The Story of My Depression

Now that I’m 51 years old, I can see that depression began young for me…age 13 is when I began that trip down the ladder into the sewer of negative thoughts and hopeless feelings. My teen years were chock full of cripplingly low self-esteem while I spewed negativity and sarcasm on everyone around me.

I realized in my 20s that I was depressed, and at the time it made absolutely no sense. I was engaged to be married to my starter husband, had gotten involved in a local musical theater production (which was incredibly fun and I was always so happy when I was there, despite being kinda miserable the rest of the time), and had made my way back down the scale from 194 to 157. I should’ve been over-the-moon ecstatic, right? 

Everything felt difficult, and things I used to enjoy weren’t jiving for me anymore (other than being in that production of Evita…it was the thing that got me through that particular time.)

I was prescribed Paxil, which I took for two weeks, gained 8 pounds, and freaked out. Weight gain from anything other than eating chocolate cake twice a day every day was an absolute no-no and so THAT WAS HURLED OUT OF A WINDOW or some other dramatic disposal fashion.

Turns out I was in an emotionally abusive relationship, but that’s not something I realized at that time. Depression was a major part of the reason why I ended up in it in the first place and why I stayed in it until he opted out. Seriously, the woman that I was back then never would have left him. 

Dana in her 20s valued loyalty above all else…including her own mental health.

I wouldn’t leave because didn’t believe that anyone else could love me. My ex reinforced that with some cutting words from time to time, but he didn’t need to because I already believed it…and I thought every problem we had was my fault because I was so negative and sad. 

He often told me that my moods were the reason we had so many problems and that if I just changed my behavior, things would improve. I worked as hard as I could to behave differently, but I ended up in that abyss of bitterness over and over again.

This isn’t a blame game. I take full responsibility for my behavior. We brought out the absolute worst in each other. But when you’re that young and desperately insecure and believe you’re in love, you will go to the ends of the earth to keep a sinking ship afloat.

Over nine years I worked as hard as I could at twisting my personality into a tight little knot that fit his specifications. He left me in 2000, citing this reason: I wasn’t challenging enough. After all those years of emotional bullying, trying to “fix” myself to be everything he wanted while I eagerly complied because I was so desperate to be loved, he left me for it. 

Oh, the irony.

And thank the Spirit of Philadelphia that he did, because it was the absolute best thing that ever happened to me. That’s when my journey out of the swirl of deep insecurity began.

Major Depressive Disorder is something that, to the best of my limited knowledge, I inherited genetically from my dad. He and I have had a couple of candid conversations over the years, and he has told me that he now realizes that he was depressed through much of my childhood.

My mom called it his “black cloud” and “the Irish crazies.” She dealt with it in the first several years of their 50-year marriage by taking a lot of shit personally and building up a wall of resentment. In the later years, her management method was mostly to ignore it.

That was my real husband’s choice after a few years of fruitlessly offering to help. Neither one of us had any clue as to how he could help me, and without that knowledge things just grew more difficult and he grew more distant. 

He did try; he is a kind and loving person. But there wasn’t even anything he *could* do for me. I had to do it for myself.

My next attempt at medication was when my boys were toddlers. The PPD was absolutely crushing, but by the time my younger son was two years old, I had successfully bullied myself into losing 70 pounds. Setting a couple of athletic goals helped; weight training and running approximately 15-20 miles a week kept me going for about a year, along with taking ever-increasing doses of SAM-e. 

After a year that endorphin rush wasn’t cutting it anymore. I had tried some herbal supplements over the years - St Johns Wort wasn’t compatible with my body chemistry, and the SAM-e was starting to contribute to my stomach issues. So I went to my doctor and she prescribed Zoloft. I tried that for a few months, but the zombie-like state it nudged me into wasn’t the way I wanted to live.

Venlafaxine (generic Effexor). That’s the one that lifted me out of it. It helped for about seven years. The pandemic hit and whoosh…had to add Bupropion (generic Wellbutrin) to the mix because DAMN.

I recently had another medication change. The Venlafaxine wasn’t effective anymore, so I weaned off of that slowly (that one is a doozy to get off of) and my doctor increased my dosage of Bupropion. That plus the HRT (hormone replacement therapy) is my daily regimen currently.

What really changed everything, though, was doing the work and practicing the techniques to stop the self-abuse.

And that’s what I coach (along with simple weight loss strategies). Help has arrived. Email me at dana@revolution-within.com and we can get started. 

Love & hugs,

Dana