Profound Loss of Self....

I do not know how to describe it -- maybe others of you can, and I"m sure we've discussed it before.  Right now, this troubles me the most, because it seems that if I hadn't lost my self somewhere, I'd be better able to deal w/ everything else this disease entails.

First, I think about my self too much. It seems as if we all do.  I feel like I might feel better mentally if I could get past this, but I can't.  I think about myself too much, yet mostly it feels as if I'm grieving for the loss of my self.  I don't know where I went. I don't know what happened. I don't really know who I am anymore.  I search and search and get nowhere.

The grief and the loss feels profound. The feelings of loss are often unbearable.  This horrible depression and grief (which we have discussed at length) generally came around the same time of day,  each day. Altho it often started near the end of my work day, and I was grateful for that, and I was able to be relatively normal at work (tho they don't know who I used to be....), now it has started sometimes at work and that scares me.

I had been able to keep this part from my boys -- they know I have lyme, but like everyone else, do not understand all that it means.  I have been spending some time w/ them on most Saturdays -- usually to eat and watch a couple shows, and I have felt OK and enjoyed myself, inspite of the exhaustion.  Now it is creeping into this place that used to be 'safe'.

I went there OK yesterday after having gotten a good haircut.  Then I immediately realized my front tooth was badly broken and it looks horrible and I don't even know how it happened. And I've already used my dental insurance limit for the year and am in debt to the dentist.

Anyway, obviously this is not just about a front chipped tooth. There is so much about myself that I hate and  who I don't know.  They could not understand what happened to me because of a chipped tooth.

I can't tell them everything I feel. They do not understand the disease and the things that I feel -- the grief and the depression and the pain -- it would hurt them.  I am now just a negative person who seems to be feeling sorry for herself all the time.  I don't want to be this person.

Don't misunderstand -- they do not accuse me of this -- they just dont understand how having a couple of things wrong causes me to lose it and feel totally hopeless.  And it is me who knows I have become a negative person who feels sorry for herself all the time. I hate this person. I want rid of this person. I can't stand this person anymore.

I CANNOT GET A GRIP.

Will we ever be able to find ourselves again?  The loss of self. That's what this is about.  We could write for hours and hours (and have) and yet not fully describe it.

It feels as if that tiny tick literally sucked the life out of me.  And he broke me.  

(and yes, I am in treatment for depression)

Does most everyone feel something like this?

Thank you, Jeminij, so much. You made me cry -- the way that you felt.

I also want to thank you jemini.  I feel like I have alienated myself once again from friends and family and can't get out of this funk.  I try and cover up and I am so sick of having to explain my moods to people.  if they only knew what it felt like to struggle to get through each day.  I am hopeful that I too will be well one day.  It's the only thing that keeps me going, that and my two wonderful boys and husband.  Lots of love.

Well you sure did nail that one, Lyme+

It's the part of the whole scene that really makes the whole scene. It is the biggest mind bender. We exhaust ourselves lookiging for answers. Try everything and then beat ourselves up because EVERYTHING didn't work.
then we label it "depression" My Dr. in Seattle who origionally diagnosed me (correctly and completely) told me there is something about this disease that attacks your "will to go on" it keeps beating at you and beating at you.

We talk about brain fog like it is being foggy but it is lack of oxygen in our brains or the ammonia thing poisioning our brains.
i couldn't imaging having children. My Mom would have had to take them if i did. Only now my Mom is gone from leukemia but I know know it was lyme induced. this is the other scairy part. you see people around you and they have all kinds of problems but don't appear as bad as you and you know inside that it is lyme. This thing is everywhere and it is ripping apart the basic fabric of our society family by family.

don't beat yourself up anymore. You have to get back in the game and take what you can get in terms of "normal" moments. After a while we loose our point of reference as to what it is to even be well. we get a pain free day where we can actually sit up in a chair and we feel this overwhelming sense of gratitude for that one moment. It's like acid some days for me.
I just can not believe what is happening. do you know for 15 yrs I was batteling Hep C trying to figure out why other hep C people were not in so much pain and exhaustion. Now I know for 9 months that it has been a life time of lyme I really feel like I took a bad tab of acid and can't turn it off. I felt just as sick before I knew but now suddenly I am seeing it everywhere like it is this ENTITY invading people's systems and literally ripping us to shreds.

