The Pittsburgh Deli

Got your attention??

As you may recall, when I said I was going to restart blogging, I indicated that I wanted to talk about things that are, well, not understood. Yes, I started with a serious topic, depression. I think we can agree that it still is largely misunderstood and unnecessarily feared. I hope my sharing helped.

Now, I want to touch on another topic which really is very VERY misunderstood and frequently vilified.

Over the next several weeks, I am going to talk about BDSM.  If you don’t know the acronym, it stands for:

• BD – Bondage and Discipline
• DS – Dominance and Submission
• SM – Sadism and Masochism

Some preliminary thoughts for you.

I am NOT, by any stretch of the imagination, any sort of expert in BDSM.

I am NOT a ‘card carrying’ member of a kink community.

Unlike most of you (I imagine, most of you), I DO have many friends who are card carrying members of a kink community.

Let me start by saying that I became interested and curious about the whole lifestyle after reading, **GASP**,  50 Shades of Grey. (We are not going to do a book review here…it was a crappily written series of books.) I did learn, however, that it was a pretty inaccurate picture of the community of people who do consider themselves to have fetishes, kinks, and other desires that are typically considered slightly askew of the mean.

Those of you who do know me, and know me well, KNOW that I have a desire to LEARN as much as I possibly can about a topic once I become interested in it. I don’t try to become an expert and learn everything…no, I want to learn so that I CAN UNDERSTAND something better.

Here we go…

Kinksters (and many of my friends do call themselves Kinksters) are EVERYONE. Let me say that again…the people who participate in any way and at any one of the many levels of kink are EVERYONE.

They are…lawyers, doctors, psychotherapists, florists, ballet dancers, opera singers, country western singers, teachers, moms and dads, brothers and sisters, grandmas and grandpas, computer programmers, auto mechanics, chefs, guidance counselors, chemists, neurologists, nurses, accountants, cashiers, baristas, burger-flippers, your neighbors….get the picture? They are JUST LIKE YOU AND ME. They are us!

THAT is probably one of the major misconceptions about the lifestyle. In general, people think that there is something seriously wrong, very deviant, or sexually sick about a person who participates in any part of the BDSM lifestyle. Just like in any population of people, there are those who might, indeed, have some very serious issues, BUT, that is simply NOT the case for the vast majority of people who do embrace this lifestyle. At least, this has been my personal experience.

Yes, I am going to share with you my experiences and the things that I learned about the Kink community.

Stay tuned.

It’s funny how a relatively brief period of time can have so many highs and lows. I mean, in the grand scheme, 10 years is a spit in the bucket. My bucket, during that decade was full of spit, and loads of other things as well.

I don’t want to bore you with a play-by-play; instead, I will simply give an accounting of the time from a pro and con perspective…

Cons: (the big stuff)

• my mother died of lung and metastatic bone cancer
• my uncle (her brother) died of colon cancer
• my aunt (her sister) died of lung cancer
• we lost our house to a fire
• my father suffered massive third degree burns on both of his hands from a kitchen fire and was found to have lung cancer when he was being evaluated for his skin grafting surgery…oh, he also had a blood clot in his heart (this was immediately after our fire)
  • and ALL of that happened between 2000-2005
• I had two major depressions that required me to take a medical leave from my job and also had a place in my needing to resign from a very prestigious position at my University
• I had shoulder surgery for a frozen shoulder and knee surgery for a torn meniscus I got in class doing jumping jacks!
• my husband lost his job and was not able to find another one, ever

Pros: (the big stuff)

• both of my children graduated from college with degrees and a future ahead of them
• my dad survived and just celebrated his 91st birthday
• I was promoted twice…to Associate Professor and then to full Professor
• I was appointed the Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence
• my first text book was published
• I was able to take my husband on the trip of his dreams to Hawaii, twice
• I traveled the Mediterranean, Alaska, and my first trip to Australia and New Zealand
• I was humbled to be the recipient of the most incredible generosity and kindness from our neighbors and the University community and so many strangers in response to our fire…the clothing and money that was collected in my family’s behalf had me in tears for days
• I began intensive therapy and counseling in Dialectical Behavioral therapy (DBT), which changed my life, forever (more on that next posting)
• I decided to retire
• I survived in one mentally and physically intact piece

DBT was, and continues to be, the reason.

to die.

