"I felt only emptiness": How I was treated for anxiety and depressive disorder
Anxiety personality disorders - the most common group of mental disorders in the world; in Russia, this diagnosis is made less often than in other countries. They can take very different forms - from generalized anxiety disorder (a state where a person feels incessant anxiety) to social phobia (fear of social interaction) or specific phobias (fear of an object, action or situation). The creator of the movement "Psychology for Human Rights", a psychotherapist and author of the book "Social anxiety and phobia: how to look out from under the invisibility cloak?" Olga Razmakhova explains that people most often turn to psychotherapists precisely because of anxiety and depression.
Such disorders are not similar to the usual anxiety or excitement that periodically arise in all people - talking about very strong, sometimes even paralyzing feelings. For such a state, “serious” or even just specific reasons are not necessarily needed: anxiety, foreboding of imminent disaster, inability to escape from the stream of obsessive sensations can arise at any time and last for a long time. To cope with them, however, is real: as Razmakhova says, turning to a competent specialist working with modern cognitive-behavioral psychotherapy, acceptance therapy and responsibility, awareness techniques or narrative practices can help change a person’s behavior and patterns so that he or she a chance to break out of the vicious circle and improve the quality of life.
Ekaterina Gonova was diagnosed with anxiety-depressive disorder several years ago, however, during this time she had to face not only the incompetence of doctors and the devaluation of her experience, but also her dismissal due to a diagnosis. We talked with her about how her struggle with the disorder was going on, and also about how important it is to get qualified help on time.
Interview: Irina Kuzmicheva
Gritting his teeth
The first signs of anxiety and depressive disorder appeared in my sixteen years. My mother and I moved from a small military unit to a million-plus city, and at first it was difficult. The lack of communication was especially strong: new friends could not be made, relations with peers did not develop, and in the class I was rotten for the fact that I was a “zauchka” and “nerd”. In the family, it was not customary to share experiences: everyone resolved his own problems and experienced difficulties in silence, gritting his teeth. The last two years of studying at school have been hard for me, but in the first year of the institute everything was more or less settled. I had friends and a boyfriend. Depressive symptoms - heavy mood and reflections on the meaninglessness of existence - made themselves felt, but so far have not poisoned life.
The first serious episode of the disorder occurred in 2012, two years after I graduated from college. I had a very ordinary life, and from the outside it might have seemed that all was well — but that was not the case. Until now, I'm trying to understand what triggered my illness, and I can't. Most likely, it is a matter of different factors: upbringing and family, personality traits (I am a very reserved person), character traits (responsibility and perfectionism). As a child I was a sullen and serious child, I often heard from others that I was “not through adulthood”. I do not know to whom and what I wanted to prove, but I needed to be better than anyone. Of course, this was not possible, and the understanding that comparing oneself with others was a bad thing came to me much later.
I constantly felt inexplicable internal tension and even hiding my hands in my pockets, tightly clenched them into fists
At first anxiety manifested itself in dreams. Every night brought nightmares: I ran away from an angry crowd, my relatives were killed before my eyes, ugly animals attacked me. It seemed to me that something bad was bound to happen: I would get into an accident, I would go under the roof, and an air conditioner would fall on me while I was at work, the neighbors would flood the apartment, and so on.
Anxious person like me worries about the most seemingly insignificant reasons and attaches great importance to what has not yet happened - and in theory could be changed. For example, they send me to a press conference, and at night I cannot sleep, because I worry that I cannot cope with the task (although I have been to such events many times), and wind myself up, presenting scenarios with a sad ending. Imagine how (quite naturally) worried before an exam. I had a feeling associated with ordinary events: the queue at the checkout, a trip by public transport, a trip to the clinic. It turns out that you live in a state of continuous stress, but "pull yourself together" does not work. You are afraid of something all the time: you think that the doctor will say that the cause of the headache is a tumor in the brain, and in the morning a KAMAZ will fly into the minibus.
The feeling of horror rolled for no reason. I remember, it was a colleague's birthday, other employees (there were about twenty of them) came to our office. I wanted to crawl under the table for fear. Nothing much happened, but panic swept over me: my hands grew numb, my legs shook, I wanted to cry. Something inside me said: "Run! Run away from here, it's dangerous here!" I had to jump out of the office into the smoking room, where I was crying in plenty.
By the time I decided to ask for help, my appetite and sleep were gone. I often cried, in a month I lost nine kilograms. A friend worked in the department of neurology, and I turned to him for advice. He said that I had a "neurosis", and recommended antidepressants: some cost forty rubles, others thousands of two. I started with cheap ones, they did not help. And then summer came, and, as they say, let me go.
