Dear Mental Health Month,

You suck.

It’s been a really rough go of it of late. I’ve had a major depressive episode, the worst I think I’ve ever had.

This is why the Greek gods don’t get invited to all those big tent revivals anymore. A guy tells a few too many lies, and boom, Sisyphus has to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity. That happens today and we’ll never find enough boulders.

I’ve tried to explain it, and the closest I’ve gotten is that I’ve been doused in tar, not allowed to sleep for a week, and drowning in manufactured sorrow. And I’ve felt like that all the time.

I talked to my person, Jill, at the pain management office about it all. I actually broke down and told her all of it: two weeks without taking a bath, hit or miss on brushing my teeth, wearing bits of pajamas all day, not leaving the house unless forced to, eating nothing but desserts and other garbage.

She said the Lexapro, and this is her technical medical term, “pooped out on me.”

So I’m in that fun bit where I’m titrating off Lexapro and on to a new antidepressant called Brintellix.

And today I felt better. I cared enough to put on some mascara. I laughed out loud at things. Getting out of bed didn’t feel like a Sisyphean task.

I’ve still got another week of titration to go, but I’m feeling some hope.

So I’ll be clinging to that feeling, and I’ll still be,

Payne.

Dear Funny Faces*,

Depression sucks. I like to think mine is all chemical imbalance, but that’s not really true. I’m in pain every day — some days it’s not so bad. A few Tramadol and some muscle relaxers, and I can make it. Other days are so bad I can knock back 24 mg. of Dilaudad, the most I’m supposed to take in a day, and still be scavenging my drawers of old prescriptions looking for something to take the edge off enough so that I can stop wanting to die.

Genius blogger and author Allie Brosh created this pain scale. She stopped blogging after her own depression became too much, but she wrote a book. I say she kicked depression’s ass. Go buy her book, Hyperbole and a Half.

So there’s probably more going on than just a some chemicals out of whack. But that’s why I’ve hired Therapy Debbie. And starting Friday we’re going to get Freudian with my Jung-sters.

But the thing that’s bugging me right now about the whole depression nonsense is the antidepressants. I’m taking three kinds –Lexapro, Wellbutrin, and Seroquel. Things got bad over the holidays, as they do for so many of us, and NotCohen (the nurse practitioner I see at my pain management Dr. Cohen’s office) increased the dosage of my Seroquel.

It worked really well. No more sad days. No more anything days. I’m trapped in the cardboard and clear plastic box my Barbie doll comes in. No feelings actually come through the packaging. This happens every time the Seroquel goes up to 400 mgs. The doldrums are gone, but so is everything else.

Hey doc, my prescription for Thorazine is running out. If you’ll refill that and the one for Xanax, I’ll let you see how smooth waxing can really make a girl.

Time to drop back down and hope that first step isn’t such a doozy that I fall on my ass and tumble back into the pit utter despair. I’m just a cheery little ray of sunshine tonight, aren’t I? You’d never guess I had all those good antidepressants stocked away.

I’ll be eating Judy Garland Trail Mix for breakfast and thinking of you.

Yours,

Payne.

* This is a quick and dirty list of very funny people who have problems with depression. Their laughter in the darkness is a light that guides me. Woody Allen, Wayne Brady, Zach Braff, Jim Carrey, Rodney Dangerfield, Larry David, Charlie Kaufman, Hugh Laurie, Jenny Lawson, David Letterman, Bill Murray, Conan O’Brien, Patton Oswalt, Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Wil Wheaton, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson