It's been over two weeks since I had my Magnetic Resonance-guided Focused Ultrasound Surgery (MRgFUS) for Treatment Resistant Depression. My hair is growing back and I have settled into a similar routine as I had before the surgery. I don't do very much since the lethargy, lack of motivation and fatigue make it difficult to take on any but the most simple of tasks.
However, I am sitting around waiting for something to change. Every day I compare myself to the day before and try to notice anything that might indicate that the surgery is having an effect on me. Thus far, I haven't noticed any change, but that is to be expected. As I have mentioned in previous blog posts, it can take anywhere from three months to a year to see a change from this surgery. That's a lot of waiting.
My psychiatrist, my therapist and my wife have all said that I shouldn't spend my time just waiting for something to happen. Doing so will only deepen my depression and make it more difficult if/when any change does occur. They have said that I should do something to occupy myself and take my mind off of the waiting. That is probably good advice, but deciding what I should do is the problem. If I was able to do something that would help with my depression, I would have done that ages ago. Everything appears to be problematic.
My psychiatrist and wife suggested exercising and/or going for a walk. Unfortunately, I have tried both of these and they haven't helped me. Whenever I have tried exercising to deal with my depression, I end up no further ahead and just miserable from the whole experience because I hate exercising. I also tried going for walks twice a day every day for two years and that didn't help my frame of mind at all. Thus, I am hesitant to try and fight through the lethargy, lack of motivation and fatigue to do something that I have already experienced did not help me.
My psychiatrist also suggested that I could get back into writing code. However, I was never really a developer and don't really have much experience writing code. In addition, the mental energy that is required to do something like that is more than I have available to me right now.
My therapist suggested that I find something that I have an interest in and try to learn as much as possible about that topic. Over the past number of years I have become very interested in economics and have very strong opinions on the topic, but I have no formal training in economics beyond a first year course in microeconomics that I took as an undergrad. That is maybe an area that I could look into. Reading books on economics will be difficult for me as reading has become a challenge as my depression has worsened. I just don't have the mental energy any more to read anything of any depth. However, there are free online courses in economics available. MIT has quite a number of free online economics courses available. They include suggested readings, exams and assignments. I don't think that I can handle the readings and assignments, but I certainly could get something out of watching the lectures. Also, there is a list of free online economics courses available. Most of these are simply videos of lectures, and I think that I could handle that.
Thus, I think that I am going to start watching economics lectures and see what I can learn from them. It should hopefully take my mind off of the waiting for something good to happen. Otherwise, it is going to be a long year of waiting if nothing improves.
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