The lies we tell ourselves

A bump in the mental voyage

I write essays unpacking our messy baggage. You can hear me read today’s piece by clicking on the article voiceover. To protect my mental peace, I’ve halted using social media to share my work. Send my words to a friend, if you think it’s worth sharing. If you’re new here, you can subscribe to receive my newsletter a couple Fridays a month.

sitting in a mud hole

The denial started with an itch.

Minor irritation began months ago. What showed up physically had no match for my mental capacity to shut it down. Our minds are like an attic and, in the far back corner of the dark and dusty room, there lives the reality, in mint condition. To buy myself time before meeting with one particular difficult reality, I chose to pile stacks of excuses and lies on top of it, hoping to bury the truth for as long as I can.

If you follow my essays, you have read the journey through my mental complexities. For years, I’ve danced with depression and emotional mood swings that have shattered my sense of being, complicated my marriage, and make mothering — already a difficult job — seem like constantly digging myself out of holes in a field of ditches.

I have tried everything, from western medication, to supplements, to therapeutic treatments, to cutting sugar, to psychedelics, to 100 ways to Sunday.

I have also said no to Western medicine, battled it out without medication to see if I can fight it with pure will and might. While in the gutter for too long, I decided to meet with a new therapist and psychiatrist. I received a new diagnosis and medication. In September, for the first time in years, I felt normal.

I no longer mentally and physically sit in a dungeon of my thoughts for weeks like I used to. I have bad days and they come and go. Before, bad days were the majority. They meant more frequent days of numbness, where I’d convince myself my loved ones would be better off without me. Even though I knew these thoughts would go away eventually, there was nothing I could do to feel any different, so I sat with this feeling for days, sometimes weeks.

I write all this to give you the depth of what I was no longer experiencing. I wasn’t in the scary place all the time. With this new medication, I had a better functioning life. I showed up to it rather than debate if hiding in my bed was a better choice for me each day.

I was on this medication for more than a month and had frequent video check-ins with my psychiatrist about symptoms and side effects. With this particular medication, one serious side effect is a rash.

After a couple of months, I started to find an itch in my leg.

I thought nothing of it. I am prone to get allergic reactions to bug bites and I have sensitive, dry skin. It’s winter in San Diego, fire season was hot with Santa Ana winds blowing dry air.

Then I noticed my leg had a few raised bumps. My new nightly routine was scratching my cracked skin as I fell asleep — I told myself it’s the reason for the skin breakout.

When it morphed into something mimicking a rash, I was crushed.

I reluctantly called my psychiatrist, who said I should get off the medication. I looked down at my legs — seeing the evidence with my own two eyes — yet I told him I don’t think it’s a rash, it’s probably irritated dry skin. We ended the call, I pulled my socks over the rash, and I continued to ingest my meds.

After awhile, the spots got itchier and I met with my primary care doctor. She also questioned my rash being related to my new meds and I told her it’s not. We googled the rashes from my medication and the scary images on the internet didn’t match what’s on my legs.

If it’s not that, the nurse practitioner said they have similar features to ringworm. I laughed, awkwardly.

It’s not actually a worm but it is gross nonetheless. Ringworm is a contagious fungal infection from mold-like parasites living on the cells in the outer layer of our skin — yeah, yuck! It often gets passed around from dirty, moist, surfaces and contact with other people who have it. When I go to yoga, which is often, I bring my own mat, blocks and blanket but, I admit, I don’t always wash my mat and I sometimes don’t immediately shower after yoga class. (Yeah, I know, I’m disgusting.)

My husband, who wrestled in high school, had strong doubts about my issue being ringworm. I questioned it too but I was desperate to not change my medication I ignored all reasons for uncertainty.

I embraced the idea of harboring a fungus. I’d rather feel gross than change my medication.

Did I tell you my meds made me feel GOOD AND NORMAL?! I know the alternative. It means experimenting with new medication, often having to change it several times, and with different side effects each time. It means taking pills that can make me feel worse, deepen my swings, or give me headaches. And make me gain weight.

No thanks, I’d rather scratch my legs in secret and pull my pant leg down and cover up the denial.

Well, it’s been nearly a month of putting lotrimin cream and ingesting an oral anti-fungal. The rash is still here, no sign of getting better.

Earlier this week I decided to finally call my psychiatrist and ask for a medication switch.

It was difficult to make the call. I had 5 months of normalcy. I could not handle the truth that this medication is not right for me. I lied to myself for months, thinking this was my solution, even though this rash could mean serious problems.

So now I’m in the place I desperately did not want to be in again. Here I am, at the beginning of the long and treacherous road of trial and error. I tapered off one drug and tried a new one this week.

I tested the new drug and, unfortunately, it hit me hard, both physically and mentally. I was dizzy, nauseous, with a massive headache, and in bed for 30 hours. It was awful and defeating.

Now I’m at a fork in the road. Again.

I thought about giving myself a pep talk about how this is how life works. How we need to keep trying new things. How the hard is what makes it great. How we need to be open to the possibilities.

Nope. I’m not there yet.

I’m so bummed about my situation, I cannot subscribe to motivational crap. I’m not in the mood for silly affirmations. You can find them elsewhere today.

Today, I’m allowing myself to be sad about curveballs, especially when I worked so hard to get the home run, only to find myself losing the game in the end.

I am in a bit of mourning and I’m giving myself permission to be here for a couple days before I have to start all over again. I know I can’t let myself be down here for long but it is freeing to let myself be in this spot right now.

I don’t know what’s next for me in my bumpy mental journey.

In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a quote from a brilliant book I read recently, called James. Author Percival Everett takes the story of Huck Finn and retells it from the perspective of enslaved Jim, who said in chapter 21:

“Folks be funny lak dat. Dey takes the lies dey want and throw away the truths dat scares 'em.”