I didn’t know that it was possible to be treated with the help of psychotherapy, and, frankly speaking, I could hardly understand what my condition was. I decided that this was happening to me for the first and the last time in my life. As a person intimidated by “punitive psychiatry,” I thought that a formal appeal to a doctor would result in a wolf ticket for me, registration and a broken career, and the drugs would bring me to the state of a vegetable.
Clenched fists
At the end of 2012, I changed a few rented apartments and work. The environment, the rhythm of life, hobbies have changed, and I have an incentive to earn money on my property. But in the morning, before going to work, and returning from it, I still sobbed. Nobody humiliated me and did not dissuade me, it just seemed to me that I was not coping well with my duties, I was not doing everything well enough. Prospects were foggy - I worked hard and plunged into a routine.
Soon began conflicts with a partner. I cried a lot, and he pressed on the most painful places: his appearance and relations with his parents. For several years, he found fault with how I looked, and was unreasonably jealous - it was oppressive. In addition, he had problems with work, he did not want to do anything - and I was constantly worried about how our life would be if in the future I’ll have to earn one. He conflicted a lot with others: he cursed his neighbors and constantly got into unpleasant situations, and this also had a negative effect on my emotional state. Later, I learned that people like him are called prospectors, and I realized that a relationship with this person also contributed to the development of the disease. But I tried to cope with the experiences on my own - in the end, after two years of “emotional swing,” we broke up.
I became unbearable in 2015. There were no triggers - I just completely lost my interest in life and stopped eating again. The main goal of the last few years - housing - was achieved, and I didn’t know where to go, I just worked a lot, neglecting my vacation. And if I had already resigned myself to the foul mood and depression, then any unpleasant things infuriated me. Everything caused irritation and anger: people, bright lights, sounds, conversations on heightened tones. I hated public transport because people in it listened to music and talk to each other — I couldn’t be in this noise-filled bank. In order to stop concentrating on extraneous stimuli, in the transport I counted up to three hundred or five hundred, hoping to distract myself. It was not possible to relax: I constantly felt inexplicable internal tension and even hid my hands in my pockets, squeezing them tightly into fists.
A friend of mine worked in the hospital and, after hearing my complaints, advised me to seek help from a specialist. The choice fell on a private medical center and psychotherapist, about which I read good reviews. He talked to me, prescribed antidepressants and an over-the-counter tranquilizer, and told me to come to the reception in two weeks. The pills did not help, the specialist spread his hands and said to take the drugs for another two months. But I didn’t notice any improvements.
Black corridor
After that, I decided to turn to my friend's mother, a psychiatrist, she worked in a clinic for the treatment of alcohol dependence. Arriving there and talking to her, I became inspired, but not for long: it all ended with the fact that, say, I am young, beautiful (only very thin), I have a home, a job, and someone has a lot worse. I think it is these words that can "finish off" the patient - this only causes rejection. The doctor prescribed an anti-anxiety drug and a modern anti-depressant for me. Despite the fact that this treatment did not help, I am grateful to her: she noted that my condition had worsened dramatically, and said that if the drugs did not work, I would need to go to the hospital.
Another month passed, and he was nightmarish - I was one hundred percent sure that I was living the last days. I felt only emptiness. It was hard for me to force myself to get out of bed and go to work. I slept four to five hours a day. Sobbed when no one saw me, and even shed a couple of times in public transport. I was sure that something terrible would happen, I was about to die - I was shaking and getting covered in sweat. Sometimes it seemed to me that the oxygen in the lungs ends, and the hands are taken away. I was terribly afraid of dying in a dream and at the same time passionately wanted it. Once I drank half a bottle of wine for courage and crippled myself - after this situation, I called my doctor and said that I felt very bad. She recommended to go to a psychoneurological clinic.
To get there, you need a referral from a doctor at the place of residence. I was so terrified of everything that happened to me, that I spat on all my prejudices and fears of a psychiatrist. The doctor immediately suggested that I go to the hospital, at the same time replacing the drugs. I refused hospitalization, but it was getting worse. After a couple more agonizing weeks, I crawled to the hospital and wondered what could be done to get into a mental hospital. I was given a referral, and a few days later I was in the department.
I used to think that I would earn a lot of money and be happy, but instead I earned a disease
Despite all the horrible stories about treatment in mental hospitals, I have a good impression from my stay in the hospital. The doctors considered me anorexic, I weighed forty-eight kilograms with a height of one hundred and seventy centimeters and seemed to myself a well-fed “pie”. I was forced to record everything that I eat, and weighed every day. A month later, I was discharged with a weight of forty-nine kilograms and terrible fatigue. I weakened, and felt the way to the stop or to the store as a marathon distance. Then I first learned my diagnosis - mixed anxiety and depressive disorder. Previously, no one spoke directly to me about this, but in the map and extract there were codes of the International Classification of Diseases - after checking them, I understood what was happening.
