Depression on the Run...
My lack of current posts is both a good and a bad thing.
The good part is that, for the first half of my month's absence, I've been too busy to post. Maybe it's the medication kicking in. Maybe I've just been on a roll. It's probably somewhere between the two.
Last half month was not so good. Not too bad either, though, just not good. Got sick... the whole family did, and that's always a drag. I was cooped up in the house for two days and started going stir crazy... which is a good sign, actually. Means I'm itching to get moving again. Before that I feel like I just got derailed. That happens to me a lot. Things don't go well, things don't get done, and soon it all snowballs and I feel like my life is spinning out of control. So I become an ostrich. I don't do anything because I don't know what to do. I could relate it to a predator/prey situation too. One reason prey flock together is that so when a predator strikes, they all run in different directions. The predator gets confused and ends up chasing none of them. Sometime I feel like the predator, and my goals and dispersing like clever prey.
The first thing I've had to teach myself about getting derailed is getting myself back on track. Picking one target and just running with it. I was able to do that today, and already feel much better. I also feel that the two weeks before I may have been a little too successful, if that's such a thing. I got so much done so quickly I couldn't keep up with myself... I lost focus. And then I did nothing. And then the snowball gathered. But today I was able to reverse my internal inertia. And it wasn't all that hard once I made up my mind to do it.
It's also been what I call a working depression. I've worked through it. Besides the illness, I've kept myself going to one degree or another, just at a muted pace. That's a two edged sword. Good because I don't stop. Bad because I don't always see I'm just pushing through what I should be dealing with.
I feel optimistic about the depression of late for two reasons. First of all, I've learned to pick myself and kick the dirt off pretty well now. I don't flounder in depression, lost and scared. I know the way out now, which I didn't before. So they aren't as scary anymore. Secondly, because now I can focus on the next phase of recovery: making the non-depressed states last longer. I've had to spend all my energies up until now focusing on coming out of depressions I've not had any time to think about how to sustain a non-depressive mood. It is a new world now... and I relish it.
Thursday, December 11, 2003
Thursday, November 06, 2003
Black Mood....
Last two days have been tumultuous ones indeed. I'd been without medication for nearly month, trying to pin down my doctor who seemingly went MIA. Finally got a session with him yesterday and am back to popping pills. I really hate that. I hate popping pills to feel better. But... there is much in this world I hate yet must do anyway.
Maybe what I really hate is lack of control. I've had to come to terms with the fact that my own mind is not mine. It does not fully belong to me. I've had to learn I cannot trust everything I think and feel. I have to deny, sometimes, what feels like reality to me. The last two days have been particular examples of that. That paranoia began to set in again. It had been a month without pills and no paranoia... I quietly began hoping I had bested that part of myself. Other relapses had occurred, irritability, dark moods, but the paranoia had not yet surfaced.
The paranoia is a tough one to beat. My heart picks up the beat, adrenaline kicks in. The phone rang yesterday and I jumped out of my chair, terrified of who might be on the other line. It was my best friend. That calmed me for a moment. I tried engaging as many people as possible. Isolation makes the fear grow. I felt the world closing in around me like I've not felt for some time. I refused to believe it, though. I refused to believe the world was getting smaller, or that I was growing in importance to it. A doctor told me once that believing everyone is out to get you is just another way of saying you believe you're the center of the world.
I did not believe any of what I felt the last two days. I knew it was my mind, not me. I knew things weren't nearly so bad as they seemed. But they were, in my head. It gave me a splitting headache, the fear gave me nausea. Thoughts of suicide have gone underground in my head. I watch out for them. I used to get them when I felt hurt. I won't allow that anymore... I love life. Now it comes in indirect forms... being so tired I wish I could get into an accident so everyone would have to take care of me. I don't allow that thinking. I deflect it. I abhor it. It is such a relief to me that I am now in no danger of acting on that fleeting feeling. It is such a relief to me that I know can protect myself from myself, and with little effort. It was the first victory in my battle against depression. It may have my head at times, but I control my body. I control my actions. It doesn't.