The feeling was overwhelming and complete. I thought very long and hard about that…I truly did.I thought about all my alternatives and none of them were going to relieve the constant horrible pain I was feeling inside. My insides churned constantly and burned, heavy in my core. Every piece of my skin hurt. It was a constant fight with my brain to stay as calm as I could be…to hide 24/7 what I was feeling and what I was planning.

A NOTE for those of you who scream about suicide being the coward’s way out.  DON’T YOU DARE. Until YOU walk in the shoes of deep depression or disease, or addiction where the pain is overwhelming and all encompassing and there is no physical or mental or emotional respite, don’t you dare even think that this kind of act is cowardly. It is the most heart wrenching decision one could ever make and trust me when I tell you that it is NEVER done lightly and without tremendous forethought. That individual needs to stop being in permanent pain and there is certainty in one’s death being the end to personal pain.

I would peek over at my husband at night as he slept and hoped, with all my heart, that he would carry on well without me and without feeling any guilt. There was nothing he could do…he DID try to keep communications open, but I closed him off. Isolation was better. My kids were already adults and pretty much on their own either in college or finishing up. They had figured out that I had demons to fight, but, I certainly would not drag either of them into the trough of despair that I was engulfed in…no, they needed to not think of me as some damaged person who couldn’t hold it together.  My parents…well, they would probably be beside themselves, wondering what they did wrong or might have done differently, but, they too, would be OK in the long run. There would be no notes left because this was going to be a horrible accident…it was important for the family to be able to collect on all of the life insurance. Oh, they may figure out after a time that it might have been a suicide, but, if I did it right, they wouldn’t be able to prove it for sure.

Very few people know about this part of my depression and the fact is, those that do know found out way after I had been saved from my certain demise.

So, I had a plan; a very nasty and completely deadly car accident. I only needed to determine when to put it in action.

As I sunk deeper and deeper into the trough the time began to feel right to do it. Then driving home one early afternoon from school (it was 40 miles one way, so a good amount of time to process) I began to think, “Would anybody care enough to try to stop me?”

Maybe that was my waaaaaay deep inner voice saying, “Whoa, hold on a second, are you sure about this?” I don’t know. All I do know is that this time period was well before EVERYONE had cell phones (and the ones out there were still bag phones pretty much!).

I got home and called my mom. No answer. Called my sister. No answer. Called my aunt. No answer. Thought while laughing to myself…”There isn’t anyone…see!” And I began to cry, quietly…tears slowly slipping down my cheeks because, well, it WAS time. One more call…I called my best friend (ya know, the one I said was the ONLY person from high school I stayed in touch with)…I called Judie…she answered the phone and I can’t remember the exact words I said to her, but I was crying, crying hard and she said, “I am coming to get you RIGHT NOW.”

And she saved me from myself. 

She took me for a long drive. We talked, I cried, a lot…I shared what I was going to do and how I had been feeling, and I think she wanted to die at that moment! She could not quite believe what I was going through and that I hadn’t shared with anyone…she stuck with me like glue that day. She helped me get my shit together that day just by being the ONE PERSON who answered the phone.

I know, without a doubt, that I would not be here right now had it not been for Judie answering the phone that day.

Now, what to do…

It was happening and I didn’t know it…wasn’t tuned in to it…the trough was beginning to form again…my partner had taken back control and was changing the rhythm of the dance.

As I said in the very first post, it is insidious…ya know how they say that some cancers or heart disease are silent killers…well, depression is the same way. It doesn’t show on the outside normally until it is really REALLY bad and sometimes, too late.

