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Can Blogging Help Depression?

BY: Talia Mana
Words: 1816

According to new blogger Therese Borchard the answer is yes. Therese blogs about her journey to recovery, her family, her writing and her faith.

Therese is a best-selling author who lives with her husband, Eric, and their two "spirited" preschoolers in Annapolis, Maryland, where she runs, meditates, and sleeps eight hours a night to stay sane. She has a syndicated column called "Our Turn" that is distributed to diocesan newspapers throughout the US. I took the opportunity to interview Therese about depression and anxiety, her writing, motherhood and the life she is building for herself.

Why did you start blogging?
I’ve been recording my experiences with depression in a journal and in articles here and there. Last October Beliefnet asked me to try a blog for two weeks to see if readers were receptive to it. They were! So right before Christmas they launched “Beyond Blue.”

When did your depression start?
I think I arrived in this world depressed. A psychic I paid to tell me why I was depressed said it was because my mom used Pitocin in an induced labor with me and my twin sister.

I was anxious and depressed as an adolescent, but it manifested in obsessive-compulsive behaviour, like extreme religiosity, and perfectionism. It was when I quit drinking, when I was 18, that I began to deal with it through therapy.

My most recent episode began shortly after I stopped breastfeeding my daughter. I believe that the hormonal change (plus I developed a tumor in the pituitary gland) contributed to fragile biochemistry. It took a year and a half and a hell of a lot of work (not to mention six doctors and 23 medication combinations) to get me well again.

What do you think are the biggest myths about depression?
That if people wanted to get well or feel better that they could. That they are wimps who can’t master their thoughts and control their emotions. That they are stuck in traumatic childhoods and simply can’t deal with life’s hard knocks.

What has been the single biggest help in your recovery?
These are great questions! Right as I read the question, I read the next one, and the answer came to me: blogging. I think putting my experience out there and hearing feedback has given me a purpose. Many of the positive psychologists out there talk about finding a mission. For me it’s educating the world on mental illness. And the blog has been a medium to do that.

I would say an equally important factor in my recovery is finding the right doctor and getting on the right meds, too.

Oh, and cognitive-behavioral therapy, you know, identifying distorted thoughts and untwisting them.

How does depression affect being a parent?
BIG TIME. I wish it didn’t. I think that’s the one thing that made me fight and fight and fight. I couldn’t give up because I had these two little people to care for. I thought for a long time I should just fade out (kill myself) and let a better-equipped mother raise them. But my doctor said something that stuck. “They only have one mother.” And also, if I commit suicide, the chances of them committing suicide were doubled.

I had no option but to get well. And to do it fast, because I hated crying and shaking around them. David, my 5 year old son, put me in “jail” one time for crying so much. That broke my heart.

Are you an emotional or stress eater?

I don’t think I do anything in moderation. So yes. I’ve had my eating basically under control since college days. I never skip a meal. I try to eat protein at each meal. I try not to gorge on sweets (that’s my weakness).

I definitely notice the effects of my diet on my mood, so it’s not just about counting calories. By what I put into my mouth I can control my moods to some extent.

Not that it keeps me eating well all the time.

Come on. I’m human. And since my libido sucks right now, I have to eat chocolate.

You mention addiction in your blog. How did you overcome alcohol addiction?
I believe I was addicted to alcohol. I say “believe” because I can’t say for sure. It’s just that bad things happened when I drank, even though it was only for three years in high school. I come from an alcoholic family and have been pretty bruised by alcoholic wounds. I wanted to stop the cycle and do something about it before I became an alcoholic not in control of my life.

Did you find it easy to learn to meditate or pray and how has it helped your recovery?
I really want to answer this question in this way: I love meditating and it is so easy and has transformed my life. The real story: I suck at it. I really don’t like it at all. I try and try and try to just focus on the good, and God, and all my blessings. I say prayers while I run and work out at the gym. I’m always repeating mantras (especially when I’m depressed) like “Jesus, be with me!”

