I've suffered quite a few lows in my life. Hardly as much as most, I know. There is probably a disturbingly large number of people who have experienced horrors I cannot comprehend, things that would break me a dozen times over if I myself were to go through them. However, I still have my own pains to bear. A wise man once said, "pain shared is pain lessened". I hope that by sharing my pain, I can be rid of it once and for all, and help any who read this to be rid of theirs as well.
So, as I already mentioned, I've had my share of lows.
My parents never had a happy marriage; they wouldn't fight often, only every six or seven months, but it was never pleasant. They never sought counseling, were always talking past one another. Even though I realized that they both loved me dearly, it still hurt me to come to grips with the fact that maybe my mom and dad shouldn't have gotten together, they were just too incompatible.
They separated right after I finished high school, which didn't make my transition into adulthood any easier. What followed was a long string of loud arguments, false accusations, lots of tears, for about six months. It wasn't as juicy or as dramatic as reality TV, but it would've made for a decent soap opera
I was afraid that my dad was becoming suicidal, because he was having so much difficulty sleeping in the last few weeks before he left our house, that he turned to alcohol to knock himself out. He began to break down crying more and more as he realized the situation was beyond his power to fix. I had never seen my dad cry before then.
My dad died very suddenly from heart failure four years ago. I had just started my third year at university, and it was my brother's 14th birthday. Thankfully I had schoolwork and a future career to think about, so I managed to shove my grief aside temporarily and focused on moving forward.
However, something happened shortly after I graduated that ruined my life for more than a year.
In February of last year, when I waking up one morning, I felt my my breathe slow down, then stop, for no apparent reason whatsoever. I panicked. I tried to scream for my mom and brother, but I couldn't move, I was completely helpless. After what felt like an eternity, I felt my breathing start up again. I went to my mom immediately. I did a bit of research, and discovered that I was at risk for sleep apnea. The results from the sleep test I took were mostly positive. But this trauma had hurt me more deeply than I realized.
My dad had died at 54, my mom's dad at 51. Both from heart problems. I was scared that I would follow in their footsteps. I was terrified. What would happen to me?
I had wanted to be a writer my whole life. I was done school at 25, I had a debt I had to pay off, and I had no idea what to write about. I felt unbelievably stupid.
Who goes to school for twenty years and doesn't know what they're going to do with their lives? How come I hadn't made any friends, or made any contacts, or tried to get an internship? I started going into a panic.
When I went on Facebook to network, I began to feel worse; all my former classmates from high school seemed so happy, so content. Not only were all their moms and dads together, healthy, happy and supportive, they had even started families of their own. I began to fall deeper into despair.
My mind was caught up in a never-ending merry-go-round of misery. It was like having your own personal bully or Marine drill instructor, like that guy from Full Metal Jacket. I started criticizing every character flaw I had. I discovered that I have lots.
Your too fat, too slow, too emotional. Little crybaby, your daddy's gone, and now you want your mama to protect you from the mean, cruel world. You're pathetic! Your gonna die at 33 from an aneurism or a brain tumor, and you're not going to leave anything behind. No books, no kids, no friends, nothing. You're gonna leave this planet, and no one will remember that you ever existed.
You're no Tolkien, or Ray Bradbury or Neil Gaiman, so why bother?
Despite advice from family, neighbors and one kindly therapist, nothing helped. I began to become suicidal. Once I thought about cutting my wrist with a kitchen knife. Another time I thought about overdosing on prescription drugs. These periods for mercifully brief, lasting only a few minutes. But all it takes is a second for the brain to act on an impulse, good or bad.
Then, just a week before my 26th birthday, I was told that my grandfather was dying.
I should've known it was coming, just like with my parents' separation. He had been suffering from Parkinson's disease for most of my life, and had started showing symptoms of dementia shortly after my dad's death. I went to go see him for the last time on May 21st. His skin was paper thin, he was suffering from a fever. I took his hand and spoke comforting words to him even though he knew little English, and I very little Italian. He had had to bury his son, and now me, my aunt, uncle and cousins would have to bury him.
