Naming the beast

[ZenGiraffe]

Was in marriage counseling and the guy suggested in order to remove some underlying feelings of fault by calling it “my” depression, that I should come up w a name for it to separate it from myself. It’s been a few months now and while sometimes it seems silly in the moment, I feel like it really has helped me feel like I have an “entity” to be upset w other than myself directly. Talking w my pdoc she says as long as it helps then it’s perfectly acceptable to continue w (I was afraid I’d somehow worsen my situation). It’s kind of funny and less depressing when my husband and I start going off about how “Cecil” is screwing things up, and to just ignore the bastard... it’s made it a little easier when meditating and identifying intrusive thoughts as well. I’m super curious, has anyone else come up w a name for their diagnosis?

[BA-H]

Hello ZG - I was just looking through posts the last couple of days and saw this one and thought the idea was fantastic (and was surprised to see no replies). But I think it's a great idea. Not to mention worthy of a good chuckle even while you're trying your best to stay in a bad mood, right? Semirelated - I remember early in our marriage, my wife and I had some minor disagreement. I can't remember what it was about, but we agreed it had to be the fault of a friend named Marty. Thereafter, many an argument ended up with one of us telling Marty to get out of our house. (Poor Marty. The real Marty is still a friend many years later and doesn't know how much trouble he's been in over the years!)

Now, I just need a good name!

[ZenGiraffe in reply to BA-H]

Thanks for the response, I’ve felt pretty ignored on here the last few days and it hasn’t been easy. But as far as coming up w a name, I actually decided on the name I’d been saving for the next pet I would get. I had just lost both my cats to old age and had been saving the name Cecil for the next one. But after discussing w my husband we decided that we didn’t really want a new cat, and that we’d just stick w our beloved dog. My husband suggested that I name my depression after my mother (I have serious mom issues and haven’t spoken to her in 6 years), but I told him that she’s ruined my life enough already and I didn’t want to give her anymore power over me. So I decided, since I’ve already been dealing w this beast for 8 years, it’s probably gonna be the most long-lived “pet” I’ll ever have, so why not dub it Cecil?

[BA-H in reply to ZenGiraffe]

Sorry you felt ignored. I guess sometimes people just get busy. But I enjoyed your message. Funny, you taking your once-future cat's name. I understand the part about it being the longest-lived pet ever; it definitely feels like the stuff we go through will never end and that could. I think your decision to not name it after your mom was a good decision; you might confuse yourself when you start cussing out a certain out a certain name and forgetting which one you are really cussing out; and it's always good when you are cussing to know where the cussing is being directed! And sorry about your mom. That's got to be hard. My sister struggles with issues with our mom, and for good reasons, but hard as it is, she always goes back. I still need to come up with a name, though. I was trying to come up with a name strange enough that I'll at least chuckle a bit when I think about it. : )

[ZenGiraffe in reply to BA-H]

Yeah, names can be hard. I’ve found that I’m drawn to less common “people” names over “pet” names. I think it might be fun to just try searching for “funny names” or “names that are hard to take seriously.”

[BA-H in reply to ZenGiraffe]

Hmm, I tried it and read a couple of articles. Such an important decision! I just read a few of your other posts. 90 ECT treatments. Ugh. I did 12 last fall. They had to stop because I got pneumonia in the middle of them. We were starting to discuss cutting back from 3 days a week to two the day I got sick. I'll never really know if it helped because life stuff got worse right as I stopped the treatments. But I can't imaging 90. My psych said I was her sixth ECT patient, and I actually asked her if that made me one of her six worst patients, and maybe one of the top two since four got significant improvement from the treatments. Then, I mentioned that conversation to my counselor-psych, who said I was her second one. So I figure I'm in the top 2 for two experienced doctors. So I thought your top-3 comment was funny.

[ZenGiraffe in reply to BA-H]

That’s a shame, I couldn’t imagine getting pneumonia in the middle of an ECT series. I just had another treatment yesterday. My treatment-resistance is unusual for ECT I guess. My pdoc/counselor used to be the head doc of the ECT department, and all the current ECT doctors there still listen to her, so I’m at least in knowledgeable hands... but yeah, usually they expect you get to spread out maintenance treatments to once every 6 months or so. Unfortunately, my depression is so stubborn I have them every 3 weeks. Sometimes that isn’t enough either. I’ve redone the series of them 5 times over the years, while on maintenance. That’s why now I’m looking into deep brain stimulation. Have you found a name you liked yet?

[BA-H in reply to ZenGiraffe]

Yeah, after getting malaria a couple of years ago, my whole health situation has gotten a bit strange. Pneumonia has just been part of the fun. I'm not really sure how much the depression has been affected by the health, but I guess it hasn't helped. But I started having extremely bad heartburn and coughing almost as soon as I started the ECT. In my closing meeting with the ECT doc, he said he thought maybe the anesthesia triggered reflux issues, which started a cough, which made the reflux worse, and so on. In other words, more than just an unfortunate coincident.

I'm curious about the stubborness of your depression. I was kind of asking my counselor-psych yesterday about how she'd describe me. Of course, I'm not in a neat box (I assume nobody is). She said insurance is such that there is either an episode of depression or recurrent depression. But there really isn't a word for ongoing, never lets up, type of depression. I agree with you that stubborn seems like a good word. I seem pretty much unaffected by drugs, ETC, etc. It was an interesting conversation, anyway.

Are you serious in considering deep brain stimulation? Given your experience with ECT, I can understand. I was very hesitant even to do ECT, but I have a lot of respect for my drug-psych and she was putting some pressure on me so I did it. But I would really need my life to calm down and see the depression is still there before I'd consider DBS, or even doing ECT again.

So a name. I was thinking about real people. It couldn't be someone reviled because we'd already be in the hole before we even started. For some weird reason, I keep coming back to George Washington. I'll have to take his name out for a test drive first, but cussing out George Washington occasionally seems like it could be kind of fun.

[RaqXo]

Lol Cecil!!! That cracked me up. That’s a good idea...I’ll think of a name too lol

[Hidden]

The devil!

[ZenGiraffe]

Haha! George Washington would be pretty funny. Yeah for my insurance purposes I’m usually considered recurrent. My pdoc/therapist calls it treatment-resistant in session. It was actually my pdoc who mentioned DBS to me. She has another client who participated in a study and it completely changed his life for the better. W both mine and the other patient’s consent, she gave us each other’s emails and we actually met and I learned a little more from him. The guy’s actually a doctor himself and his depression made him catatonic, and he couldn’t work anymore and after the DBS, he’s back to his normal self and working again. For me, I just don’t have any other options. I’ve been on more than 40 meds in the last 8 years and nothing really works the “way it’s supposed to” w me. I’m at a point in life that if I could stop ECT and be able to maybe go back to school and actually pursue a career, that’d be incredible. I currently can’t pass college courses because my memory doesn’t last long enough even w extensive notes. So doing the DBS is mostly in an effort to regain my ability to remember things longer than 2 days.