I guess I would distinguish prayer from meditation in this way: When I’m talking directly to God or his mom or one of the saints, I call that prayer. When I’m sensing the divine, and trying to center on goodness in general, that’s meditation.

You prayed with Mother Theresa? What was that like?
I spent a week in Calcutta and worked with the Sisters of Charity. I stood beside Mother Teresa at this Christmas party for the orphan kids. She handed me a present and I gave it to the kid. That is quite a memory.

Praying was nice, too, but (like I said above), praying is difficult for me. Even with Mother Teresa.

Tell us about your writing
Therese J. Borchard is the editor (with Michael Leach) of the best-selling I Like Being Catholic, I Like Being Married, and I Love Being a Mom. After her Prozac pooped out, she didn't like much of anything, so she compiled The Imperfect Mom: Candid Confessions of Mothers Living in the Real World.

I’ve written some books and compiled others. The ones I edited (or compiled) include both original essays and quotes that I commissioned (or did so with my co-editor Mike Leach) and those essays for which I sought permission (like the famous people who don’t talk to dweebs like me.)

I Like Being Catholic spent a few months on the Publishers Weekly bestsellers list and sold like hotcakes in places like Dayton, Ohio, where all my mom’s Catholics friends live.

What mistakes do people make when dealing with depression?
I think some people make the mistake of not seeking treatment through medication because they feel as though they should be able to think themselves to better health, to control their thoughts. I also think people make a mistake when they expect their medication to do all the work for them.

You have to work every angle to get well: medication, cognitive-behavioral therapy, personal therapy, and any other method that helps (light treatment, meditation and prayer, gratitude journals, service work, support groups, exercise, diet changes, and so on).

What’s the best advice anyone has ever given you about depression?
That’s a great question! It’s got to be this . . . “put the spoon away.” But that takes a little explaining. For a long time, I thought that I should be able to change my brain with my thoughts, because I had read all sorts of studies that the brain is plastic and therefore can change with thoughts and experiences. I tried all kinds of alternative medicine—from acupuncture to Chinese herbs to wearing metals to homeopathic remedies to sacral-cranium message. I continued to cry and shake.

One day my husband, Eric, said to me that when he was in the fourth grade he watched a documentary on Uri Geller, the world’s most famous paranormalist who could bend a spoon with his thoughts. He rushed back from school for two weeks, sat down at the kitchen table and tried it. Finally he put the spoon back in the drawer and went to play with his friends. When I continued to shake and cry for months, and tell myself that I could make it go away, Eric finally told me to put the spoon away.

What’s up with the meds?
Ah yeah. Lots of meds. Part of it is, in my view, the infancy of medicine and science right now. I think no one really knows exactly how these drugs work. I mean we have the neurotransmitter models and all that . . . but treatment today is still so hit or miss. I think we’ll get to the point, with all the neurological studies and brain imaging scans, of more targeted treatment. God, I may even walk out of a drug store one day with a home depression test which tells me exactly what drug and how much I need. Until then, I think it’s best to work with really good doctors. And conservative ones that give one drug two months before switching you. I felt sort of like a human guinea pig with doctor number two. He tried 14 different medications in four months. It’s no wonder I ended up in the hospital. And they were heavy duty antipsychotics that I don’t think I should have been on to begin with. But shame on me for not doing better research. By the time I got to doctor number six, I knew I wasn’t going to just take anything. I asked the right questions. And thankfully she was much more informed and much more intuitive about my needs.

Some people talk about how they are glad they have their mental illness and talk about how the positive aspects of dealing with depression. What’s your take on it?
Umm. I think about that question a lot. And I really shouldn’t. Because I can’t change it. On my bad days I sure as hell wish I didn’t have it. I recently spent a year and a half cursing God out and asking him what he was thinking the day he designed my brain. But on my good days, my really good days when I am so grateful for everything around me, I think to myself “it’s because you’ve been to the other side.” One of the best lines in The Prophet is “the deeper your sorrow the greater your joy.” I think that’s true. But I still would probably trade it for a happy brain in a New York minute.