Late March Monte Report

Back in 2003, when I first got out of the hospital, I had my own private support group -- we called it Team Monte -- and at first we met every week (again: my never-ending thanks to those who participated!). From weekly Team Monte meetings, where my major woes were discussed and trouble-shooted, it has now come down to brief, every-other-month updates on The Monte Report that basically keep saying the same thing: "Things are going great!" What a change! Who'da thunk?

Soon after my January update, I once more resumed a wheat-free diet. Whether I have "Celiac Disease" or "Gluten Sensitivity" or something else altogether is still unclear. Evidence suggests, however, that my body is better off when I minimize my wheat consumption. And it turns out that the medical community HAS found a link between untreated, asymptomatic Celiac Disease and mental health problems. My primary care physician was not surprised in the least when I reported that further (and significant) improvement in my mental health coincided with the elimination of wheat from my diet. My psychiatrist also says that there is a known connection between successful treatment of physical "inflammatory" diseases (like Celiac Disease) and the subsequent relief of psychiatric symptoms. So, I am happily avoiding wheat, and my mood continues to remain stable and positive.

One activity that I have been investing more and more time in over the past year is journaling. (Many of you know that I've got most of a lifetime's worth of journaling under my belt, but the volume of my writing fluctuates greatly from year to year.) I've been exploring my mental state a lot in my journal lately. For instance, a couple weeks ago I experienced what used to be a very typical "trigger" situation for me: the circumstances (timing, activity, people involved etc) was essentially identical to many, many previous situations that triggered my depression. But this time, I came out of it completely unscathed. In this example, the trigger was the "end" of an especially fun experience. What typically would happen is an excessive "let down" feeling afterward -- not a "suicidal depression", but a significantly "down" feeling that is not a productive response to having had a great experience. This time, however, I continued to feel great about the experience well after it was over. In the ensuing days I wrote extensively about it in my journal. The "conclusion" I came to was that the difference now is that after the "great" experience was over I returned to my "normal" life, which also happens to be "great" right now. In the past, I think what I "wanted" was for the feelings associated with the good experience to continue indefinitely because the alternative (my "real" life) was not associated with similar feelings. But now my "real" life IS associated with good feelings. I guess that's not really rocket science, but it was still a fantastic thought process for me.

Okay, that's it for now. I'll report back in a couple months!