“This” has been coming on for a few weeks. It’s been creeping up on me so it was no surprise this morning when I woke up and said “uncle – game over.” I have reached a tipping point and the depression is now ahead.

I sent my boss an email and told him I would not be in today – maybe the rest of the week. I called my psych nurse – which I hardly ever do – and she said she thought it could be the generic antidepressant I’m taking. She prescribed the brand name and $152 later, we shall see if she is right.

I went back to bed. When I got up, I had slept 15 of 17 hours. I could have slept more but I dragged myself out of bed. I know the longer I lay in a dark room the worse this will be. Prone is the enemy.

I am going to try to describe that it feels like when the depression becomes debilitating. First, I am tired. It is a consuming exhaustion. All my muscles, especially those in my face feel slack. The back of my eyeballs ache. Everything – my thinking especially – is thick and heavy. It feels like you are living underwater and every movement requires effort. Life feels relentless. I just want to sit here and stare off into space, or sleep.

Driving back from the pharmacy I told myself, “this is not real. This is a chemical imbalance in your brain. This will not last. This is not what your life is about. You will feel better.”

I don’t feel any better. That’s the problem with antidepressants. You have no idea how long it will take for them to kick in or if they will ever kick in – which sucks.

My dog needs a walk and I do not want to walk him. I want to go back to bed. But I have to walk him and this is a good thing. Thank God for that mutt. I know I need to get up and move. So does he.

After that, I …

A friend sent me an article this weekend about a study done by the Indiana Alcohol Research Center at Indiana University: “Taste of beer, without effect of alcohol, triggers dopamine release in the brain.”

“Using positron emission tomography, or PET, the researchers tested 49 men with two scans, one in which they tasted beer and the second in which they tasted Gatorade. They were looking for evidence of increased levels of dopamine, a brain neurotransmitter. The scans showed significantly more dopamine activity following the taste of beer than the sports drink. Moreover, the effect was significantly greater among participants with a family history of alcoholism.”

Research has already linked dopamine to drug and alcohol use but apparently this is the “first experiment in humans to show that the taste of an alcoholic drink alone, without any intoxicating effect from the alcohol, can elicit this dopamine activity in the brain’s reward centers,” said David A. Kareken, Ph.D., professor of neurology at the IU School of Medicine and the deputy director of the Indiana Alcohol Research Center.

How did they do this study: Forty-nine men tasted their preferred beer and Gatorade.  Small amounts of the beer and Gatorade were sprayed into the their mouths. The amounts were so small – 15 milliliters over 15 minutes – that the men could taste the beer without causing a detectable blood-alcohol level.

Here’s the really interesting part for us alcoholics: “The stronger effect in participants with close alcoholic relatives suggests that the release of dopamine in response to such alcohol-related cues may be an inherited risk factor for alcoholism, Dr. Kareken said.” Results of the study were published online Monday by the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, the official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

Here’s the really interesting part for for us women alcoholics: The study wasn’t done on women. Maybe the results would be the same. However, 54-years on this planet has taught me that  a woman’s brain work differently than a man’s brain.

Could you do the study again on women and perhaps using Chardonnay and hot chocolate? Or champagne and  lemonade?

I have …

I know a woman who barely escaped the World Trade Center on 9/11. She sent me a text message after the Boston Marathon bombing: “Charge your cell phone.” Seemed like an odd request. Then I recalled her telling me how in the frantic minutes and hours after the attack, survivors’ cell phones died as they frantically tried to call their friends an co-workers.

In times like these, we need – really need – to do something. Not just anything, but something that will help yourself and others. It’s just the way we are programmed, especially if you have been through some horrific event before. Some people have special prayers they say during tragedies. Others talk about it incessantly. And some people charge their cellphones. It’s an emotional security blanket.

For me, it’s batteries. AAA, AA, C, D – any battery that will illuminate a flashlight in those dark, powerless nights after a hurricane. I have been through several hurricanes. They scare the hell out of me. When my home is at the end of projected paths The Weather Channel starts drawing while the storm is still hundreds of miles away, I buy batteries.

Makes me feel better.

I got up this morning, made my coffee, massaged my old dog’s hips and got the newspaper. On the front page was a story about a team of nurses who had been specially trained to provide immediate medical care to rape victims and collect evidence. It’s a great program and desperately needed. Often the victims are taken to a special exam facility near the hospital so the victims don’t have to wait hours in an emergency room.

The special exam facility opened in 2011. It is lovely and now with specially trained nurses, victims can be assured of getting compassionate care in a comfortable, private setting. There is only one problem: the facility is located in a fairly affluent area west of the city. So, how are the victims’ loved ones supposed to get to the exam facility if they don’t have cars? How are the victims – who been given a ride to the facility by police or paramedics supposed to get home?

It’s a helluva long bus ride to get out there.

Part of my job as a newspaper reporter is to analyze crime data and I know that there are very few sexual assaults in the community near the exam facility. Most rapes occur in urban areas miles away. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to build a special exam facility near a hospital that is closer to the communities where rapes occur?

