Therese Borchard - Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes

To the best of my ability, I have re-created events, locales, people, and organizations from my memories of them. In order to maintain the anonymity of others, in some instances I have changed the names of individuals and places, and the details of events.

Copyright 2010 by Therese J. Borchard.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written ermission of the publisher.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc. for excerpts from An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison. Copyright 1995 by Kay Redfield Jamison.

Reprinted with permission of Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

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First eBook Edition: January 2010

ISBN: 978-1-599-95273-4

For Eric, who kept me alive and never stopped loving me;

For Ann Omohundro, my guardian angel and first bipolar friend;

For Mike Leach, my mentor, who believed in me when I couldnt;

For my mom, who called me twice daily for a year;

For Michelle, who wrote 90 percent of the notes in my self-esteem file;

For Beatriz Castillo de Vincent, a soul sister;

For Holly Rossi and Deb Caldwell,

the brilliant brains and partners behind Beyond Blue;

For my dear Beyond Blue readers,

especially those who have lost loved ones to suicide;

And for Dr. Milena Hruby Smith, my psychiatrist,

and the other doctors at the Johns Hopkins Mood Disorders Center,

who gave me my miracle.

Thank you.

One should learn from turmoil and pain,

share ones joy with those less joyful

and encourage passion when it seems likely

to promote the common good.

Kay Redfield Jamison

Its Not Forever

I n 400 BC Hippocrates defined depression, or melancholy as it was called back then, with these words: an excess of black bile.

I concur, with just one more addition to his description: that depression is a yawning pit with no exit, rope, or ladder in sight, which is why its so terrifying on top of being repulsive, repugnant, repellant, and all the other adjectives in my thesaurus that begin with R. I woke up in that bleak, nasty trench of sewage in the middle of the night, and every dawn, month after month.

I remember the morning I dragged it with me down the stairs and stared for a long time at a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of Starbucks on the kitchen table. I just stood there, with all the life of a statue in a strange and dangerous park. For Gods sake, would someone please tell me when this will end?!?

It was supposed to be a happy day, when our son David would earn his last yellow stripe and get his yellow belt. Instead it went like this

Five four-year-old boys were sitting in level-eight karate pose on the olive green and red padded mat of Evolutions Gym in Annapolis.

Who knows the rules? asked Mr. Joe, a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and a master tactical instructor.

No pushing, yelled one karate midget.

No talking, said another.

We control what? asked Mr. Joe.

Our bodies, replied the kid with an orange belt.

Our mouths, said everyone, cued by Mr. Joe holding his index finger over his mouth.

And Mr. Joe pointed to his head.

Our minds! the five screamed.

If it were only that easy, I thought. I was fighting the usual war inside my head. Even though I had relegated twenty minutes in the evening to list in my journal all the negative messages I told myself, an exercise my therapist recommended, insults still sneaked into my head about once every half-second.

The boys hadnt even stood up before I began my battle against the voices.

Youre stupid. Youre lazy. Youre weak.

I reached inside my jean pocket, clutched my medal of St. Therese, and fought back.

Shut up! Shut up! Please, God, be with me, I said, as I concentrated on my breathing.

Inhale, one, two, three, four. Exhale, one, two, three, four.

My daughter, Katherine, wouldnt leave the water cooler alone. A typical two-year-old, she was filling up paper Dixie cups with water and dumping them in the trash.

Stop it! I scolded her, picking her up. She threw a tantrum, of course, head and legs thrust backward. Two moms shot me the you have no control over your kidyoure an upcoming episode of Supernanny look.

Stressed out, I headed to the playroom, or the pinkeye pit, designed for difficult siblings of disciplined karate kids.

Youre a horrible mother. You suck at it. Youre not cut out for it. Youre not cut out for anything. Except for maybe killing yourself. But youd probably fail at that, too, if you ever got up the courage.

I fought back again. Stop it! Im a good mom. Concentrate on your thoughts. Appreciation. Appreciation. Think of everything you have to be grateful for.

According to Dan Baker, coauthor of What Happy People Know, appreciation is the antidote to fear, and fearof not having enough or not being enoughcauses depression and anxiety.

I tried to do what Baker calls the Appreciate Audit. I thought about all the things I was thankful for.

I didnt know where to start.

I had money to pay for this stupid karate class. I had two healthy kids, one so healthy he could kick the hell out of the sheet of plastic Mr. Joe held up for him, and the other so healthy I could barely restrain her during a tantrum. I had all my limbs: legs to walk over to the water cooler to pull Katherine out of the trash can, and arms to tie Davids white belt with nine yellow stripes. I had all my senses, vision to see Katherine filling her sixth Dixie cup with water, vision to see the stares from the other moms who apparently had never experienced a tantrum in public.

I was only three items into my gratitude list when I caught sight of a mom plugging away at her laptop computer. Her son was seated at the kids table reading his copy of Im So Well Behaved Because My Mommys Not a Whackjob.

Now theres a mom who can multitask. You could never do that. Youll never write again. You couldnt hold a job if you wanted to. Youll never amount to anything. Why dont you just end it right now so you can at least give your kids the chance to grow up without youwithout the poison that your existence is to them.

I started to fight back again but felt defeated. My eyes were wet, ready to burst into a rather ugly Niagara Falls at any minute.

Come on. Dont give in. Control your thoughts. Be grateful, damn it!

My stomach began to shake, then my legs. Before I knew it, I was trembling like my grandmother used to in her kitchen, chain-smoking as she cooked, and on the verge of a bona fide panic attack.

Look at you. You are pathetic. You cant control your thoughts. How are you going to drive home like this? See, this is what I mean. Get out of your kids life right now! Dont stick around and ruin everything for them.