Marci:
My perception is that you seem to be doing fairly well with your recovery but are holding back a bit due to some vague feeling that you aren't 'whole' as yet. That is not uncommon. You had major brain surgery. That is serious as well as invasive and requires some adjustment in our way of thinking, afterward. Usually, even without any post-op complications, our self-image is skewed. For some, they view themselves as near-invalids, 'damaged goods', as it were, and act that way even when their recovery is actually quite good. For others, they dwell on their every deficiency, real or imagined, small or large, and sometimes become sad and depressed, even when they're
physically doing pretty well. Some just can't get past the fact that they aren't completely the same as before their surgery and feel deprived and depressed, when they don't need to be. These are all parts of the same basic template I've noticed from the thousands of posts I've read here over the past 15 months. I've written a few, too.
Granted, I had a good recovery. However, I embraced it and ran with it so I can't relate in a totally empathetic way but I do recognize the manifestations of the various post-op despondencies some AN patients endure, sometimes unnecessarily. Of course there are a variety of factors that can negatively affect the psyche of someone recovering from AN surgery, including other, non-AN-related physical problems, too much pressure or not enough help and sympathy from a spouse and children or even a distorted self-image that sees a different person in the mirror and doesn't like what they see. Remember, I'm characterizing post-op AN patients with few or no real complications, such as facial paralysis and all the other problems that condition can bring. Those folks have their own set of self-esteem issues but often recover at a better pace and with fewer psychological issues that those who really have very minor or temporary post-op problems. Go figure.
I'm certainly not a psychiatrist or any kind of councilor, just another AN post-op patient, but I rather doubt you're in a mental depression, Marci. A bit discouraged and wary of testing your physical abilities that relate to your AN and the surgery, no doubt, but no more than that. However, I'll await the comments of the therapist you're seeing on Tuesday, who actually has some credibility with analyzing these things. Meanwhile, I wish you all good things and a contunued solid recovery.
Jim 
