Part 18 - Depression Can Be Managed

A Quick Health Update

First things first:

Addie and baby are good. Thirty-seven week appointment is later this week. She’s bigger and increasingly uncomfortable. The house is coming together for Bump.

An Intro

Now back to me (eye roll):

I’ve been reading The Mayo Clinic’s Guide To A Healthy Pregnancy off and on since Addie’s first pregnancy commenced nearly 14 months ago. I finally arrived at the complications of birth section, and double-clicked on the depression bits.

According to the experts, if you have most of these signs and symptoms most of the day, nearly every day for at least two weeks you’re likely diagnosably depressed:

  • Sleep disturbances (check)
  • Impaired thinking or concentration (check)
  • Significant and unexplained weight gain or loss (nah)
  • Agitation or slowed body movements (nah)
  • Fatigue (nah)
  • Low self-esteem (oscillating, but mostly coming up nah)
  • Loss of interest in sex (oscillating, but mostly coming up nah, also… at 37 weeks their may be something else causing this loss of interest (another eye roll))
  • Thoughts of death (check)

Three of eight may not be diagnosable, but it’s definitely something to watch and manage.

And here are some of the things that have helped get into a little better space:

  • Vitamin D
  • Continued exercise
  • Just focusing on one small thing to get done, and getting it done1
  • Picturing a worthwhile future to build to

On that last point, two poignant memories sprang to mind. One flashback to right when we decided to launch this adventure. And one train of thought that I’m embarrassed about but am compelled to leave a record of here2.

The Flashback

It was Sunday. The middle of June. I’d put in my notice at the beginning of the month. Monday was my last day. I was headed to work to clean out my office to make way for my replacement. I drove away from our home with a pit in my stomach and thoughts spiralling out of control. What are we doing? Where are we going? Where will we live? How will Bubbas get there? How broke will we be and how fast? What if we never get home? What is the point in building a life you like if you’ll leave it? Do we like the life we built? Are we fleeing or pursuing?

Sweat broke out on my brow. I blasted “Anywhere With You” by Jake Owens. I breathed. I drove, probably not all that safely. My brain drifted between dread, anxiety, excitement. Half listening to music. Half in the future. Half in the deep future wondering if I’d be a happily married man with a family or a homeless mongrel who lost everything to die sad and alone in the gutter. Half on the logistics of the move3.

I got my office cleaned out. Got back home. Spent the next couple weeks in a stressed out tizzy wondering if what we were doing was completely insane. Never wholly focused on any one task.

At a point, Addie and I were walking around our place. She mentioned that our bedroom would work well for two kids to share. And my world turned completely upside down.

I could visualize it. I could feel them there. I could move forward through the months, and maybe years, of discomfort to land back home with happy and healthy kiddos sharing that particular space.

And then I could get back to work executing through the adventure that will give us the deep family roots we’re choosing to build so that we can give those young people wings that are are capable of carrying them through whatever gales life blows their way.

That’s the flashback of how looking towards a worthwhile future pulled me along through a depressive episode several months ago. Now for the embarrassing thoughts that just pulled me through the current one.

The Embarrassing Thoughts I’m Compelled To Share

  1. I feel called to serve. In 28 years, I plan to run for President of the United States. My pathway there will be through a 20 year union career in the trades, culminating with becoming the big boss. Then I’ll run for governor and lose. Then I’ll run for governor and win. Then I’ll run for the White House.

  2. I feel called to rejoin my people. In 5 years, I plan to convert to Judaism.

The cool thing about both thoughts is that they’ve had legs. Several days later, I’m still inoculated against the depression and seem to be moving nicely through work and house prep.

I’m sitting gracefully with the idea that if all that happens 30 years from now is that I wrote some stuff, and lived some life, that will just fine. As long as I committed fully to the journey, and invested intentionally in Addie, Bump, and Bubbas.

So, there’s some embarrassing future thinking that nudged me out of a rut I was stuck in.

Onwards.

  1. Zooming in on what Anne Lamott calls the one-inch picture frame. ↩︎

  2. Compelled by whom? That’s an interesting question to revisit with Liz as I continue my way through Big Magic and plan to pick up Writing Down the Bones again after more than a decade. ↩︎

  3. Folks with tendencies to anxiety will know exactly what it’s like to have two full minds running around in the space where only your one should be. ↩︎