My Food Autobiography and the Stages of Change

This is not a post about dieting.  If you are looking for the quick fix for the upcoming wedding, reunion or beach vacation, move on to the next page on Google's list.

Before life so rudely interrupted, I was doing a New Year's series on the Stages of Change.  Since then I have rewritten my profile, reflecting on change as a theme.  I don't particularly care for change, but I am fascinated by how people manage to pull it off.  And I am astounded that at age 54 I changed a basic health practice, that being my eating habits, and have maintained that practice for six years.

Let me repeat.  This is not about dieting.  Who wants to DIE-t?  This is about changing the pathways inside your brain, retraining it, creating new synaptic connections that serve you better than the ruts (automatic reflexes) your thoughts and behaviors now travel.

Not in one leap.  One step at a time.

Grief/Depression IV - Not the Same/Maybe Both

So a woman goes into the doctor's office, three weeks after her husband died. I got through the funeral just fine. But now I feel awful. There is this ten ton weight on my chest. I'm exhausted; I don't have the energy to wash the dishes. I'm trying to pack up my husband's things, and I am too weak to pick up his shoes. I can't eat. Sometimes I get hit so hard with this wave of anxiety, I think I'm going to throw up.

What are the chances the doctor will say, Of course you feel awful. These are all very natural symptoms of grief. You just need time. But if you still feel like this a month from now, call my nurse and set up an appointment. What are the chances the doctor will not pull out the stethoscope and listen to her chest?

Answer: It depends on whether the doctor is stupid.

Or a psychiatrist.

These are classic symptoms of heart disease. There is significant overlap between the symptoms of heart disease and the experience of grief. But there is no Bereavement Exclusion for a diagnosis of heart disease. Instead, family physicians and cardiologists take the time to examine whether the person presenting these symptoms may have both.

Grief/Depression III - Telling the Difference

Once, when I was seriously under and still headed down, a friend said to me, There have been times in my life when I was sad, so sad I couldn't imagine being any sadder. But it seems that what you and others with depression are describing is a whole different level that I know nothing about.

See, that's what would be helpful, instead of, I know just how you feel. I remember when [fill in the significant loss]... I knew that he knew times of deep sadness, because I knew some of those times, and because he is a person is thinks and feels deeply. And listens deeply. Everyone should have such a friend.

It was Social Hour. We were in a corner to protect me from all those people being social. I leaned against a wall, because I was very tired. I guess the wall gave me the idea. I said, Yes, there are times I have been so sad I couldn't imagine being sadder. It's like the sadness became a wall I could lean against, because I was so tired. But Depression IS different. Imagine if the wall gives way. Imagine there isn't a limit. You lean and the wall gives way.

Grief/Depression II - Rise in Rates of Mental Illness

Are we really getting sicker?

A New York Times article, When does a broken heart become a diagnosis? sells papers with its usual technique - latch onto a fringe element and substitute good writing skills for substantive analysis.

I am all for good writing skills, and perhaps stumble in the same direction at times. But depression is my beat. So God willing and the brain permitting, I am going to beat this bit to the ground. Two weeks ago I discussed three contexts for the discussion, the cost of health care, the scientific value of the DSM and the hobby horse of the author featured in the Times article. I promised more contexts to come.

Are We Getting Sicker? - Context IV

James Wakefield's thesis is that we are turning natural human emotions, (the ones we want to get rid of, because they are unpleasant), into a diagnoses. His beat is depression, as well, but the Times is on this bandwagon with autism and no doubt other diagnoses to come.

Well, I grant some validity to the concern in general. Is it shyness or Social Anxiety Disorder? Is it artistic nonconformity or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder? Is it the sleep disruptions of normal aging or Overactive Bladder Disorder? Was it all those wings, doritos and beer you guzzled Superbowl Sunday (and most Sundays), or Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease?

For When Your Therapist Goes on Vacation

I have two therapists and they were both on vacation the week I got home from my mother's funeral and all those issues and all the family and all those issues.  And still on vacation the week after that!  My brother-in-law subbed - thank you, Darryl - with the following email.  I offer it as a resource for when your therapist picks a lousy time to go on vacation.

For extra entertainment value (my entertainment, anyway), I have identified which one I hear Michael telling me with >>, and which ones I hear Liz telling me with **.  One of them regularly irritates me.  I'll let you guess which one.  I have to keep both, because the double-teaming seems to help.

Wisdom Learned From the Seat of a Tractor

Your fences need to be horse-high, pig tight, and bull-strong.

Grief? Depression? Both?

The New York Times reports this week on a proposed change to the definition of depression for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) V. Asking, When does a broken heart become a diagnosis? it raises the specter that normal grief at the death of a loved one could be classified as a psychiatric disorder.

An estimated 8 to 10 million people lose a loved one every year, and something like a third to a half of them suffer depressive symptoms for up to month afterward, said Dr. Jerome Wakefield, author of The Loss of Sadness. This would pathologize them for behavior previously thought to be normal.

Okay, before we get our knickers in a twist -- oops, too late. Knickers in a twist is the current US national pastime. Nevertheless, there is a larger context here. Several, in fact.

DSM Context I - Follow The Money

In Memoriam - Mary Kirigin

This is one of my favorite photos of my mother, standing next to my sister Mary.  That smiling mouth agape, as if to say, Can you believe what I get to do now!

I am writing on Monday, in the few minutes before I head over to the Pato Loco for the memorial service, to be followed later by a funeral in Utah.  Not sure about my publication schedule for the next few weeks, and taking personal privilege with the topic.  It's your blog, my doc once said.  So it is.

Mama was a survivor, in the real world, not reality TV world sense of the word.  She was also a public person, and I learned from her how to set a public face, mostly a competent face.  Privately it was more often harried, the face I see in the mirror, more every day.

The thing therapists think you are supposed to say to survivors is Wow!  You are so strong!  Me, I don't care for that line.