You look the same, try to always act the same..like everything is just fine. You carry on and do your best to live your life the way you need to. I do my very best when I have a tight schedule. I’m not sure if that is a part of my Type A personality or an internal need I have because when I have a schedule and follow it and get my stuff done and do it well, I AM IN CONTROL.

I’m actually sitting here laughing as I write this because I JUST REALIZED THAT! Being tightly scheduled for me WAS and still is a means of control!

So, I taught a full course load of 15 credits a semester; I was the Coordinator of Student Teaching for our program; I was on several college-department-university committees; I was doing presentations all over the country (both requirements for tenure and promotion); I advised approximately 40 students (and I DID meet with every single one of them for no less than 45 minutes at least every semester for scheduling if nothing else); I went to my daughter’s in-house and traveling soccer games; I went to my son’s choral performances; I tried to do the best I could with dinner preparation (kudos to E for taking over so much of that during this time); I did the laundry; and I drove a 2 hour commute each day I traveled to work–usually 4 out of 5 weekdays. I was also on a number of professional committees outside the University. I also started writing my first textbook and became a regional coordinator for a multi-million dollar grant…my region was the west coast- Washington-Oregon-California-Utah-Idaho-Nevada-Arizona-New Mexico (remember that I lived on the east coat, in Pennsylvania) so I was traveling…a lot!

Yes, a bit tightly scheduled, but, like I said, PRODUCTIVE and brilliantly so…I accomplished every single thing I wanted to get accomplished during this period of time and unbeknownst to me

the trough was deepening and deepening and DEEPENING.

And suddenly, and I do mean suddenly, it hit.

Chest pains, could not breathe, started crying for no reason at all. The pain was screamingly tangible and all internal, burning, searing, throbbing pain.

All I could think about was how badly it hurt, that my medication had apparently stopped working, and that if it continued to feel this way, I could not bear it. I wasn’t feeling blue; no, I was indigo, closing in on midnight.

And, nobody knew because I chose isolation. Don’t tell, don’t share, don’t let on. Stay away from any kind of interaction or conversation that might give you away. I sobbed in every shower I took. I sobbed driving to and from school and then washed my face with ice cold water to get rid of the swelling around my eyes and redness on my nose (damn nose always gives me away when I cry).

I just wanted to BE ALONE and left alone.

My lovely waltz had turned, slowly, but surely, into a moshing slam dance.

That really is a perfect metaphor for one’s relationship with depression. Think about it; what is a dance?  According to Merriam-Webster it is a series of movements that match the speed and rhythm of a piece of music.

The dance that you perform depends on the mood of your partner. Tarantella perhaps?

Legend states that between the 15th and 17th centuries an epidemic of tarantism swept through the town of Taranto in southern Italy. This was as a result of being bit by the poisonous tarantula spider. The victim, which is referred to as the tarantata, was almost always a woman but never a high ranking lady or one of an aristocratic upbringing. Once bitten the tarantata would fall into a trance that could only be cured by frenzied dancing. People would surround the victim while musicians would play mandolins, guitars and tambourines in search of the correct rhythm. Each beat would have a different effect on the tarantata causing various movements and gestures. Once the correct rhythm was found it was almost certain that the tarantata was cured.  http://www.italiansrus.com/articles/tarantella.htm 

LOL, how appropriate is that?!

Or perhaps my partner wishes to dance the Twist?

The point is that the way you learn to relate to your depression is by shaking its hand and discovering how to become the lead in the partnership. You become the leader in the dance…in other words, YOU take control.

For me, Prozac helped to start me on the path to learn those skills. It allowed my insides to calm down enough to focus more on the here and now and surprisingly, some of Dr. F’s relaxation strategies began to work more effectively. This was a really good thing because around this time, I had a major career change. Moving from the K-12 environment to the ivory towers of academe was going to provide all sorts of new and exciting challenges. YAY! I was moving in a positive direction.

And then, inexplicably, I wasn’t.

