I got to sleep-in past 5AM on this weekday morning. No TMS treatment today. Yay!!! But Suzanne began to snore promptly at 5:01 AM, so I didn’t get to sleep in as much as I got to lie there and “curse-in” about being awakened when I didn’t need to be up early.
I’m not quite finished with the TMS regimen. I had treatment #30 yesterday morning. I’ve got 6 to go, but I am now in the tapering-off phase of the treatments, so I will have treatments only twice per week from now on. I want my TMS-every-weekday schedule back! I will follow the rules, but it really ticks me off that it will take 3 weeks for me to complete the last 6 treatments.
People who have never experienced a major depression cannot fully comprehend its complexity. My experience has been that most of the lucky people who have been blessed to skip the depression quagmire have the idea that to be depressed is only to feel down and hopeless. They don’t have a clue that major depression can manifest itself, not just in negative feelings, but in the total absence of feelings. When I began TMS treatment, I had experienced an extended period of time feeling nothing. Nada. Zip.
When this “not-feeling” happens, I still KNOW what I feel, but I don’t really FEEL it. For example, I know I love Skitter, but right now I don’t feel it in the marrow of my bones. I take care of her out of loving habit, knowing that the love still lives in me somewhere– and hoping I will surely feel it again. It helps me that I was raised to be a nice person, whether I’m feeling like it or not. “Nice” is my default mode of being.
Here’s another example of my being disconnected from my true, feeling self: A few weeks ago, Suzanne said, “Let’s buy you a new truck.” If I’d had my normal feelings working, I would have picked out a new truck and parked it in the garage within an hour of Suzanne’s words. Instead, I shrugged it off and said, “Nah. I don’t need one.” What mentally apt gal says NO when someone tells her to go buy a new truck? What feeling person doesn’t jump off the couch and speed to the auto dealership when someone basically tells you to buy a new truck you know you want? That right there proves I’m off my feeling-rocker.
And thus, I go through the motions of daily life, completely aware of what’s going on, but not really feeling like it has anything to do with me. I don’t even feel my “me-ness.”
I know all this sounds weird. It sounds impossible. But trust me, it’s possible. I’ve gone through the “not-feeling” thing a few other times in my life. My head has always righted itself, so it hasn’t alarmed me when it’s happened. But this time, I have “not-felt” for longer than I am comfortable with. That’s why Suzanne and I decided I should try the TMS treatments.
How’s the TMS working for me? I’m not sure. But I think I see a positive change in my psyche here and there. Suzanne says I don’t stare out the windows into nothingness as much as I did before. I would like to report I’ve felt a bigly, flip-of-the-switch change for the better, but I haven’t. On the other hand, I have not completed all 36 of the TMS sessions, and perhaps the last 6 are the charm. I can report that when I visited baby Grace last week, I felt inklings of joy stirring up in me, fighting to get out. So there’s hope.
BTW Wood Bow Tie o’ the Day says, “Follow your arrow. Or your arrowhead, if you don’t have the whole arrow.” Got the point?
