Downcycling

I'm not even sure that's an appropriate word for me to use, since I've only been diagnosed with depression (minor episode, recurring, with aspects of Seasonal Affective Disorder), but I notice when things are worse. The depression diagnosis doesn't explain the occasional 2-3 week periods of being upbeat (I wouldn't call them manic, I don't lose control, I just feel...normal), periods I don't even notice until I start slipping back into the depressive state.

I put off rescheduling my therapy appointment for 2 weeks because I felt good. Then a friend remarked that I must be "so excited" since I'm heading to California in a few weeks for a conference, and I realized that no, I'm not really excited at all. I'm ambivialent. I'm going, I have to go, but I'm not looking forward to it nor am I dreading it.

That made me realized that I had started to feel bad again, so I called today to make an appointment. Obviously that is not the proper way to go about things. I don't even know how to approach this with my therapist. I don't want to look like that nutjob who diagnoses herself on the internet. There's got to be a better explanation than "minor depression, recurring" for the 2-3 weeks of upbeat moods and the 8-10 weeks of being so far down that I wish I would just not wake up in the morning, that life is not worth living, that i'm a terrible wife, a terrible mother, and that the husband and the spawn deserve so much better than me. I should probably find a way to admit to my therapist that yes, I do have thoughts of death and dying, but as scary as those thoughts are, they are not as scary as the prospect of being admitted to an inpatient treatment program. I am afraid that even if I refuse being admitted should it be suggested, they will petition and force me in. I spent two days in one before, and I have never felt more hopeless and frightened in my life.

I think I may need pharmacological therapy in addition to talk therapy. The SJW is just not cutting it any longer.