The hurt and anxiety returned. I still wasn’t able to identify in myself when this was happening. My family, specifically, my husband, was acutely attuned to what was happening to me and would sometimes ask me if things were still OK…hint-hint… another visit to my PCP (who was now in the Rx loop and prescribing the meds for me) and the dosage was increased. OK, that seemed to help again so maybe that was it; I just needed a bit more of the Prozac to keep an even keel and maintain my lead position in our dance.

But, of course, I was wrong, and the worst was yet to come.

That was how it was starting to feel. I had a diagnosis I thought was likely on target, but, when I spoke to my PCP he suggested that I return to Dr. F with the news of my visit to Western Psych.

Uh, no…didn’t particularly care for him the first time, why try him again. So, OK. D…bite the bullet…pull up your big girl pants and get on with your life. Deal with it. Other people do, you can too.

My husband knew the diagnosis but I did NOT share it with anyone else. Need I tell you, MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEM….I could see the flashing red lights and hear the sirens….wah-wah-wah…mental health—mental health—dirty little secret—mental health concern. I was even horrified that my physician now had the ability to write this in my medical records!

I soldiered on, but at least now I knew that when I hurt so badly, there was a reason…just,  fixing it was going to be really hard. Days of dealing turned into weeks of dealing and then months of dealing…oh, wait…I really should have said not dealing…because each and every day I hurt more, and more, and more inside. The happiest days, like birthdays and family holidays were torturous because I did such a great job pretending to be OK. The drama classes and speaking classes I had in high school and college paid off well.

Until I had my annual OB/GYN appointment. I am going to preface this part with an explanation of how much I adored my OB/GYN. If it was acceptable to be in love with two people at the same time (one being your doctor), I was in love with him. He was gentle with me, understanding, listened intently to me every time I had an appointment, had been through some ugly stuff with me as a young adult. I could talk to him about anything, bare my soul down to the bare bones…almost more than with my husband.

I sat in his exam room, in my hospital gown, waiting for his arrival, hands crossed…waiting. He walked through the door, took one look at me, got a concerned look and said “How are you?” and I burst into tears, sobbing, uncontrollably.

“Something is wrong with me. I hurt so badly. I cry all the time. Everything sets me off and makes me sad and hurt. I can’t breathe sometimes it hurts so badly. I want to die it hurts so bad. I can’t help it. I saw  Dr. F but he didn’t do anything. I tried to get into a study at Western Psych but they said I wasn’t bad enough. What is wrong with me!!!!???”

He listened, closely. He asked a couple questions. He gave me a big hug. And he said, “D, you are depressed, REALLY depressed and I can help.”

Magic words…”I can help.”

And he did. I started with a relatively mild prescription for Prozac and the change was marked and almost immediate. I felt less pain and less anxious, something I had not felt in a very long time. The relief was incredible.

I have learned, like others with mental health issues and with diseases like alcoholism and drug addiction, that your relationship with your ‘disorder’ is a lifelong relationship. And this was just the beginning of my learning to dance with my new partner.

Shall We Dance…

It seems that each day, when I tune in to Good Morning America, I see another famous person discussing an illness/disease/condition that has lifelong affects on them and those around them. The other  morning it was Elizabeth Vargas. I had heard about her fight with alcoholism many years ago. It broke up her marriage and nearly destroyed her news broadcasting career. That morning she was talking to Diane Sawyer about how it felt, the downward spiral, the guilt, fear, anger, angst…

And she was telling my story….what she described in living and dealing with her disease, alcoholism, was nearly word for word what I have dealt with and continue to deal with in depression.

I am in good company…Bruce Springsteen and Elizabeth Vargas.

In my last revised post, I started to share about my road to discovery. Today I will continue along the yellow brick path.

I was talking about contacting the local mental health hospital to become a part of their depression study.

I got an appointment and one of the first questions I was asked was why I was there.  Good question.

I said I felt like something was always wrong. I explained that I guess people maybe called them mood swings. I felt I wasn’t bi-polar in the sense that I demonstrated super highs and super lows, no, I was inexplicably moody. It bothered me and it concerned my husband. I had that feeling deep down that something wasn’t quite right. Then I added that I was working on my doctoral degree full time, had a toddler, was busy like so many others, but the moods were starting to get to me and make me weepy. I immediately pronounced myself stressed from life in general…duh!