I would like to take a minute to debunk one of the biggest myths about depression. It is not something you just get over. Yes, many people who suffer from depression most likely do so in understandable circumstances, such as after losing a loved one, or unemployment, and they eventually do get over it.
My case went beyond that. I couldn't sleep, and when I was awake, I was restless and couldn't concentrate. When I tried to read, I could take no pleasure from it. I felt that I was ignoring my problems. I couldn't have fun or do anything productive. And when I messed up, that drill sergeant would be right there waiting for me.
So I'm telling everybody here and now: if you know someone who is suffering from depression, get them help immediately! Don't tell them to "man up" and "get over it", criticism is the last thing that they need. And don't just think you can simply throw drugs at the problem. There's no guarantee that the drugs will work; you have to remember that everyone's brain chemistry is unique. There has never been a "cure 'em all" when it comes to this sort of thing. And if you're going to bring them to therapy make sure the fee is within your budget! I was lucky to find help that scaled the fee to my very tight financial situation.
Above all else, people with depression need love. They need to be reminded that they're not alone, that their lives can get better. They may try to hide their pain, thinking that their issues are too small in the grand scheme of things, that they don't want to bother their loved ones. Don't let them! Remember what I said about pain shared at the beginning? Get them to open up at all costs!
I cured my depression by remembering that I'm a premie; I was born at 27 weeks. I'm lucky to be alive at all. And that thought triggered all my happy memories: all the baseball games I went to, all the Disney movies I've seen, all the trips I've been on. When I got my legs fixed and went through three months of rehab; when I got pneumonia at 16 I thought I was dying, but after a week in the hospital I was fine.
So I realized something. I'm not my dad. I'm not my grandfathers. They made their choices, now I must make mine. I will learn from their mistakes, and be a better person. I will die, 20, 30, 50, who knows how many years from now, with a smile on my face. I may be buried with my family, but my life shall go down a different road. And I never took one Prozac to get where I am now.
Too many people are not so lucky. Don't let yourselves throw your lives away. I lost over a year of my life to despair. I could've lost the rest.
http://depressionhurts.ca/en/default.aspx
Friday, March 7, 2014
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Bound in a Nutshell: Living With Social Anxiety Disorder
One of my earliest childhood memories was when I was five. I was brought one day to see a child psychiatrist. Oh, don't worry, I wasn't much of a "problem child". I just got these random bursts of nervous energy whenever I watched something exciting. I would pace around for a few minutes, clapping all the while, never consciously realizing what I was doing.
Naturally, my parents wanted to know what the hell these odd episodes meant, so it was off to see another doctor. I don't remember much about the session, what the man's face looked like or what we talked about. I do remember that he told my parents I was suffering from "dangerously low self-esteem". I strongly suspect that the psychiatrist missed something when I spoke with him that day; I don't blame him, it's really hard to spot, and quite a few people probably aren't aware that they have it, or know someone who does. I think that I have been suffering from a "new", widespread mental disorder know as social anxiety disorder for most of my life.
Social Anxiety Disorder (which will be referred to as SAD for the rest of this article), is a type of anxiety disorder where a person avoids most social situations because they are irrationally afraid that they will embarrass themselves or be negatively judged by others. Even though it is a relatively "new" disorder, having been first formally studied in the 1960s by British psychiatrist John Marks, and was only acknowledged by the APA in 1980, SAD has most likely existed since the beginning of history and beyond.
It is the third most common mental illness next to alcoholism and depression; in fact, SAD has been linked to depression. We're obviously depressed when we don't have any close friends or have trouble with romantic relationships (I know this pain all too well, unfortunately). It currently affects anywhere from 7-13% of the population, and if not treated, can negatively affect all aspects of a person's life.
SAD is very hard to spot; it is often confused with being introverted, which is a personality type, or shyness, which is perfectly natural in a lot of situations. Like many mental illnesses, SAD covers a broad spectrum of degrees. People can have "mild" cases which can disappear on its own, or it can be so severe to the point where it can cause many problems in a person's day-to-day life, and requires extensive therapy and medical treatment to fix. I'm fairly certain that I'm a textbook case, but I can't be positive until I talk to a professional. That's another problem in itself: most people with SAD don't seek treatment, either because they're too scared, or because they just assume that the disorder is a permanent part of their personalities.