I asked this question at a meeting of a women’s group that a friend had invited me to. The meeting fell silent and the women looked at each other, surprised. They hadn’t thought of that.

What does any of this have to do with mental illness?

Well, in the aftermath of the Newtown shooting it looks like lawmakers have finally decided to free up some money to beef up and build more mental health facilities. Amen. But before we start spending and building, let’s take a really good look at those we need to help and their caregivers and loved ones. We cannot assume that everyone has a car and can drive themselves to a mental health facility.

Transportation is a really big issue for people …

I lost faith in politicians in the late 1980′s.

I was a cub reporter and my editors decided to send me to Tallahassee to cover the legislative session. I looked a little different then. Actually, I looked a lot different: thin, long blonde hair and great legs. I was shocked at how the lawmakers looked at me and invited me out for cocktails.

It felt like a bunch of middle-aged white guys had been dropped off at summer camp and had morphed into horny, junior high nimwits. They would get what they wanted by bullying, belittling and extorting whoever and whatever was in their way. I remember thinking, “Wow, these are the people running the state of Florida. ”

I was reminded of my spring at the capitol yesterday when a friend sent me a link to the Mother Jones story about Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell and his aides discussing ways to undermine McConnell’s potential opponents, including actor Ashley Judd. According to the article:

The aide who led the meeting began his presentation with a touch of glee: “I refer to [Judd] as sort of the oppo research situation where there’s a haystack of needles, just because truly, there’s such a wealth of material.” He ran through the obvious: Judd was a prominent supporter of President Barack Obama, Obamacare, abortion rights, gay marriage, and climate change action. He pointed out that she is “anti-coal.”

 But the McConnell gang explored going far beyond Judd’s politics and policy preferences. This included her mental health. The meeting leader noted:

 She’s clearly, this sounds extreme, but she is emotionally unbalanced. I mean it’s been documented. Jesse can go in chapter and verse from her autobiography about, you know, she’s suffered some suicidal tendencies. She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the ’90s.

In her 2011 memoirs, All That Is Bitter & Sweet, Judd discusses her depression, her thoughts of suicide as a sixth grader and her stay in a rehab center for depression. There is a lot of laughing by the aides, who go on to poke fun at her thoughts …

Seems like every state has some kind of bill pending that would limit or prohibit ownership of a firearm by a person who has a mental illness.

I looked at Florida’s bill last night and did a Homer Simpson “D’oh” after reading it. You know legislation is messed up when it contains phrases like, “as provided in sub-sub-subparagraph b.(II).” What?

The Florida Senate Criminal Justice Committee unanimously approved the NRA-backed measure on Monday. I expect it will move up the food chain fairly quickly and by summer, it will be law.

As someone who has depression, hypomania, alcoholism, a couple of suicide attempts and 12 years of sitting in courtrooms covering humanity’s inhumanity as a reporter for the local newspaper, I would like to weigh in on this bill; It is a subterfuge deliberately created with so many bureaucratic obstacles and constitutional pitfalls that it is destined to fail even if it passes.

The bill (HB 1355) would expand the definition of commitment to a mental institution to include those who voluntarily agree to outpatient or inpatient treatment and would prohibit them from buying guns, applying for or keeping a concealed weapons permit.

Sounds like an admirable thing to do. While the current focus of such laws is to protect us from homicidal, mentally ill “lunatics” (a Wayne LaPierre word – not mine), it will more likely save more lives by preventing suicide, which is far more common among people with mental illnesses than homicide.

The bill requires a “preventative assessment” that enables the state to suspend a person’s right to purchase or possess a gun or ammunition and obtain a concealed weapons permit for at least 90 days after a physician determines they are a threat to themselves or others.

Hurdle #1: The bill requires a physician to notify the Florida Department of Law Enforcement within 24 hours of such a finding. Do you have any idea how many suicidal people end up in emergency rooms having their stomachs pumped after botched suicide attempts? Then there are self-inflicted gunshot wound and wrist slashings.

What about alcohol poisoning and unintended overdoses? These people are …

I started drinking and drugging when I was 14-years-old. I eased into it. I didn’t drink or use drugs everyday and it would take decades before I was. But it definitely started when I was 14. I was a freshman and I did it more to impress the 16-year-old junior I had a crush on that because I wanted to get high.

But as the years went by, I realized that despite the horrific hangovers and drama that followed my drinking bouts – many of them that ended in a blackout – I discovered that for a little while – maybe just a few hours – drinking made me feel good. I did not know that alcohol was a depressant and was making my depression and mania worse. All I knew was that a drink or a joint took away the darkness for awhile.

That is how self-medicating begins. And it will always – ALWAYS – end badly. It did for me.

I am telling you this because we need to screen our youth – all of them – for mental illness and we need to do it in school. Why? Because maybe it would have helped a kid like me. Back in the 1970′s we didn’t know a lot about mental illness, especially in kids. We do now. And we are ignoring the greatest asset we have – teachers – in helping our kids.