Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Taking a Break
I've been thinking a lot...I need to take a break from keeping this blog. I could share what I'm going through ad infinitum, but that wasn't really what I wanted with this project. Instead, I wanted to give ideas for getting through this. But at this point...nothing I've done has helped ME get through it, so I feel entirely unqualified in trying to help anyone else get through it. All the strategies seem to stop working with a few weeks, and while I'm on meds now, and they've cut the worst out, all that means in practice is that I'm more stable. I'm less likely to break down and cry, I'm less likely to fall apart randomly, my brain isn't chugging on anxiety nearly as much, and I'm less likely to have suicidal thoughts. What it DOESN'T mean is that I feel any more optimistic about my outlook. I still feel like nothing I do really matters worth a damn. And while I feel that way, I can't think of anything that I might have to say to others that'll be of much use. Thanks for your help, ya'll, and I wish you best of luck with your own struggles!
Monday, May 28, 2012
Medication
I don't really know what to say today, but I felt that, given the events of the past week or two, I really should.
Three weeks ago, still not feeling better, I realized that something had to change, and that I couldn't continue as I was without help. This was followed up soon after by my therapist saying that I had crossed a line and really should be on meds. I was really busy earlier in May, but I finally got around to making the appointment two weeks ago, and last Monday I went to a shrink. I've never been to a psychiatrist before, but it was an interesting experience - noticeably different than going to a psychologist. It was much more like an interview with a doctor - she asked a lot of questions about my past psychological issues, such as whether or not I'd ever had an eating disorder, what was my family history of psych stuff. She also pretty much only listened, whereas my therapist and I have more like a conversation (some of this is different approaches, though). Anyway, when all was said and done, she felt I was a good candidate for medication, and prescribed me Wellbutrin (well, the generic). She also mentioned that it can make people feel "jittery" and so she also prescribed me some Lorazepam, which is an anti-anxiety medication.
I read about both on wikipedia and ended up feeling pretty comfortable. This was really, really hard for me over all - I would never have decided to go the medication route if I hadn't reached the point that I simply felt I couldn't manage any more without help. And I think that's what made this most recent week so hard. I really needed something to make a noticeable difference immediately. This hasn't happened AT ALL. In fact, this week has been one of the worst I've had since the depression really kicked in last January. I've spent a lot of time thinking about EVERYTHING, and I managed to channel some of that time in to thinking about WHY this week has sucked, and I think it's because, first, I'd really gotten my hopes up that the meds would help; and second, the tendency of the wellbutrin to enhance "jitters" and anxiety has made me feel worse - ie, that I haven't actually felt more DEPRESSED this week, but rather I've felt much more ANXIOUS, and since my anxiety tends to express itself in my brain simply not shutting off, and my going round and round and round about issues, I've just done that even worse than normal - and since the things I currently go around and around about are things that upset me a lot, I've felt more depressed.
Vicious cycle.
The week stunk on ice. Last night, I finally decided to try the lorazepam, because I couldn't face another night of crying myself to sleep. It didn't seem to do anything at all, either.
So all in all, my early exposure to medicines is leaving me feeling really defeated. The wellbutrin has done virtually nothing that I can tell, except given me headaches and sporadic dizziness. The lorazepam seems to have done even less than that.
Yet, in a strange way, since Saturday, it's had a funny different effect too. It's like it's finally, finally dawning on me fully that there is no help coming. No one is going to rescue me, nothing is going to change unless I change it. This feels awful - if I felt like I could do this alone, I wouldn't have been depressed in the first place. Yet, clearly, that has to change, and on Saturday, and again this afternoon (but not yesterday, and not this morning, and not any other day in recent memory...) and I'm actually starting to finally have moments where I feel like I can overcome this crap.
Maybe that's the wellbutrin. Maybe it's not. I guess I'll just have to see over time.
Three weeks ago, still not feeling better, I realized that something had to change, and that I couldn't continue as I was without help. This was followed up soon after by my therapist saying that I had crossed a line and really should be on meds. I was really busy earlier in May, but I finally got around to making the appointment two weeks ago, and last Monday I went to a shrink. I've never been to a psychiatrist before, but it was an interesting experience - noticeably different than going to a psychologist. It was much more like an interview with a doctor - she asked a lot of questions about my past psychological issues, such as whether or not I'd ever had an eating disorder, what was my family history of psych stuff. She also pretty much only listened, whereas my therapist and I have more like a conversation (some of this is different approaches, though). Anyway, when all was said and done, she felt I was a good candidate for medication, and prescribed me Wellbutrin (well, the generic). She also mentioned that it can make people feel "jittery" and so she also prescribed me some Lorazepam, which is an anti-anxiety medication.
