probably can’t do them if you are depressed. Frustrating, to say the least.

If you love someone who struggles, please just be patient. Listen and listen some more. It will be tempting to offer a host of suggestions that would seem simple and possible to the average person. But trust me when I say, there are times when you just can’t.

Thanks again to my many friends and loved ones who sat and sat with me, and knew to put cool coverings on me. If you are loved by someone who can accept you at your lowest points, you are truly lucky. (Of course, when in the middle of your struggle, you might know it intellectually, but it won’t make a difference in the quality of your life in that moment.) That’s OK, because those kind of people stick by you anyway.