I've always been very shy; not only was I the shortest kid in class, I also grew up with leg braces, a speech impediment and asthma. It's really hard to open up to people, especially when you're a kid, and you're constantly being reminded that you're never going to be one of them; the "cool" kids. Never going to drive or be on the sports team, or be the prettiest.
I feel bad for my parents, 'cause no matter what they did, nothing could get me out of my shell. When I was in softball, I never got a single hit, so I felt bad for not contributing. When my mom put me in summer programs, it always made me feel uncomfortable. I felt guilty being around "slow" kids, or kids with autism; one boy I met when I was twelve, Shane, was born without feet! My body just moves a little slower than normal, how could I possibly relate to them?
In fact, if my friend hadn't approached me one boring summer afternoon nineteen years ago, I wouldn't have had a social life at all growing up. Let me tell you all about a guy named Jasmin Bihorac.
Now, Jasmin (or "Jazz" as I always called him), is very easy to describe. Take one look at him, and you'd think "athlete" or "movie star". He was the kind of guy who could walk into a room and be the centre of attention. We were so opposite you'd think that we had grown up on different planets, even though we grew up on the same street. He was tall, handsome and athletic, I was short, fat and geeky. He wore the latest clothes and listened to hip hop and gangsta rap; I couldn't give a rat's ass about fashion, and I shared my parents taste in music. The only things we had in common is that we were both the first-generation Canadian kids of immigrants, and we both didn't practice our respective religions (he was brought up Muslim; and although most of my family is pretty hard-core when it comes to religion, my dad was never the most observant Catholic). Oh, and less I forget, Jazz was a ladies man; he was introducing me to a new girl every few months. You could tell when he was getting serious with a new girl when he would start listening to love songs on the computer and Boombox.
To put our relationship in terms '90's kids can understand, he was the Will Smith to my Carlton. To put it in terms our parents can understand, he was the Fonz to my Richie Cunningham. To put it in terms everybody can understand, he was the Achilles to my Odysseus.
But even Jasmin, awesome as he is, still couldn't break me out of my shell. He would bring me out to see his friends, we would watch his favorite horror movies together, he took me with him on family trips and would always drop by my house whenever he could.
For my 14th birthday, he took me to see Hulk Hogan when he was doing a book tour for his autobiography in Toronto. I remember that I felt really awkward, really uncomfortable, even when we took the train downtown by ourselves . I still remember saying the lamest thing ever to the most famous wrestler ever: "What's up, Hulkster?"
Seriously, I had over two weeks to come up with something cool to say to the guy, and that's the best I could come up with? There's ten amazing seconds of my life that I'll never get back.
There are certain risk factors every parent should look out for when it comes to SAD, and I had several of the symptoms: low self-esteem, very shy, poor grades, my dad had trouble talking to people as well, I lacked social skills, I was too emotional and I suffered through several embarrassing episodes in my childhood which I will not go into here. People with SAD are caught in a vicious cycle; they tend to always put themselves down when thinking about how they appear to others; when they come into contact with someone new, negative thoughts and a constant state of panic makes them tremble, sweat a lot, stutter, or leave their faces blank, which understandably sends some very negative signals to the other person. Bad experiences lead to more bad experiences, and unless something is done, the person with SAD will be convinced that they are just not sociable people.
So what's a parent or adult suffering from this illness to do? There are many options available. If the problem is not too serious, a person could try some self-therapy techniques, such as visualizing a social situation, and imagining the sequence of events having a constant positive outcome during the conversation, until they are ready for real life scenarios.
If the problem is more severe, professional help and medication will be required. The most common therapeutic method is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which is just a fancy way of saying that, by making the patient examine his or her thoughts before going through a social situation, they see how irrational their thoughts are and their anxiety levels go down. This works best one-on-one or in groups. There are also fringe treatments that have not been proven by research, such as hypnosis, but I wouldn't recommend something like that.
