Stress Management

Did you know that if you suffer from mild depression medication may not help you?  My doctor flat out asked me if I want to be on medication and I think she was please when my response was no. Please, don't think I hold it against people who decide medication is the best treatment option for depression or that people should take those that are available. Quite frankly, I am happy that medication is available if needed.  I just don't think I need it.

I do believe, however, that I suffer from mild to moderate depression, with some bouts bordering on incapacitating. I also believe it is manageable with a good support system and a lot of effort on my part. Yes, I could choose to make this all easier and go on medication (if I could afford it, which is just another thing adding to my stress pile these days), but we cannot guarantee what effect that would have on my memories returning. Depression medication is designed to change the way your brain functions, and my brain is functioning differently enough, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!

Flooding

Flooding is a form of psychotherapy to help patients overcome phobias, where the patient is exposed to their source of fear for longer and longer periods of time to help them learn to cope with and control the panic response.  Flooding is what I call an influx of memories, when I am hit with so many of them I have difficulty coping.  The last few weeks have been very hard, partly due to stresses outside myself and largely due to a flood of memories that has been growing day after day. 

Don't get me wrong, this flood of memories is a good thing. I love getting memories back of my children and family and friends.  I feel like I can participate in conversations with people about things I've experienced in life without feeling like a person outside of herself. For almost a year, I've felt like I was a stranger looking in on my life. Now, I'm starting to feel like a person who is truly getting to know herself again.

Carried Away

Have you ever missed having something you never had (or in my case, don't remember having?) Sometimes you can feel something deeply and get carried away by the emotion that goes along with it, even if it doesn't make sense to have that emotion since it's the vague memory of a memory. Just the impression that there is a memory there can haunt a person.

The ones that I've been dealing with are anger and sadness.  I'm angry because there is one person in my life that keeps saying things that aren't true. I know they aren't true because they are the exact opposite of what everyone else is saying. This person claims to know me really well because we've known each other for years, but that same person keeps saying things like "you are acting exactly the same way you always did" when everyone else in my life is telling me I'm acting like I did before this person came into my life.  This person causing so much anger and sadness is, I believe, a pathological liar. I honestly think he believes everything he is saying, but I don't believe anything he says.