I also mentioned that  mental health services were, and still are, extraordinarily expensive and barely covered by health insurance. I thought this would be a good way to get help.

He listened intently then gave me a slew of forms. I went in a meeting-style room and filled out all of the forms, signed all sorts of releases, and was cleared to at least enter the first phase which was the actual entry interview and initial assessment. I took a test, in retrospect it was the same test I took before with Dr. F, and afterwards I sat with the intake therapist and we talked. He asked me very specific questions about my childhood and teen years, my responses to various things that happened during those years and all the time we talked he drew. It looked like doodling or maybe some form of note taking; I wasn’t sure exactly what it was until later.

At the end of the discussion he turned the paper around to show me what looked like a sinusoidal wave…like this:

and he had listed the events in my life and my responses along the wave,

and it was as CLEAR AS A BRGHT SUNNY DAY

…cyclical depression…

The highs stayed the same, but the depression troughs got deeper each time and it took longer to come out of the episode. I was dumbfounded, seriously…there it was, in picture form, so very easy to see, and understand. I was elated that just maybe, MAYBE, I had an answer to what was going on and that I might really be able to get a handle on it.

Now, here comes the really good part…

Ready? Are you sitting down?

I was NOT DEPRESSED ENOUGH TO GET INTO THE STUDY!

Jeez Louise.  Oh, yes…I WAS DEPRESSED, no doubt about that, but, oh, so sorry…not enough to get help here. They suggested I check with my PCP to see who might be able to offer me services. We know that didn’t work…

I left the clinic…

DEPRESSED

NOTE: After I initally posted this, I began to think back, as closely as I could remember, about all the tiny details that eventually led to my diagnosis of depression. I do that quite often in the shower…think…intently…LOL…and I suddenly realized I had left a huge chunk of this discovery out of the story! Why? I am not sure, but, I did. So, in the interest of truth in autobiographic story telling, I am revising this post to reflect my more exact memories. 

What an interesting thing happened this morning! As I tuned in to Good Morning America, they were talking about BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN and that he was opening up about his depression. As I sat and listened to the short piece, it was as if they had just read what I wrote in my last post, down to starting out with the comment that depression is an insidious thing!

This is such a good thing…every time someone famous opens up about the deep hidden issues that haunt them and that are so very misunderstood by the public, GOOD comes from it. It is my fervent wish that people truly read his new book and listen closely to his words as he shares what life has been like for him, living with his depression.

This Depression-Bruce Springsteen

For me, today, I think I will share my personal discovery of the depression that dogged me silently and hidden into adulthood.

My life really was tripping the light fantastic as far as I was concerned…I had an avocation that I adored (speech and language therapist); I had a job that I also loved going to each day (itinerant SLP going to several schools in different school districts); I had a husband who, I have learned over the years, loved me absolutely unconditionally; I had started my family and was studying for my doctoral degree.  What more was there to have?!

But, something was wrong. DEEP down inside, I felt that I just wasn’t right. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, just a nagging feeling that I didn’t feel good.

Then, a bizarre thing happened. You will read this and say, WHAT THE HECK?!

My son was about a year old, which made me around 35. I was cleaning the house (a rare thing in and of itself…a story for another day!) and as I was vacuuming the carpet,  I saw a lump on the carpet near the sliding patio door that the Hoover didn’t pick up. I just bent over to pick it up to throw it out and it was a big dead spider all curled up in a ball. (Just writing this now is making my stomach churn and heart pound with the memory). I picked it up, realized what it was, dropped it, and

I SCREAMED at the top of my lungs and started to cry and shake UNCONTROLLABLY.

And I could not stop. I was hyperventilating, could not breathe, sobbed, shook like I was having a seizure, crumpled to the ground, completely out of physical and emotional control.