Anti-depressant drugs such as Paxil, Zolfor and Exxor have been found to be effective against SAD as well. But there is no guarantee that the drugs will work (everybody's biochemistry is different), and Paxil has several negative side effects.
So, if anyone reading this wonders why you can't seem to open up and talk just like everyone around you, I want you to know that it is not a permanent part of who you are, but a problem that can and must be dealt with. And it doesn't make you weal or weird; more people have it then you realize, even if they don't know it or won't admit to it.
It is not (usually) the parents fault, or the school's fault or most importantly, your fault. It is the fault of a society that prizes the loud, flashy and bold over the quiet, careful and thoughtful, and tries to convince us everyday of our lives that this is the mold which we must fit ourselves into in order to be happy.
Sources
Bakalar, Nicholas; Hollander, Eric (M.D.). Coping With Social Anxiety: The Definitive Guide to Effective Treatment Options. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2005. Print.
Hillard, Erika. Living Fully With |Shyness & Social Anxiety. New York: Marlowe & Company, 2005. Print.
Social Anxiety Disorder BC Group
Anxiety Disorder Association of Canada
Naturally, my parents wanted to know what the hell these odd episodes meant, so it was off to see another doctor. I don't remember much about the session, what the man's face looked like or what we talked about. I do remember that he told my parents I was suffering from "dangerously low self-esteem". I strongly suspect that the psychiatrist missed something when I spoke with him that day; I don't blame him, it's really hard to spot, and quite a few people probably aren't aware that they have it, or know someone who does. I think that I have been suffering from a "new", widespread mental disorder know as social anxiety disorder for most of my life.
Social Anxiety Disorder (which will be referred to as SAD for the rest of this article), is a type of anxiety disorder where a person avoids most social situations because they are irrationally afraid that they will embarrass themselves or be negatively judged by others. Even though it is a relatively "new" disorder, having been first formally studied in the 1960s by British psychiatrist John Marks, and was only acknowledged by the APA in 1980, SAD has most likely existed since the beginning of history and beyond.
It is the third most common mental illness next to alcoholism and depression; in fact, SAD has been linked to depression. We're obviously depressed when we don't have any close friends or have trouble with romantic relationships (I know this pain all too well, unfortunately). It currently affects anywhere from 7-13% of the population, and if not treated, can negatively affect all aspects of a person's life.
SAD is very hard to spot; it is often confused with being introverted, which is a personality type, or shyness, which is perfectly natural in a lot of situations. Like many mental illnesses, SAD covers a broad spectrum of degrees. People can have "mild" cases which can disappear on its own, or it can be so severe to the point where it can cause many problems in a person's day-to-day life, and requires extensive therapy and medical treatment to fix. I'm fairly certain that I'm a textbook case, but I can't be positive until I talk to a professional. That's another problem in itself: most people with SAD don't seek treatment, either because they're too scared, or because they just assume that the disorder is a permanent part of their personalities.
I've always been very shy; not only was I the shortest kid in class, I also grew up with leg braces, a speech impediment and asthma. It's really hard to open up to people, especially when you're a kid, and you're constantly being reminded that you're never going to be one of them; the "cool" kids. Never going to drive or be on the sports team, or be the prettiest.
I feel bad for my parents, 'cause no matter what they did, nothing could get me out of my shell. When I was in softball, I never got a single hit, so I felt bad for not contributing. When my mom put me in summer programs, it always made me feel uncomfortable. I felt guilty being around "slow" kids, or kids with autism; one boy I met when I was twelve, Shane, was born without feet! My body just moves a little slower than normal, how could I possibly relate to them?
In fact, if my friend hadn't approached me one boring summer afternoon nineteen years ago, I wouldn't have had a social life at all growing up. Let me tell you all about a guy named Jasmin Bihorac.