The fact that we live in the good ol USA and can't even get insurance to pay for testing and then have to fight over whose testing is correct is the real most unbelievable phenomenon. As we watch them all fight over health care reform , seeing how clueless they all are that for sure is enough to make you depressed and suck the life out of you. We are all drowning and they are describing the water. ( remember Jack Nicholis in "As good as it gets")

You keep on expressing how you feel ..lyme+ .. it makes others feel they at least drank the same punch and we will overcome.

meantime if you email me .I got this mazing Noni from Kuai that gave me 3 good days earlier this week before the monsoons came and my migraines kicked in.

Right on. email any time. this guy sound good. you just keep watching the movie and let yourself disolve. This is the ultimate practice of Zen having lyme. I mean that seriously. we can get angry and we can cry and we can scream till we are on the floor in a puddle of our own tears hysterically laughing. That is how far this disease pushes you. when ther is nothing left to talk about or figure out or make a meaning or diagnosis out of ..then we go for the ultimate transformation. This is not a disease .....it's a spiritual practice.

yes I had the inteferon treatment in 2005. I lasted 10 weeks before it almost killed me. It made the lyme worse is what I was told by lyme doctor. Every thng that could have gone wrong as far as side effects with inteferon went wrong. from the heart tho the thyroid to the ACTH in brain to no adrenal function .......it was disaster but seems like another life time ago (5 yrs ha ha) Hep C is a cake walk compared to lyme believe me. The hard part about hep c too is t is your liver and amonia to your brain so the darkness and depression and breakdowns is there too like with lyme.

keep us posted about your treatment. I kind of think he is on to something with peple being on antibiotics for rst of life especially if it has been so far gone and long time in system. What does he do for pain???

+Lyme, I'm glad you started this thread....it made me face some things about myself more honestly. It does seem as though I have become horribly self-absorbed since becoming ill, maybe this is just a survival mechanism but I don't like who I've become either!

Sometimes it feels as though I'm caught in a whirlpool of diseases, spinning round and round and being sucked deeper and deeper every day into some sort of vortex of chronic illness. No matter what I do I can't get out, no one will be able to rescue me, and I have to say goodbye forever to the active, healthy person I used to be.....this depresses me more than I can express.

Maybe the reason I won't let go of my job (I still work part-time remotely even though it is sometimes difficult because of pain/brain-fog/other nasty symptoms) is that it sort of "defined" who I am as a person, at least partially. And I imagine somehow that as long as I'm still "working" I'm still at least partially able to be "me". Is that it??

I do feel for all of you on this thread! And I'm glad we have a place to post where people do understand.

JoAnn

Lyme,

I did not read all of the posts here so forgive me if this is repeated, but did you have your adrenals checked yet? If this depression comes on at the same time of the day, it has to be something physically wrong, like adrenals or thyroid. I'm leaning more towards adrenal problems.

Your words touched me deeply!

Thank you very much for this, Marika! I will look for the release of this book!

The way I was tested for adrenal function was via an insulin tolerance test. It was kind of an ordeal. On an empty stomach, in a doctor's office with a nurse in attendance the entire time, I was hooked to an IV. Blood tests were taken every ten minutes at first, more frequently as the test progressed. The IV administered measured doses of insulin, creating physical stress. I felt fine, felt fine, felt fine, and then suddenly just crashed. They'd discontinued the insulin just before that based on blood test results. They then measured the adrenal response to this physical stress. At some point I had to drink sweet juice. My memory of that part of the test is kind of hazy. Because I did have some adrenal response, I was not diagnosed with Addison's disease (adrenal failure). However, the response was very slow and weak. The endocrinologist called it borderline adrenal insufficiency. Subsequent reading suggests to me that another name for this condition - not a medical term apparently - is adrenal fatigue. Traveler, I'd be interested to learn what homeo tx you are taking for that. I take a tincture from the ND, but maybe there is something better.

Hey, I can relate to the "nut who held its ground" sentiment....

Rose

Rose