From a dead spider.

I am not afraid of spiders. They do have a certain ‘ick’ factor to me, but fear them? No.

My reaction to this situation? WAAAAAAAY out of the possible realm of normal, and I knew it. Nobody was home at the time, I can’t remember why the kids weren’t there, but, I was able to eventually get myself under control and sat on the sofa thinking “I am sick. There is really something very VERY wrong with me. I need help.”

When E got home, I shared the experience with him and said that I felt I needed to see someone, quickly. He agreed. Thankfully, I had a PCP who was easily accessible and after a phone call had me connected to a psychologist who could see me quickly.

I must interject here that the person who provides the psychological support services to you is CRITICALLY IMPORTANT. If you don’t like the first individual, you MUST find a different provider. It makes all the difference in the world.

I went to my first appointment and we talked, he completed an assessment, and diagnosed me with an Adjustment Disorder-NOS. He gave me a book he had written (RED FLAG THERE) and then we scheduled a followup appointment.

I met with this gentleman for several months and pretty much talked. I honestly can’t remember what we talked about aside from learning how to relax…sad…he should have had more impact on me than that. But, the talking seemed to help in that he had taught me some specific relaxation strategies which I was starting to use any time I felt myself become anxious. And that was it.

That worked for just a little while. Then the anxiety started again.

Studying for my degree, having a family, and working all at the same time is certainly a recipe for some anxiety, but, that something really feels wrong  feeling had returned, stronger than before.

Well, around the same time, there were ads on both TV and radio for a Depression study that was being conducted where I was attending school. I thought, “What better place to go than to the Western Psychiatric Clinic and become part of a study to help figure this out?!”

I called the toll-free number and made an appointment to go in to their office to see if I qualified to be a part of the study. I actually felt a bit hopeful that I would find another answer for the way I was feeling. Adjustment Disorder-NOS, his self-serving book, and the subsequent work done with Dr. F had not made me feel any better, and I knew it…as I would learn later…KNOWING it is huge.

Depression is an insidious thing. Until it hits you hard enough, you don’t personally realize you have it…others might see it, but so often, it is called something else.

The EARLIEST I can actually now identify the fact that I had issues with depression was back when I was around 12 years old. But, when I was a child, children didn’t get depressed, or, at least, they were never given a diagnosis of depression.

That was my case.

I was doing all sorts of physically destructive things that were on the minor end of the scale and my pediatrician (who I adored) identified as being ‘nervous about something’.  My mother was told to see how she might help me feel more relaxed about things going on in my life.

To my mother’s credit, she was a great talker. She had a way of getting down to the nitty gritty and getting me to talk about things that were bothering me. And then we tried to come up with some solutions, which, at the time, did work. I stopped the destructive behaviors and focused on other things…like my upcoming Bat Mitzvah.

For so many, the junior high and high school years are ones of turmoil or torment, but, kids who know the game and have a sense of how to play the game (great Executive Function in those brains) manage to get themselves through those times without too much exterior trauma. It’s the interior stuff that nobody sees that eats you up alive. You find ways to fit in, be a part of A GROUP, any group, to make you feel validated, OK, worthy. In many cases, that was an incredibly important thing because if you were lucky enough to be around sincerely caring people, you could really carry on and your depression stays buried.

And, that was my case.

I managed to carry on just fine in high school (I really hated high school and only still have contact with one friend from high school who also happened to become my BEST friend for life). People thought I was an OK person, at least, my perception was that: I was a member of a few clubs, a majorette, in All City Orchestra playing violin…. It would be interesting now to talk to some of those people to see what they really thought of me; I am strong enough to ‘handle’ the truth!

So, I was a closeted person with depression (people first language…always a special educator!)

Oh, it was in there…the entire time, but it took a few adult style ‘traumas’ to make it rear its ugly Medusa head and when it did, well, I wanted to die…REALLY TRULY wanted to die because the pain was so, so bad.

And I will leave you with that thought..because, I still get it at times…late at night when I can’t sleep.