Now, Jasmin (or "Jazz" as I always called him), is very easy to describe. Take one look at him, and you'd think "athlete" or "movie star". He was the kind of guy who could walk into a room and be the centre of attention. We were so opposite you'd think that we had grown up on different planets, even though we grew up on the same street. He was tall, handsome and athletic, I was short, fat and geeky. He wore the latest clothes and listened to hip hop and gangsta rap; I couldn't give a rat's ass about fashion, and I shared my parents taste in music. The only things we had in common is that we were both the first-generation Canadian kids of immigrants, and we both didn't practice our respective religions (he was brought up Muslim; and although most of my family is pretty hard-core when it comes to religion, my dad was never the most observant Catholic). Oh, and less I forget, Jazz was a ladies man; he was introducing me to a new girl every few months. You could tell when he was getting serious with a new girl when he would start listening to love songs on the computer and Boombox.
To put our relationship in terms '90's kids can understand, he was the Will Smith to my Carlton. To put it in terms our parents can understand, he was the Fonz to my Richie Cunningham. To put it in terms everybody can understand, he was the Achilles to my Odysseus.
But even Jasmin, awesome as he is, still couldn't break me out of my shell. He would bring me out to see his friends, we would watch his favorite horror movies together, he took me with him on family trips and would always drop by my house whenever he could.
For my 14th birthday, he took me to see Hulk Hogan when he was doing a book tour for his autobiography in Toronto. I remember that I felt really awkward, really uncomfortable, even when we took the train downtown by ourselves . I still remember saying the lamest thing ever to the most famous wrestler ever: "What's up, Hulkster?"
Seriously, I had over two weeks to come up with something cool to say to the guy, and that's the best I could come up with? There's ten amazing seconds of my life that I'll never get back.
There are certain risk factors every parent should look out for when it comes to SAD, and I had several of the symptoms: low self-esteem, very shy, poor grades, my dad had trouble talking to people as well, I lacked social skills, I was too emotional and I suffered through several embarrassing episodes in my childhood which I will not go into here. People with SAD are caught in a vicious cycle; they tend to always put themselves down when thinking about how they appear to others; when they come into contact with someone new, negative thoughts and a constant state of panic makes them tremble, sweat a lot, stutter, or leave their faces blank, which understandably sends some very negative signals to the other person. Bad experiences lead to more bad experiences, and unless something is done, the person with SAD will be convinced that they are just not sociable people.
So what's a parent or adult suffering from this illness to do? There are many options available. If the problem is not too serious, a person could try some self-therapy techniques, such as visualizing a social situation, and imagining the sequence of events having a constant positive outcome during the conversation, until they are ready for real life scenarios.
If the problem is more severe, professional help and medication will be required. The most common therapeutic method is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which is just a fancy way of saying that, by making the patient examine his or her thoughts before going through a social situation, they see how irrational their thoughts are and their anxiety levels go down. This works best one-on-one or in groups. There are also fringe treatments that have not been proven by research, such as hypnosis, but I wouldn't recommend something like that.
Anti-depressant drugs such as Paxil, Zolfor and Exxor have been found to be effective against SAD as well. But there is no guarantee that the drugs will work (everybody's biochemistry is different), and Paxil has several negative side effects.
So, if anyone reading this wonders why you can't seem to open up and talk just like everyone around you, I want you to know that it is not a permanent part of who you are, but a problem that can and must be dealt with. And it doesn't make you weal or weird; more people have it then you realize, even if they don't know it or won't admit to it.
It is not (usually) the parents fault, or the school's fault or most importantly, your fault. It is the fault of a society that prizes the loud, flashy and bold over the quiet, careful and thoughtful, and tries to convince us everyday of our lives that this is the mold which we must fit ourselves into in order to be happy.
Sources
Bakalar, Nicholas; Hollander, Eric (M.D.). Coping With Social Anxiety: The Definitive Guide to Effective Treatment Options. New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2005. Print.
Hillard, Erika. Living Fully With |Shyness & Social Anxiety. New York: Marlowe & Company, 2005. Print.
Social Anxiety Disorder BC Group
Anxiety Disorder Association of Canada
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