Call A Spade A Spade

They say never to Google your symptoms. In spite of that, we all do it, right? And I say why not? We only believe the results that confirm what we already decided was wrong anyway. Same reason you're not supposed to give yourself Tarot readings, even though we all do it. It's confirmation bias at it's best because it appears legit. (Googling your symptoms and being like, "See, I knew I had Methemoglobinemia!" -- NOTE: I have no idea what Methemoglobinemia is; I Googled "super obscure disease" and that was the one that came up that looked scary enough to make my point.)

My point here is we all want to know what's wrong when we don't feel good. And when you have a persistent, recurring kind of  "not good" that people don't see as legit you simultaneously learn to mask it / live with it, and begin obsessively seeking a "cure." I hate labels and more than that I hate what people think about me once a label is put on me. Because I grew up gay with an un-supportive family in a rural community in the 70-80s, I have always had the subconscious pressure to conform, to hide, to excuse anything that opened me to criticism. Even illness or discomforts. 

What am I talking about?

I have had a lifelong problem sleeping. When I was a kid my mother called me a "finicky" sleeper. I couldn't sleep away from home, anything would disturb my sleep, and I was and remain today a toss-and-turner, and it takes me upwards of an hour or more to fall asleep -- on a good night, when I'm tired. 

In my adult life it has gotten worse, even as I have developed skills for living with it. You do adapt to sleep deprivation, you get accustomed to being tired all the time. Also, throughout my 20s and into my 30s, I started drinking alcohol -- a lot. For a good number of years I was an every day drinker, and as my tolerance grew to epic proportions, I started drinking myself into a blackout pretty much daily. But, even for a seasoned drinker, that loses its luster after a decade or two. And, unless you literally drink yourself into a blackout alcohol fucks up your sleep patterns anyway, so it's not a long term solution. Believe me, I tried. 

It gets so bad sometimes that I can't go to work. And because I feel that calling out "because I'm tired" is not a good enough justification to miss work, I often embellish my story when I call. I have a migraine. I have diarrhea. Anything believable that won't trigger the almighty Doctor's Note. I don't want to go to the doctor. I want to go back to bed.

But what I really want is to feel better. I want to sleep at night. I want to have energy to do things, and keep plans that I make and do my dishes. I miss the old me, the Kyle who was outgoing and social and had creative ideas that he carried out, the guy who liked people and wasn't afraid to answer the phone. The Kyle who wasn't angry and withdrawn all the time.

I thought you said sleep was your problem? That sounds like depression to me.

Lo and behold. 46 years of trying and I finally Googled the right thing.

I woke up this morning, if you can call what happened "waking up," since I didn't feel like I had slept to begin with, and got out of bed and went directly to my phone and called my boss and said I was not coming in today, I don't feel good. I am lucky at this moment in my life to have a boss who will accept that simple reason. I have also struggled with supervisors over the years who put forth the attitude that you need to be missing a limb or have had a heart attack to be forgiven for missing work. And that has made me develop even deeper denial that anything other than insomnia might be wrong with me, or maybe I'm an alcoholic. Or worse, maybe I really do have some horrible disease that is underlying it all and I just need to bite the bullet and see a doctor.

Fuck that nonsense. I know what's wrong. I just don't like the answer. It's a terrible label. And people will make fun of me, or not believe me, or treat me like I have mental disorder. And wow have I had enough of that in my life, starting with the first time a family member noticed me acting too much "like a girl." I've known for a long time that if anything is wrong with me, it better be a migraine or that stomach flu that's going around. Not depression. Not bad feelings. Feelings are bad. 

Regardless, today I Googled, "My dreams are so real I don't feel rested," which is what is symptomatically wrong lately. It has been getting worse. I am now, every night, feeling like I am not sleeping. My dreams are so real -- and by that I mean so mundane and believable -- that I wake up without realizing I was even sleeping to begin with until I realize what I was just "doing" was in fact a dream.

Fucked up, I know. So, my Google rabbit hole led me to The Clinical Depression Learning Path, and I actually read it instead of dismissing it instantly because the stuff about sleep described my problem exactly. I've Googled it all. Insomnia. Alcoholism. GERD. I thought I was Autistic for a while. COPD. Every time I have heart burn I think I'm having a heart attack because I'm a fat guy over 40. Maybe it's Diabetes or my thyroid. Maybe I need a C-PAP, I do snore really bad. Maybe I need another mattress. 

Or maybe: 

Holy Shit. Maybe DEPRESSION is fucking up my sleep cycles which in turn is exacerbating every other small discomfort. And this little revelation allowed me to be open minded enough to read some more signs & symptoms of depression:

• Exhaustion on waking
• Disrupted sleep, sometimes through upsetting dreams
• Early morning waking and difficulty getting back to sleep
• Doing less of what they used to enjoy
• Difficulty concentrating during the day
• Improved energy as the day goes on
• Anxious worrying and intrusive upsetting thoughts
• Becoming emotional or upset for no particular reason
• Shortness of temper, or irritability

Really? Every. Single. One.

Then some symptoms, and this really messed with me because -- well, almost every one. I don't have suicidal thoughts, never have. And I wouldn't say that I feel overtly sad.

