I was thrilled with my new temporary living arrangement, but was soon to find out not everyone felt the same. One of my very best friends, more like a sister to me, a woman I'd worked and shared an office with for more than 5 years, learned I was living in our bosses home. She felt it was inappro-priate, and would lead to "unfair favoritism within our team". How could she think such a thing about me? We'd been friends for so long. We spent personal, as well as professional time together, and had even vacationed together. We'd shared everything with each other. Where was this coming from? I assured her I was more than capable of keeping my personal life with our boss separate from our professional relationship, but my words fell on deaf ears. She began distancing herself from me, and soon stopped talking to me altogether.
Within the span of about a month, I'd effectively lost my two best friends
at no conceivable fault of my own; just circumstances beyond my control.
I think that was the hardest part, what was so difficult to accept, what I couldn't wrap my mind around...everything being out of control. There was nothing I could do. Feelings of helplessness and hopelessness began
to tighten their grasp around my neck.
Like blazing arrows shot into an already bleeding heart, my ex began calling me almost daily, begging me to move back home. The calls came both day and night. They concluded the same way: yelling, fighting, she was drunk, I was in tears. As if her calls themselves weren't wretched enough, she seemed intent on offering her solution to our problem: I'd move into one of the guest rooms, and she'd continue her affair. She and
I would, of course, continue to be friends, as if that's all there had ever been between us.
My ex's calls and our chance encounters at work were more than I could bear. Yes, we worked for the same company. I felt myself reeling, ab-sorbing blows from all directions. My feeble legs were buckling, I could
no longer stand amid the pressure. Work demands, stress from living in my boss's base-ment, knowing I had to pay off that insurmountable debt
in order to afford a place of my own, my best friend won't speak to me,
this, this torture from my ex, then I found out my sister (who I'm very
close to]) was moving with her husband and my baby nephew to North Carolina! No...NO...it was the final straw. I was breaking beneath the load.
I'd burst into tears for seemingly no reason. No reason, that's what I told myself. I knew something had to be wrong. Never dawning on me it could be depression, I talked to my primary care physician; asked what was going on with these crying spells. I told her I'd just start crying, and couldn't stop for the longest of times. It wasn't until she referred me to a psychiatrist to discuss "appropriate medications if necessary", wasn't until the words were spoken out loud, that I gave myself permission to realize the enormity of my stress...and dare I say it, depression.
Psychiatrist appointments were always interesting to me. He never asked how "I" was doing or feeling. His questions were always regarding my medication: if I felt the medicine was helping, if I had side effects, and if I was taking it as prescribed. Questions I appreciated being asked; it wasn't, I didn't, and I was, but there was a nagging curiosity in my gut: shouldn't there be more than this?
My depression grew worse. I'd never been depressed before...was this normal? As I would later find out, I should have been seeing a therapist along with a psychiatrist. I also found out the other delay in my recovery, my medication. The psychiatrist was giving me such a pediatric dose of Prozac, it was providing me no benefit whatsoever!"
So, what does it look like to be a severely depressed functionally depressed person? Well, I think I've painted a clear picture of how Amanda became depressed. Life happens to us all, and circumstances can send us bounding over the edge of surefootedness with little to no warning. It doesn't mean we're weak, or crazy. Being depressed means exactly that...we're being pressed...too far. It can, and often does happen to any one of us, short or long-term. Our goal is to identify it, learn coping skills to help us function while we overcome it, and not let it control our lives.
Join us next week for the Conclusion of Amanda's Story
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