A Season in Hell (standard:non fiction, 1760 words)
Author: kmjog	Added: Apr 22 2002	Views/Reads: 3290/2203	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
This is a personal account of a 4 year horrendous depression that finally lifted.

		       A SEASON IN HELL 

I have suffered from clinical depression for four years. I have had OCD
an anxiety disorder for 15 long years. Both have waxed and waned over 
the years. This is a personal account of four years that were living 
Hell on earth. 

I remember how the OCD started. I was a waitress at a busy restaurant in
Carmel, California. I loved my job and I was a good waitress. A new 
manager came on the scene. He was either hot or cold. He was an 
alcoholic and when he was on a binge he would yell and scream at the 
waitresses. He particularly picked on me because I never talked back to 
him for fear of losing my job.  I was not depressed until years later. 
I went to work one day and the manager was gone. They said he was 
dismissed for stealing money out of the cash register for drugs. I was 
relieved but they got a woman manager who was rather unfriendly and 
harsh. I finally found a job at another local restaurant. The OCD waxed 
and waned over the years. It was very manageable for 12 years until 
depression set in also from a sales job that I had. I knew what 
clinical depression was because I previously in my life had three short 
bouts with it. 

My husband is a landscape contractor. He wanted me to go to a hardware
store to buy a rake he needed.  I was in the garden department when I 
saw a bunch of insecticides. I immediately felt contaminated and had to 
go to the restroom and wash my hands. I just had to go wash my hands 
like I had some horrible poison on me. That was the beginning of the 
Obsessive Compulsive disorder. They say that tremendous stress can 
cause it. I started thinking that when I passed by a pedestrian in my 
car that I had hit one and I had to check if I had by looking in the 
rear view 

mirror. I had an episode of OCD when I was 13 years old so I knew I had
to get some help. The OCD will not go away on it's own. I started 
therapy with a psychologist and I still continued to work for the 
alcoholic manager. . 

I have been to many psychiatrists and psychologists over the last 15
years. In desperation in March 2002 I made an appointment with my 
family doctor. I had heard that B-12 shots were sometimes given to 
patients with a severe psychosis and they made remarkable recoveries. 
She said that she had heard that but had never heard of a B-12 shot 
being used for depression. She would not give me one and I was upset. I 
went to the drug store and bought a bottle of B-12 vitamins and went 
home and took five1000mg tablets. 

It became extremely severe in March 2002. In that month I began
obsessing more and more at my volunteer waitress job. I could hardly 
concentrate on taking orders because of the horrible, intrusive 
thoughts that were racing in my head. I would take an order and I had 
to double check each ticket to make sure I had charged them the right 
amount. My obsessional thinking was mostly religious in  origin. They 
were senseless thoughts like if I wore certain dangling earrings they 
would offend God and then I would be punished. If I watched a movie 
with a lot of swear words in it; it was hurting God. I could never 
fiqure out why some things that I did would hurt God. 

.Hundreds of thoughts like this tortured me every day.  I knew they were
not really real but a part of me almost believed that they were.  I 
also had developed severe scrupulosity just since January 2002.  It 
previously had never bothered me in my 57 years of life. I had worked 4 
different part time jobs. They were relatively easy jobs like being a 
food demonstrator in a market handing out samples of food or coupons.  
I would not cash any of the checks I had received because my OCD voice 
was telling me I didn't do the jobs completely right and I would be 
punished by God if I cashed the checks. It wasn't until 3 months later 
that I was finally able to cash them. Scrupulosity is a form of OCD. 
People who have it become overly concerned with morals and honesty. 

I will describe what a typical day for me was like. I woke up in sheer
terror. I immediately started praying hundreds of times “Dear Lord 
please help me to function.” I felt like I was waking up to a 
nightmare. However, I was not dreaming for it was as real as the grass 
is green and the sky is blue.  My depression was an agiated type. I had 
been jogging since 1992 and was not about to give it up. It was the one 


Click here to read the rest of this story (84 more lines)