• You feel miserable and sad.
• You feel exhausted a lot of the time with no energy.
• You feel as if even the smallest tasks are sometimes impossible.
• You seldom enjoy the things that you used to enjoy - you may be off sex or food or may 'comfort eat' to excess.
• You feel very anxious sometimes.
• You don't want to see people or are scared to be left alone. Social activity may feel hard or impossible.
• You find it difficult to think clearly.
• You feel like a failure and/or feel guilty a lot of the time.
• You feel a burden to others.
• You sometimes feel that life isn't worth living.
• You can see no future. There is a loss of hope. You feel all you've ever done is make mistakes and that's all that you ever will do.
• You feel irritable or angry more than usual.
• You feel you have no confidence.
• You spend a lot of time thinking about what has gone wrong, what will go wrong or what is wrong about yourself as a person. You may also feel guilty sometimes about being critical of others (or even thinking critically about them).
• You feel that life is unfair.
• You have difficulty sleeping or wake up very early in the morning and can't sleep again. You seem to dream all night long and sometimes have disturbing dreams.
• You feel that life has/is 'passing you by.'
• You may have physical aches and pains which appear to have no physical cause, such as back pain.

Anyway. I guess this is something I have known all along, but I always wanted to look at it from the other direction -- that depression was a symptom of insomnia or poor health choices, not that depression was the cause of those things.

I know I have had depressive episodes, and I can see over my lifetime how those cycles look. I know what it means when I don't clean my house for a month and don't change my sheets for 6 and start drinking 3 or 4 nights a week. I know that I am going to be sorry when I start to let my bills and commitments pile up, but I do it anyway. I know there is going to be a big collapse if let things go unaddressed, and I tell myself I won't let it happen, and it happens anyway. 

Oddly enough, for someone who doesn't sleep for shit at night, one of my strongest reactions to anxiety is to sleep. After something really triggering or really stressful happens to me, be it physical or emotional, I often find myself unable to keep my eyes open. And I'll pass out within a few minutes of laying down, which I will do no matter what sometimes -- even if I have plans I an excited for, I find myself falling asleep. And I'll sleep for 20-30 min and wake up feeling way more refreshed than you would think a 20 min nap could do for you. 

I've begun to recognize this for what it is. On Sunday this past week I was feeling really exhausted all day, and had no idea why. I had slept somewhat okay for 2 nights, got to sleep in, etc. I ended up taking a 3 hour nap that was really not restful. I dreamed almost the whole time, woke up a lot, never felt like I had gone down into the deep, black sleep you really need to rest. (non-REM) But, when I woke up, I did the dishes, cleaned up the kitchen, changed the litter box and took out the trash. And when that was all over, I realized I felt better. And for some reason right in that moment it was clear as day to me that it was not one or other that was making me feel better -- the sleep or the chores, but that it was interconnected. My anxiety over how gross my house was getting was making me collapse into sleep, but I had to pull myself together enough to do the chores so the trigger would go away. Shitty, self-perpetuating cycle right there, huh? 

So, it's depression.

I feel like I can deal with that. Not "deal with it" as in find a way to live with it, but I actually feel like I can address that and maybe do something about it. 

It's ironic that I have had an episode so intense right now. I am actually in a really good place that I have worked hard to get to, and really got myself through a very shitty year. I got through my relationship falling apart last year, having to move three times, and having to make the decision to have my dog euthanized. I bought a house. I got a promotion that I worked hard for and kept my eye on the prize when I didn't get it the first (or second...) time. I am actively working on getting out of debt, with a real plan I can do, and am doing. 

And.... in spite of all of that, my sleep problems have become so bad that I finally had to admit it's not insomnia. I take enough sleep meds for 3 people and it barely touches my symptoms. And it's not like I'm so physically exhausted I can't function. I called out of work today because me mental state is so broken down I just can't even imagine having to tolerate the atmosphere at work. I would have a breakdown. I would cry or freak out on someone or end up in the bathroom shitting out everything I've eaten -- another gross symptom of whatever the fuck happens to me when I'm over-stressed: I get the shits. At home, with the blinds drawn and the cats checking in on me every few minutes I still managed to get some projects done, did the laundry and wrote this blog entry. But that also reinforces my self-doubt anxiety, "If you can do all that stuff why can't you go to work?" Which in turn makes me have to reinforce my story -- oh I had a terrible headache all day (I kinda do, but some ibuprofen is managing it...) and I just felt awful (at least that's true, and they can think whatever they want about exactly what it means, I don't elaborate, ever.)

But, here's the rub: the good patch in life is the trigger. 

I've been here before. Good job, good life situation, no big problems. But it never lasts. Something is going to fuck it up. I'm always waiting for "what next." That's the depression talking. And guess what? There is going to be a next thing. And a next thing, and probably a few next things all at once that feel like a conspiracy against me. 

The difference this time, and I don't know what made it this way other than providence, is that I've had a few next things come along lately and because I have actually made sustainable changes in my lifestyle, they didn't wreck the whole scaffolding of my life. I made it through a few problems that would have been catastrophes before, mostly intact. The good patch is starting to be more like a good garden. 

And for whatever reason, it has triggered my biggest symptom -- not sleeping - over the top. But I guess it also has a good outcome: I finally figured out what's wrong. And it turns out it's something I know I can fix. Isn't that ironic? 

So I wrote this blog post. And hopefully I'll write some more as I work out some depression issues.