Dealing with anxiety...and depression

Generally I like to keep my blog a little upbeat, and thats why I write about things like theme parks and holidays. I figure that unless you are famous no one really cares how horrible your life has been or the struggles you deal with. We accept it from celebrities because it somehow humanizes people we have put on a pedestal. It is unlikely that this post will even get half the number of hits that one of my trip reports. Which is fine for me. I am not writing this to get a swarm of traffic. This post is for both my close friends and my extended network of friends. I feel they deserve an explanation on why I flake out sometimes.

Both anxiety and depression are things I have dealt with my entire life. Of course, neither was labeled as such until I was in my late teens. Had I been born about 10 years later I probably would have been medicated as early as elementary school. I was about nine years-old when I contemplated killing myself. I often thought about tying several pairs of shoe laces together so that I could hang myself from my door frame. Obviously, had the laces been able to support my weight (which was probably unlikely) it would have been slow and painful as I would have most likely died of asphyxiation instead of a broken neck. There were other times I would tie plastic bags around my head to see if I could make myself pass out. I knew the risk was that I could die, and I think to some degree that was always my intent. At about the same age I had my first bout with high levels of anxiety. Christmas break was one of the two times my siblings and I would go to the dentist every year. I still remember this particular visit. I absolutely flipped out about going to the dentist. Sure no one really enjoys going, but this was more than the typical, "ugh, it's time to go to the dentist again," reaction that most people have. I remember trying to make myself vomit as a way to make my mother think that I was too sick to go. When I couldn't get the whole finger-down-the-throat trick to work I started screaming that I refused to go. This lead to me crying and sobbing. This wasn't a tantrum. This was plain fear. Even my mother could tell this wasn't the typical reaction of a child that simply didn't want to do something. I know my reaction scared her as well. I don't remember exactly how she was able to get me to calm down, but I did end up going. This was yet another even that was an indicator of how the rest of my life was going to play out.

Over the next ten years both the anxiety and depression came and went. Simple tasks such as calling a local business to find out their hours of operation would cause me to be nervous and anxious. I would put off these kind of tasks for hours, which of course only ended up raising my anxiety. Meeting new people scared the shit out of me regardless of age or sex. I remember I always hated the first day of baseball practice every year. I would need to find someone to play catch with so that I could do my warm-ups. Usually I would just wait for someone to ask me, or hope that there would be an odd number so I would have to play catch with one of the coaches. During the season I was that guy who sat at the end of the bench and kept to himself while our team was up to bat. When I stopped playing baseball, it was a huge relief to know that this was no longer an area of life that I had worry about meeting new people.

Towards the end of the aforementioned ten year period I started dealing with severe depression. At this point I was old enough and intelligent enough to know what the problem is. I started taking medication and going to counseling. I hopped from one medication to the next. I seemed to get adjusted to each prescription quickly, and I could was only on a given medication for a short time before I was taking the maximum dose and it would stop working. Around my 18th birthday I started taking a new medication. Most anti-depressants can have a small risk that they can induce suicidal thoughts. Recently it has been found that this risk is even greater in adolescents and teens. Of course, this is something I had to find out on my own. While I was on this medication I starting cutting myself. It started out mild and really just looked like cat scratches. Eventually, it lead to what I have seen referred to as pseudo-suicide, meaning that it was a suicidal act but the intent was not death. Instead the intent was more a so-called cry for help. Due to the dangerous nature these acts can often lead to successful attempts. A couple of visits to the ER and several stitches later I went in to in-patient therapy. To a certain degree this worked. While I have occasionally had a suicidal thought or two, I haven't had a desire to act on it since those incidents.

Flash forward another ten years to the present and I still battle with anxiety and depression. For the most part I have accepted that I am going to have to deal with bouts of depression for the rest of my life. I usually have an episode once or twice a year and it usually lasts 2-3 months. I have learned to deal with the depression without medication. Medication might make them easier to deal with, but to a certain degree I have gotten used to this nagging friend coming to visit a few times a year. Provided I can get myself motivated I can have some very creative things come out of these periods. In fact, focusing on these epiphanies is usually what causes the depression to subside.

But even when the depression has gone on vacation the anxiety is always there. A prime example of this occurred today. Any regular reader of this site knows I love roller coasters. I often use roller coasters as way to describe how my anxiety feels to people. I describe it as that feeling you have right before the first drop on a coaster: nervous, scared, and excited all at the same time. Another way to describe it would be the butterflies in your stomach before a big presentation, or maybe even that brief moment of panic you have when you realize you just went through a speed trap and you weren't sure how fast your were driving. Now, take those brief moments and imagine feeling that way for hours, or even days on end. For the last year or so that is how I have felt.

To come back around to roller coasters, today Coaster Mayhem is going on at Worlds of Fun. In order to participate in this event you have to pay a small fee a be a member of a recognized coaster enthusiast club. This event has a luncheon where announcements about next years attractions were expected to be made as well as give-aways and a behind-the-scenes photo-op tour. More importantly, the event also has two exclusive ride time sessions on coaster both before and after the park is closed to the general public. In other words, it's like Christmas for coaster enthusiasts. Yet, I didn't attend because by anxiety was overwhelming me. As of last night I had every intention of going. I made sure my camera and camcorder were charged and ready to go. I went to bed around midnight knowing that I would need to get up early to get to the park before 8am. It has been months since I have gone to bed that early including weeknights. But when I woke up I panicked. I knew there were going to be about a dozen people I was going to be meeting in person for the first time. Many of these people are folks I have been chatting online with for months. Unfortunately my anxiety overruled my desire to enjoy doing something I love.

The events of today are not an isolated incident either. Last month I terrified the entire day leading up to the concert of one of my favorite bans, The Foo Fighters. I had been waiting for 12 years for them to come back to Kansas City. I bought my tickets mere minutes after they went on sale. I would have purchased them faster had Ticketmaster been working better that day. Either way, the only reason I was able to force myself to go was because I had already spent a large chunk of change on tickets. Even though I had a wonderful time, and I knew this would be the case I still had a horrible day leading up to that evening. Today, I was able to get out of the event because I didn't have tickets yet. Had I bought them in advance it would have been easier to force myself to go.

This leaves me wondering where do I go from here. Obviously my medication isn't working. I haven't found any good coping skills yet. Am I going to spend my life being terrified over every new situation without having to resort to using Xanax or alcohol to get me through it? I really wish I had that answer to that. Life is too short to be miserable all the time. I've been alive less than 30 years, but it has been long enough to realize each year goes by faster than the last. My hope is that by putting this out there someone who has made it through the other side will be willing to speak up and share their own story. Even better still is that I hope that one day I might be able to share my own version of that story.