But that there is a fight at all distresses me. The black moods violate me. They violate who I am. They slander me. And they are not me. A flawed part, yes. A chemical disorder, maybe. But they do not make the whole of me, or who I am, or will become.
The black mood comes, and sometimes there is nothing I can do to stop the dark thoughts they bring. But I whether them like a storm. I can't stop the hurricaine, but I can hide inside where it is safe, until it passes.
This morning it passed. And the sun shines again.
Last two days have been tumultuous ones indeed. I'd been without medication for nearly month, trying to pin down my doctor who seemingly went MIA. Finally got a session with him yesterday and am back to popping pills. I really hate that. I hate popping pills to feel better. But... there is much in this world I hate yet must do anyway.
Maybe what I really hate is lack of control. I've had to come to terms with the fact that my own mind is not mine. It does not fully belong to me. I've had to learn I cannot trust everything I think and feel. I have to deny, sometimes, what feels like reality to me. The last two days have been particular examples of that. That paranoia began to set in again. It had been a month without pills and no paranoia... I quietly began hoping I had bested that part of myself. Other relapses had occurred, irritability, dark moods, but the paranoia had not yet surfaced.
The paranoia is a tough one to beat. My heart picks up the beat, adrenaline kicks in. The phone rang yesterday and I jumped out of my chair, terrified of who might be on the other line. It was my best friend. That calmed me for a moment. I tried engaging as many people as possible. Isolation makes the fear grow. I felt the world closing in around me like I've not felt for some time. I refused to believe it, though. I refused to believe the world was getting smaller, or that I was growing in importance to it. A doctor told me once that believing everyone is out to get you is just another way of saying you believe you're the center of the world.
I did not believe any of what I felt the last two days. I knew it was my mind, not me. I knew things weren't nearly so bad as they seemed. But they were, in my head. It gave me a splitting headache, the fear gave me nausea. Thoughts of suicide have gone underground in my head. I watch out for them. I used to get them when I felt hurt. I won't allow that anymore... I love life. Now it comes in indirect forms... being so tired I wish I could get into an accident so everyone would have to take care of me. I don't allow that thinking. I deflect it. I abhor it. It is such a relief to me that I am now in no danger of acting on that fleeting feeling. It is such a relief to me that I know can protect myself from myself, and with little effort. It was the first victory in my battle against depression. It may have my head at times, but I control my body. I control my actions. It doesn't.
But that there is a fight at all distresses me. The black moods violate me. They violate who I am. They slander me. And they are not me. A flawed part, yes. A chemical disorder, maybe. But they do not make the whole of me, or who I am, or will become.
The black mood comes, and sometimes there is nothing I can do to stop the dark thoughts they bring. But I whether them like a storm. I can't stop the hurricaine, but I can hide inside where it is safe, until it passes.
This morning it passed. And the sun shines again.
Tuesday, November 04, 2003
A Beginning...
A few years ago I was diagnosed as having major depression. It did not come as much of a surprise to me or my family, as I'd always had trouble shaking the "black moods", as my mother would call them. It took a lot for me to begin to deal with it, though I always knew to an extent that something was not right. But underneath the depression that sat at the surface was an optimism about myself that I had always known, even if others did not.
It was this optimism that for years kept me from dealing with the depression.
It was also this optimism that has kept me alive and in the fight against depression. It is also this optimism that I now explore as I wage a daily war against my own mind to get above water and stay there. With every victory I attain in this battle, I learn something new about myself. Something that was always there. Always a part of me.
Just hidden under the blanket of depression.
A few years ago I was diagnosed as having major depression. It did not come as much of a surprise to me or my family, as I'd always had trouble shaking the "black moods", as my mother would call them. It took a lot for me to begin to deal with it, though I always knew to an extent that something was not right. But underneath the depression that sat at the surface was an optimism about myself that I had always known, even if others did not.
It was this optimism that for years kept me from dealing with the depression.
It was also this optimism that has kept me alive and in the fight against depression. It is also this optimism that I now explore as I wage a daily war against my own mind to get above water and stay there. With every victory I attain in this battle, I learn something new about myself. Something that was always there. Always a part of me.
Just hidden under the blanket of depression.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)