WAKING UP EACH DAY FEELING DEPRESSED

The day I saw my doctor for the usual problems that I always had, I just happened to mention to him that I had been feeling very low because I was always at home because I was not working now because of my disease, "Multiple System Atrophy". He said , "are you feeling anything else, do you have any other symptoms relating to this", I told him that I did. As I didn't have too much time left out of this visit to see him, he suggested that I make an appointment to come back to see him the next day because he said we need to discuss these feeling I was having a lot more and explore where they were coming from. I told him that I would do that and I made the appointment before I left. On the way home in the taxi, I started to think about what I was going to say to him and how I would start. I thought to myself, "how do you tell your Doctor that you feel like "you want to kill yourself sometimes because you just can't face the thought of what will happen when the disease you have becomes a lot more severe and your life is a lot more unbearable than it is now. I new I had to tell him everything that was coming into my head every minute of the day. So when I got home, I made a list of all the things that had been occurring and all the feeling I was having so that I would be sure not to miss anything out.

AM I SUFFERING FROM CLINICAL DEPRESSION

I started to put my list together and wrote down all the things that I had been feeling so that there would be no way of missing out anything. I started with the most obvious one, at least it was to me and this was feeling as though there was nothing left for me in this life because all I had left was a day full of severe pain followed by feeling like I could do nothing right. In fact, lately everything I tried to do had either blown up in my face or it just went completely different to how I had planned. I kept telling myself " can't you ever get anything you do to turn out right, I guess not". I was feeling so tired because I spent so many nights up either watching the movies on Foxtel or playing some games on the computer. I was having so much pain with my shoulders and of course my neck, which I was told should have been on the shoulders of a woman that was thirty years older than I was. Imagine, here I am at fifty-three and my neck has jumped ahead thirty years. Boy, if that doesn't depress you nothing would. I still remember when my pain specialist said "Pam, your neck belongs on a woman with at least thirty years more than you",. I looked at him and asked him to repeat what he just said. I felt like I had just been given the worst news in the world. How could this happen I asked him. I guess I just got lucky, I joked, but then the tears welled up in my eyes and they began to sting and the tears ran down my face so fast, I felt like I wanted to get up and run out of that room so fast and never look back. But that would have been impossible because I was in my wheelchair and my legs have trouble moving these days, so there is no hope of them ever running again.

I finished my list and psyched myself up for my appointment with my GP. I thought to myself, I can do this, I will just come right out and tell him everything. I will be fine, I will tell him all the things I have written down and then we will discuss them and then I will come home.

That night I wasn't feeling very well and my appetite as usual wasn't the best. I felt very bad because Richard, my husband had gone to a lot of trouble to make something special. Ever since I have been sick, he has had to take over doing most of the cooking. I have found this one of the hardest things to endure, as I did all the cooking up until now and it was very difficult each night watching Richard put the meals together. It proved one thing though, he was taking a lot of notice when I was cooking because he turned out pretty good in the kitchen.I still do the occasional things like peeling the vegetables, and sometimes even preparing the meals. I like to feel there is still a place for me in the kitchen. Although, Richard says that"it is like having three people in the kitchen when I am in there with my walker. I feel very hurt by this remark because I like to think of the kitchen as my domain. I suppose I should be grateful because a lot of husbands wouldn't do a lot of the things that Richard does. In fact, people say to me sometimes, "you are so lucky to have Richard" Well, I say, I am not lucky but blessed.

FACING THE TRUTH

Anyway, to get back to my visit to the GP. I arrived at the surgery with the most sweaty hands that I think I have ever had and I could feel my heart racing. I was so knotted up inside, I felt like I was going to throw up. I new one of the receptionists better than the other two so I decided to confiide in her and told her that I was going to talk to my GP about my feelings of depression, etc. She advised me to just take a deep breath and start at the beginning and tell him all the things that have been bothering me, even the ones that are embarrassing. Wow, I said even the one about not having any " libido", she said even that one.He needs to know everything so that he can advise you on what to do. She said he will probably send me to see a Psychiatrist for some counselling and to get some treatment.

