A Season in Hell (standard:non fiction, 1760 words)
Author: kmjog	Added: Apr 22 2002	Views/Reads: 3291/2203	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
This is a personal account of a 4 year horrendous depression that finally lifted.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

thing that gave me a sense of accomplishment. It was hard to run but I 
was determined to run at least 5 times a week. I was not able to jog on 
my treadmill for 3 weeks because the OCD voice was telling me that I 
would be worship exercise gods if I ran. I have always been very active 
but I literally could not get my body to move. The exercise gods thing 
has now faded away and I can run again. I was always obsessing about 
the number 66 or 666 because 

I thought it was the mark of the devil. I would really get upset about
anything that was New Age. I had bizarre thoughts like once I got my 
cat some special food and I had this irrational thought that I was 
worshiping the cat. I had to say to myself “ I worship God” over and 
over again because that thought disturbed me so much 

I was taking Xanax a tranquilizer for anxiety. I had been taking it for
6 years with no bad side effects. I was coming home from a retail job 
and the police stopped me for weaving erratically on the road. I had no 
awareness that I was weaving. They took me to a local hospital for drug 
testing. The Xanax showed up in my system. I got stopped a month later 
also for weaving. I got two DUI's. I had to pay about $1500 in fines, 
go to re-hab classes for 18 months and I could not drive for 2 years. I 
could not work at a lot of jobs because the busses did not run on time 
where I needed to go. It was an awful experience to go through. 

In  March of 2002 the depression and the OCD became unbearable. I was
severely depressed and my OCD thoughts were constant and occurred 
hundreds of times a day. I had trouble shopping and doing my volunteer 
job at the hospital which I really enjoyed. OCD thoughts were constant 
and occurred hundreds of times a day. I had trouble shopping and doing 
my volunteer job at the hospital which I really enjoyed.loved. Through 
all of this, my husband stood by me and was very patient with me. 

I  found it hard to concentrate and I definitively could  not work as a
waitress on a paid job. I was somehow able to work at my volunteer job 
as a waitress.  The depression was now stronger than 

the OCD. I was taking antidepressants which helped a little but  did not
cure me of my disabitling depression. I read about shock treatments and 
researched them on the internet and decided that was what I needed. I 
had a series of treatments back in 1976 which got me out of a 18 month 
long depression. I had 8 ECT treatments that did not work this time. It 
left me feeling really depressed and hopeless. I was still able to work 
3 days a week but it was a struggle for me.  I read about a research 
study at Stanford on Trans Magnetic stimulation of the brain. It was 
not anything like ECT treatments. For one thing a person did not have 
to have general anesthesia. You had to go to Stanford University once a 
week for about 8 weeks. They put a big magnetic coil to my head. It 
wasn't painful at all. You had to fill out a depression questionnaire 
after each session. At the end of the 8th week I was still badly 
depressed . 

.I  woke up at 4.00am on April 5th 2001 and I felt strangely different.
I went to my computer and for once did not go to the usual OCD and 
depression web sites. I went to the pen pal section, religion section 
and I felt the need to write. I just knew inside of me that the 
horrendous depression of 4 years had finally lifted. I could think 
clearly. My obsessional thinking was still there but it didn't bother 
me very much. Over the next 2 weeks my obsessional thinking took up 
only about 20% of my time. The only drawback was that one medication 
that really helped me also caused me to wake up at 3.00 am or 4.00 am 
wide awake. I only hope that my personal experience will give the 
public a better understanding of depression and Obsessive Compulsive 
disorder. A lot of people know about depression but very little about 
OCD..My sister had suffered from depression 

on two occasions in her life. I tried to tell her what OCD was like but
to this day she just doesn't really understand it. She thinks that you 
can say to yourself “It's not me, it's just my OCD and the thoughts 
will somehow go away. I wish it was that easy. 

I now look forward to waking up every day. There are such wonderful
things to enjoy in life now. It is like I was given a new lease on 
life. All I knew in those years of pain was that I never gave up even 
though at times the struggle was hard. I have so many things I want to 
do.There are things I missed when I was half dead to the world. I can 
hear the birds chirping now and see the beautiful flowers bloom in my 
yard. Life itself is full of mystery and none of us can completely 
understand why there is suffering in this world. Every day is now a 
small miracle to me. 

.. 

. 


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