My emotions do not function normally

I have been suffering from depressive moods for the most part of my life. I am 32 years old now but I feel tired and old. Like I have lived long enough and hard enough. My body is failing me. At least before I had sports: aerobics, skiing, swimming, hiking in my beloved mountains. But now I drag around a body that is too heavy for me. My emotions have been failing for a longer time. It is so hard without proper feelings, not feeling happy and joyful about good things, feeling lonely when there are people who care, not being interested in life that most people would not end by killing themselves.

My first severe depression began in 2002. I couldn´t study anymore which was scary. I was always good at learning. I coudn´t concentrate, I was anxious, I cutted myself. My perception of reality was falling apart. I tried to get help but it was only by the end of that year that I received any. By that time I was doing so badly that I was hospitalized for psychotic depression. I was started on Zyprexa and Cipramil and I started to get more sleep. I felt safe and looked after. After almost 3 months I returned home and that was so difficult. Sports activities didn´t interest me anymore nor could get myself out of the apartment to do any. All I did was watching tv and eating. Time passed by so slowly, I wished that night would come soon so that I could take my sleeping pills and go to bed and not have to be in that state. I tried to study but I didn´t pass exams, I just couldn´t remember things like I used. I thought I would never graduate.

However, by the beginning of 2004 I found a way to finish my studies without exams and I graduated. I have a Master´s degree in psychology. So there I was, unsure and scared and unwell. I had such high expectations and need to achieve that I went ahead and applied for a job. I started my career as a vocational counselor in June 2004.

I chose psychology because I had always had a yearning to be able to give advice. I think it it because as a child I wished I had someone to go for help. I wished I had a big sister, someone who would be have gone through things before me, who would therefore understand me. A person who would give me advice. Emotional support was something my parents were not able to give me. Life was good, we had the basic necessities and my parents were hard-working and things were stable. But I couldn´t trust them with big problems and I was very young when I stopped telling them things. I was very quiet and anxious around people. People who know me in childhood and adolescence would never believe I passed entrance exams for psychology. Or that I am working as a psychologist.

Psychology was something that really interested me. Perhaps, as is often stated, it was an attempt to understand myself. Perhaps an attempt to find a cure for myself. I didn´t find a cure in psychology. During the years at university I had many doubts about my career choice. In 2002 I had just finished my Master´s thesis and was feeling worse and worse. I was afraid of what would come after university.

My job as a career counselor was demanding. I wanted to be perfect, I felt I had to solve all the problems and anxieties my clients had. I slept most of the weekends. My depression had gone nowhere. It was hard to give in to taking sick leaves. But after half a year I had to admit it was getting to be too much. I had two weeks off and tried to return. Until the fall of 2005 I kept having sick leaves yet insisted that I return back to work. My psychiatrist saw I needed to be on sick leave but didn´t pressure me.

Hospitalization followed and I had to give up and admit: I couldn´t cope at work nor at home. I had tried so hard to make it, be hard-working like my parents, but I failed. I hated myself. If I could have I would have cut myself with an axe into dozens of pieces, burnt the mess and buried it a couple of shovels of dirt. Thoughts of suicide were among the most frequent themes in my mind. Sleeping was difficult or I slept too much. The only thing that felt good was eating. At times anxiety was so bad that even food didn´t taste good, it was like paper in my mouth. Cipramil wasn´t working for me. Earlier Zyprexa had been replaced with Abilify due to excessive weight gain. I was started on Effexor which I still take although it hasn´t prevented relapses.

After hospital I continued in cognitive psychotherapy even two times a week. I used to wait for the next session hoping that it would somehow relieve me from the pain. And each I came back home feeling that nothing had changed. I still kept waiting for the next session. By the summer of 2006 we did however make progress. My self-esteem got better and it felt very good. I started to see fault in other people instead of blaming everything on myself. I also started to say what I thought and what I wasn´t satisfied with. That was such a high. I was talkative, energetic, funny, assertive, creative. People were asking if this was the real me. It felt good to be alive!

Why did the therapy work for me? I think it was because the therapist showed such empathy and commitment. She would go further than other therapists in trying to make me see things in a wider perspective than I did. I started to see the roots of my depression. I used to wonder why I was so severely depressed even when I hadn´t experienced any abuse or severe trauma or neclegt. I started to see the emotinal loneliness and having to cope on my own from early on. Standing up for myself was something I needed to learn.