When it came my turn to go in, I grabbed a handful of tissues so that I could give my hands one last wipe to clear some of the sweat that had begun to cover my hands again. Richard had left me there to go and do some shopping at Coles, so the receptionist wheeled me into the room to wait for my GP. I didn't have to wait too long before he arrived. He was in a good mood and asked me how I was feeling. I said that I needed to tell him a few things. He said "I guessed that, shall we begin." All of a sudden, my mind went into complete blankness and I forgot what I was there for. Then I remembered my list, thank God I did that. I would have been lost if I hadn't written that out. As I went through my bag, I pulled out a bunch of old tissues, plus some gum, which had obviously been there a bit longer than would have been desirable, plus an old bandaid that had't been opened but wasn't in good condition either. Where was my list, I thought. Just when I was beginning to think I had left it at home, I found it scrunched up in the corner. As I pulled it out of my bag, I looked up and to my surprise, my GP was looking back at me in a very weird way. He said "everything alright, is it?" Yes, I told him. I just needed to find the list I had written out to remind me what I had to say to you. What a relief I thought,.

I started to tell him about feeling like there was nothing left in this world for me except staying at home and brooding every day, and the visits to all the Specialists that I have to see with regard to all my ailments, most of which are related to the "Multiple System Atrophy. I told him that I was finding it more and more difficult to even get out of bed in the mornings and found myself staying in later and later each day. When I finally do get up, I have a cup of coffee, and then I usually find a place on one of the chairs in the lounge room and sit there and contemplate what I am going to do to fill in my days. I said I am always feeling anxious and everything is going wrong in my life. I feel like I am the most useless person on the earth and that I would be better off dead. I told him that I can't concentrate on anything for any length of time , my mind is constantly wondering from one thing to another all the time. I have trouble remembering the smallest of things, even things that I have only just heard just go right out of my head as soon asI hear them. It is embarrassing when someone tells me their name, and then I have to ask them a few more times during the conversation with them, what their name is again. Then he looked at me and said "what about intimacy, how is that side of things". Oh boy I thought, here it is, the subject that up until now, I had avoided and now he had got in first. I cleared my throat, which by this time had become very dry and parched. I grabbed a tissue from the box nearby on his desk, which incidentally as it turned out, I had been draining since I first arrived in his surgery, blew my nose and remembering the advice I had been given earlier, took a deep breath.

He asked me again, but in a different way this time. He said "how is your sex life". Somehow, hearing him put the question in this text, made me feel a bit more uncomfortable than previously and I had to really hold it together, even though I was screaming out inside and wanted to leave there as fast as my little legs could go.

He said "I know this is a difficult subject for woman to talk about and you feel very threatened and uncomfortable, but it is important for you to talk about this if it is a problem . I told him that I could not remember the last time that my husband and I had been intimate because it was so long ago. He told me that it is not unusual to have problems with your libido, even lose it all together when you are feeling depressed.I said that I couldn't even have orgasms anymore and that made me feel less and less like a woman, not to mention the fact that I couldn't act as a real wife, because there just wasn't any feelings there of wanting to make love to my husband . I felt guilty because I couldn't perform like a wife in the real way and that it wasn't fair to my husband. I guess when we said in our vows "for better or worse", I have really given my husband a big dose of the "worse" part.

I AM CLINICALLY DEPRESSED

He said from what I had told him what was coming through loud and clear to him was that I was suffering from clinical depression and that he was going to refer me to see a Psychistrist. He said that depression wasn't an illness that just affected your mind but it also affects your body too. All the things that I had told him that I had been feeling were in fact, symptoms of depression and that it was important to talk about them to a Psychiatrist, because he is trained to treat someone with depression and to give treatment where it is necessary.`So I told him that I would go and see a Psychiatrist and talk about the things that were troubling me.

It was a relief to finally get the things out and tell someone about those dreadful feeling that had been plagueing me for so long. I suppose I knew in the back of my mind that my GP would say that I was suffering from depression. However, I needed him to tell me that I needed to see someone and discuss these with them.

I have since read that depression is considered to be the number one cause of disabilities in the world. It is thought that most people will experience depression of some kind at some point in their lives and depending on the severity of their symptoms, will probably need treatment in some form of medication. It is important to always tell your Doctor if you have any symptoms like the ones that I have talked about because there is all kinds of treatments now. You may think that something you are feeling is insignificant but you should always tell your physician everything because they all matter, even the ones that you feel are insignificant,never hold back,