I cannot say that the disease released me when I left the hospital. The treatment muffled the symptoms: poor sleep, loss of appetite, a feeling of irrational fear and anxiety. But I did not become a happy person who lives in harmony with himself and the world around him. Imagine that your appendix is inflamed, and the doctor gives you painkillers, but does not prescribe the operation - the symptoms go away, and the reason remains.
After discharge, it took several months to find the drugs that will help me. And then a surprise was waiting for me: antidepressants synthesized in the forties, and not modern medicines, proved to be effective for me. A month after the start of the reception, I realized that there was a global shift in my head. It was spring, I went to the balcony, looked around and thought: "Damn it, today is just a great day."
Drug treatment helped to get rid of "stuck" thoughts - when you cling to a bad memory or imagine a bad situation in the future and scroll through it a hundred times in your head, driving yourself. If you hold the same analogy with the appendix, they gave me a good painkiller - but I had to remove the causes of the disease myself. I began to worry less about trifles, to devote more time to rest, to try not to concentrate on the bad, and revised my guidelines. I used to think that I would earn a lot of money and be happy, but instead I earned a disease. If the patient does not want to recover, change their attitudes and attitudes towards themselves, the treatment will be ineffective.
I suspect that my mother had the same disorder. Some of the symptoms she talked about when I complained to her about my condition coincided with us. She said that over the years, anxiety and fear attacks had passed away on their own, without treatment and medication. But the youth of my mother came in the seventies - I suspect that at that time such disorders were simply not diagnosed. She has been retired for the last fifteen years, and I can say that now she has again become an extremely anxious person.
The family reacted to my hospitalization as a necessary measure. My mother was very worried, my father came from another city to take me to the hospital. But, unfortunately, I did not feel any moral support: my father was silent as usual, and my mother said that it was “harmful” to drink pills. Relatives said that I "snicked" and everything "from laziness." It was painful to hear it, but I didn't want to prove anything either. If you have a tooth ache, then everyone will sympathize, because they know what it is. When you have anxiety and depressive disorder, people will look puzzled and at best keep silent.
Dismissal
During the illness, I conceived a photo project about depression: for two years I was shooting myself at different periods of the disease. Then I printed a photo book and told about it on Facebook. I do not know what prompted me to this. Perhaps I wanted to show the world that mental disorders are not a whim or fiction, but a serious disease, like diabetes. I received mostly good comments, but, as they say, the trouble came, from where it was not expected. Since I had colleagues in my friends, the management soon became aware of my illness.
The manager said that I had done something stupid by writing such a post. Then he added: "I hope you understand what you are doing." We didn’t raise this topic anymore, but literally in two weeks a colleague called me and announced that they wouldn’t pass the contract with me because of the post in social networks. When I went to the dispensary, I took the official sick-list and returned to work with the sick-list - but they fired me because I publicly told about my problems. Of course, I was hurt and hurt, I even cried. I did not understand what crime I had committed in order to expel me in disgrace, saying that I was “sick” and I “needed to be treated.”
Later I was told that the person who made the decision about my dismissal was once removed from office because of the post in LiveJournal. Perhaps he “closed the gestalt” like this: he acted with me in the same way as they did to him, completed what he was tormented. Now I do not write in social networks, but only do repost pictures and articles. I no longer want to express my thoughts and share them with others - but if I were offered to turn back the clock, I would still write this post.
I struggled with a mixed anxiety-depressive disorder for five years - during this time I changed four doctors, dozens of drugs, lost weight, my hair fell out, I lost my job. Fortunately, my friends supported me - there were few of them, but they visited me in the hospital, and I appreciate that. Most of all, I am grateful to a friend who convinced me to see a doctor: if I hadn’t received any help in time, it could have ended sadly. My black sense of humor helped me in some way: somehow I clearly decided that I would not settle my life bill, because no one would come to my funeral. But in fact, most of all I did not want to leave one mother, which, despite all our differences, I really love.
Now I am in remission, I have not been taking drugs for a year. I try not to take many things to heart, I learn to love myself and respect my feelings. Some signs of anxiety are still there: I am prone to hypochondria and phobias, I am afraid to go on a highway in a blizzard, to shivering, I try not to walk under air conditioners and worry about the safety of my property. But all this is minor compared to what it was before.
Photo: AKrasov - stock.adobe.com (1, 2, 3)