Living with depression

I want to make one point crystal clear: What happened to me won’t happen to you. My experience was a rare one. I’m -- apparently -- unusual. 

I heard a chime. There are always a couple of dings before the magnetic pulses begin. It’s a warning. The first couple of pulses hurt so badly that I gasped and held my breath, shocked. The technician, eyes on my fingers, shook her head and told the doctor, “No.”

Here’s the bad news: Major depressive disorder (MDD) can block you from noticing the parts that are going well in your life. The good news: Just because it’s hard for you to see those parts doesn’t mean they’re not there. Someone who wears rose-colored glasses has, according to one online dictionary, “a happy or positive attitude that fails to notice negative things, leading to a view of life that is not realistic”…

I thought I knew what to expect the first time I saw a psychiatrist. 

Listing my symptoms, reviewing self-care routines, discussing medications, and finding a counselor all seemed to be likely topics of conversation. Maybe she or he would go full Freud and dress in tweed, smoke a pipe, and have me lie down on a couch…