So summer and fall of 2006 were excellent. But my psychiatrist thought it was a hypomania from Effexor and started to lower the dosis. He didn´t diagnose me bipolar becaude he thinks it´s not bipolar if hypomania comes from antidepressant. However that may be, I returned to work in November and it went well. I had new strength and confidende. But I soon noticed that it wasn´t enough that I had learned to speak up for myself. I found that people still didn´t care. I was dissapointment because I was so pleased with my change but many didn´t see that as progress. I would get very irritated and annoyed. This feeling that nothing I said made any difference threw me back into depression.

At the same time my mother became psychotic. It was hard because my father relied on me a a lot for help while I was falling apart myself. She went to psychiatric care after Christmas. I was strangely somehow glad that she had to admit she had a problem. Before that she never told me anything that could have helped me to understand my background. She was defensive as if I wanted to blame her. But I was looking for answers to comprehend my severe depressions that took over my life. I wanted to know more. She specifically said at family therapy once that she didn´t have postpartum depression even when the therapist didn´t ask about it or didn´t suggest it. But in my therapy I had started to see how my mother had had different moods and aggressions. Her nurse said she had been depressed for a long time. And that in her childhood she was used by her parents as a mediator in their fights. Her parents weren´t there for her so when she had a child she may have hoped that the child would be there for her. I learnt to be on the look out on her moods and later to be very concerned about what other people thought of me. Once she was hospitalized I was relieved that it wasn´t just me. I hadn´t got depressed all by myself without anything in my past that contributed to it. I wasn´t the only thing that wasn´t alright.

My own depression became worse until I had go to hospital again. My mother was also at the same hospital. This time in hospital was a nightmare for me. The best thing about it were other patients, we played board games and had a lot of fun on the days we were doing better. The treatment I got from nurses and doctors made me decide not go to hospital ever again. I was critical,yes, and they couldn´t handle that very well. The doctor on the ward was young and new to the job. She had done research in pathology before. I had experience as patient and had a clear picture od where I was and what I needed. She had other ideas, I tried to communicate mine but they were not well received. She was determined to see if I was capable of doing my job as a psychologist. I thought that was not the problem. I managed my part-time job well. My problems began when I was at home after work and interacting with people other that clients/co-workers. Of course, they didn´t believe it. I refused to participate in anything they suggested in that direction. I was well aware of my right to refuse treatment and other things although doctors recommended them.

It´s not a wonder that many don´t manage to return to work after becoming depressed. I was fortunate enough to get a good therapist and financial support for an intensive therapy. I also had and still have an experienced psychiatrist. I didn´t have trouble with income during sick leaves. I got financial support for expensive drugs like antipsychotics. My employer agreed to organise a senior psychologist to support my working. I have been fortunate. It has still been hard to find my professional identity. Without my strong ambition to succeed I would have never returned. At work no-one ever asked how I was doing. My boss was totally inconsiderate and thought I wasn´t sick at all. People at occupational health care thought I should been thinking about something else to do. I had studied seven years at university, I wasn´t about to give up easily. I had only started to work and had worked a couple of months. I wanted to try and see and if after sufficient amount of time, it had become obvious that I couldn´t work as a psychologist, then would have been the time to think about other options. I guess hardly anyone believed it back then but I am still working as a psychologist.

I understand that my mental health problems can prevent me from working as a pscyhologist. I have to be able to concentrate on clients and their situations. I mustn´t use them for my own needs. Working with people arises different emotions and it is important to understand where they are coming from. Some things can only be discussed with colleagues and should not be reflected into clients. I need to be able recognise if I am in need of a sick leave.

At university I thought that a person with psychotic depression could never work in psychology. But one can do so many different things with a degree in that field. Also, not all who have had those sort of problems are the same. My disease hasn´t kept me from learning and becoming better at what I do. It doesn´t harm my clients. In fact, due to my personal experiences I can actually understand many people in a way that I couldn´t without them. I would know depression from text books and be empathic about it. It is sometimes weird for me to listen to someone talking about their depression. People assume that a psychologist doesn´t have that kind of problems themselves. I don´t tell clients what I have experienced but I guess they can detect if I really understand them or not. There are things I wouldn´t know hadn´t I been depressed myself. It is satisfying to be able to help someone with that knowledge. It´s like all the things I have gone through haven´t been in vain.