June Gloom...

I remember going to San Diego in June about 11 years ago... It was cold and dreary and we quickly heard from many people that we were there during June Gloom.  I thought, "YUCK! Why would anyone want to live here!".  Well, for the last two years I have lived in my very own June Gloom!!  And honestly, I don't want to live here anymore!

Last June was a living nightmare.  I haven't looked back at posts from that time period.  I don't think I  want to.  I don't know if I was trying to sugar coat things or if I was honest.  I imagine that there is no way I could have been completely honest because I was in a DARK place.  I was losing my mind!  I was hanging on by a thread of my sanity.  I don't think that there has ever been a time in which I have cried SO hard for SO long.

This June I was numb.  I was sad.  I was a shell of my former self.  I could barely drag myself out of bed to make it to the couch.  And though I was honest in my posts about what was going on, which was pretty glum and down, they were nothing compared to what I was actually feeling.  I kept telling myself that I HAD to start getting up and doing something with my day.  It wasn't like I was sleeping away the days.  I was still getting up early every day and waking Mike up for work or meetings.  I was still staying up super late doing absolutely nothing... well, probably watching Netflix. ;) But, it was SO hard for me to actually face life.

I was feeling SOOOO terrible physically and emotionally.  My body was completely failing me.  I couldn't even cry because I had no tears left.  AT LEAST when I was feeling so badly last year I was crying and yelling and letting the feelings out (alone in my house... like a CRAZY person... But still, I was letting those feelings out!).  On a daily basis it was hard to find anything to feel good about and it was especially hard because there were people around that I still needed to attempt to plaster a smile on my face for.

I considered calling to see if my counselor that I stopped seeing 5 years ago was even still employed at the facility I used to go to.  For all I know she could be retired by now.  Who knows? I tried vitamins.  I tried reading things on the internet about common remedies for depression. None of it helped, but one thing was for sure, I was ABSOLUTELY depressed.

I know that the word "depressed" gets thrown around a lot.  But I know the true meaning of the word and I have been on medication for it and anxiety before.  I know what it is and it is ugly.  It is not something that you can just suck up.  It is not something that you can just shake off.  It is not something that you can wish away.  I also know that I have been able to control those feelings for YEARS without medication and I wanted to do anything and everything I could to not get back to that point again.

I actually started the anxiety/depression medication on our wedding day.  Before we even knew that we were infertile!  I spent so many years trying to smile through the pain and being a people pleaser and at that point I just couldn't do it on my own anymore.  I had been to counseling for over a year.  Probably 2 years and I just didn't want to live like I was anymore.  I honestly didn't know who I was at that point.  I spent so much time trying to "be happy" for other people that I was NEVER happy.  Whatever people wanted I just smiled and did it.  I will never be able to fully describe how I felt then, but to get to a point that I knew something had to change was HUGE.  After I started taking meds the counseling sessions were much more effective.  They diagnosed me with Generalized Anxiety Disorder.  They said that I had OCD tendencies and ADHD tendencies, but they did not know which was the primary and which was the secondary... hence the Generalized diagnosis.  I spent the next year taking various medications that ranged from causing me to feel absolutely HORRENDOUS to feeling functional, but not really different.  I had a new understanding of how my students who were medicated felt.  A change in the meds cound make you feel like a totally different person.  A missed dose could take a week to regulate.  It was terrible!  But, once they got it right it was AMAZING.  II didn't feel like a different person, I didn't feel like I was in a fog or like I was "drugged" or anything.  I could just function without the constant nagging pressure to be the best and please everyone... the pressure was still there, but it just wasn't as intense.  At that point I was able to actually function well enough to take in all of the strategies that I learned from my counselor and from the psychiatrist.  I was able to see a light at the end of the tunnel.  Eventually I was able to cut back on the meds and spread my sessions out with my counselor.  Then I went off the meds completely and just saw my counselor.  And when we moved, I said goodbye to Macomb and a month later I said goodbye to my counselor as well.  I wasn't CURED of my disorder or my tendencies, but I was able to use strategies to function!  I was able to see a little bit of GRAY in my black and white life.  (Anyone who knows a little about OCD knows that things are very black and white for people with OCD tendencies.  I would always say, "It isn't that I necessarily think my way is right and that I am not willing to change my views... it is that if there were a better way I would change what I do and do it that way."  That was a time in my life that was very difficult, but a time that was also amazing.  I was finally addressing something that was "wrong" in my life for a very long time and I was no longer afraid of the stigma of seeking help.  Honestly, it was fortunate that I didn't lose my life before I sought help.  There were times that I was just plain destructive to my life and thankfully those times did not win.  We all know people who were not that lucky.  (This blog is not the setting to go into more details about my experiences in counseling or my destructive behaviors (I will say that none of these behaviors involved doing drugs. I don't want anyone reading this to get that impression.  Thankfully I never felt that they would be the answer to any of my problems.). Just know that I would be happy to make recommendations to anyone who feels that they are at a point in their lives that they need and want change.  It can be scary to make that step, but it is even scarier to live in a way that you are careless and could not care less about living.  I am happy to help in any way that I can!)

With that little bit of background in mind, I think that the fact that I have OCD tendencies caused me to approach infertility in a slightly different way than I have read in other blogs and postings by people going through it.  I was very willing to try whatever I was told was the best option because it was very black and white to me... If this is the best option then it is what we will do.  Why wouldn't we?  As long as we have had a plan, I felt like I was making gains.  No plan equalled DOOM!!! And basically June has been a month of NO PLAN for two years now.

Last week I began to realize that I was ablsolutely on a down hill spiral.  I had finally stopped bleeding and I was able to step out of the chaos for a moment and see that I was in a terrible mind set.  I tried to snap out of it, but as I said before, nothing seemed to help. I determined that June was a total loss, but that I needed to make a change.  That I needed to give myself a boundary and to determine that July could NOT be another June.  What has changed? Well, in our situation absolutely nothing has changed... so it just has to be a change in mindset.  I am going to take the Plexus supplements and I am going to work on becoming healthier.  I am going to attempt to take back my life and not let infertility continue to make me feel like less of a person.  Am I a different person now?  Absolutely!  Will I ever go back to being the person I was when I left counseling? No, there is no way that I could.  Too much has happened to change me, but that doesn't mean that I can't be better.

I have knowledge today of so many things that I didn't when I walked out of the door at MDH 5 years ago.  I am stronger than I ever could have imagined.  I have worked through so many things and broken so many of the obsessions that I still had when I left counseling.  I have overcome fears, I have faced scary situations... of course I can be BETTER than I was back then.  Is it going to be hard to move into a new mindset? Of course it is.  But then again, there are not a lot of things that are worth it that aren't hard.

I can't continue to be a shell of my former self.  So today, July 1st, I am moving out of the June Gloom and looking forward to working on becoming a healthier me.  That doesn't mean that things will be sunshine and rainbows from here on out.  But it does mean that I am trying and that is step one!

Thank you for your support as we continue on this journey.  I am sure I will need your help to keep the "gloom" behind me!! :)