I read about both on wikipedia and ended up feeling pretty comfortable. This was really, really hard for me over all - I would never have decided to go the medication route if I hadn't reached the point that I simply felt I couldn't manage any more without help. And I think that's what made this most recent week so hard. I really needed something to make a noticeable difference immediately. This hasn't happened AT ALL. In fact, this week has been one of the worst I've had since the depression really kicked in last January. I've spent a lot of time thinking about EVERYTHING, and I managed to channel some of that time in to thinking about WHY this week has sucked, and I think it's because, first, I'd really gotten my hopes up that the meds would help; and second, the tendency of the wellbutrin to enhance "jitters" and anxiety has made me feel worse - ie, that I haven't actually felt more DEPRESSED this week, but rather I've felt much more ANXIOUS, and since my anxiety tends to express itself in my brain simply not shutting off, and my going round and round and round about issues, I've just done that even worse than normal - and since the things I currently go around and around about are things that upset me a lot, I've felt more depressed.
Vicious cycle.
The week stunk on ice. Last night, I finally decided to try the lorazepam, because I couldn't face another night of crying myself to sleep. It didn't seem to do anything at all, either.
So all in all, my early exposure to medicines is leaving me feeling really defeated. The wellbutrin has done virtually nothing that I can tell, except given me headaches and sporadic dizziness. The lorazepam seems to have done even less than that.
Yet, in a strange way, since Saturday, it's had a funny different effect too. It's like it's finally, finally dawning on me fully that there is no help coming. No one is going to rescue me, nothing is going to change unless I change it. This feels awful - if I felt like I could do this alone, I wouldn't have been depressed in the first place. Yet, clearly, that has to change, and on Saturday, and again this afternoon (but not yesterday, and not this morning, and not any other day in recent memory...) and I'm actually starting to finally have moments where I feel like I can overcome this crap.
Maybe that's the wellbutrin. Maybe it's not. I guess I'll just have to see over time.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Holding On and Letting Go
This is my Facebook status right now:
I've finally come to understand that things are just things, and that I don't need them. That when all is said and done, I will be the sum of my experiences and the people I've loved and who have loved me, not of what I have accumulated.
Letting go has always been hard for me, and it's been a gradual process. My mother is borderline in to being a hoarder. She always wants more, and never seems to have enough. It doesn't matter how many projects she has the yarn for already, she always wants to buy more yarn for the new, shiny project in the newest issue of Vogue Knitting, ignoring all the many bins she already has. When that newest love affair doesn't end up getting made, she'll still buy more the next time. Or she'll buy all of the yarn for six projects that it'd take her a year to make, and maybe make one of them before getting distracted by something. And of course, when something is on sale, if you want it, it's okay. That's the mindset that I was raised with.
This got added to my own personality, a tendency towards collecting and trying to be complete and thorough and have ALL THE THINGS. When I was in high school, this was briefly a seriously problem, as it was the age of the Collectible Card Game, and I wanted to play the Star Trek CCG. But more than that, the cards were shiny, and I wanted ALL of them. I spent hundreds of dollars and all my allowance, and while I did end up with a zillion cards, I had no one to play the card with, and I still wasn't quite able to get all of them, though I got close. I came to recognize that this was not sustainable in the long term, and than my desire to collect and be complete was an issue. When I decided to play Magic: The Gathering with my friends, I did so under the express condition that I would NOT try to collect everything - a resolution which I kept. This was a useful lesson for me: I still wanted to collect, but I was able to control it. Definitely a win.
Still, throughout my life, this has come up over and over again. Once I get in to something, I have the bad habit of starting to think of it more as a collection and less as a dynamic reflection of my interests. When I got very into reading manga, it wasn't enough to just buy the manga that interested me and keep the manga I wanted, I started to look at it as a collection, to think, "I should get this because it will fit in" not because I particularly wanted to read it, to keep volumes even if I didn't particularly like them because it was part of the collection as a whole, and to keep buying series that I wasn't enjoying very much because I'd already collected the first 5 volumes, and I'd spent the money, might as well see it through.
These habits started to break 6 years ago when I broke up with my fiancee. We had excellent collections of video games and roleplaying game books that we'd built together, using our joint finances. The battles that resulted when we considered how to divide these things led me to be much less attached to things in general. Yet the manga experience happened AFTER this, so clearly I wasn't "cured." I moved 8 times in 5 years, and every time I would go through my books and try to reduce the number I had to move, but I still had about 50 boxes when all was said and done, and it was so hard to figure out how to reduce them.
The bed bugs were the next breaking point. In March, 2009, my apartment got bed bugs, and when that happens, you have to vacuum EVERYTHING in your apartment, especially around the infected areas, crate it up, and let the apartment get treated. Since all of my books were in my bedroom, a primary infected area, every single book had to be individually vacuumed on each side and on the front and back. It's amazing what you realize you don't need when you have to go to so much work. The most painful part was that, because of the infestation, I couldn't risk donating the books anywhere. It killed me to just throw them away (well, recycle them) but I did it because there just wasn't any choice, I had to pack up everything I owned in 4 days in preparation for the exterminator, and it all had to be vacuumed before packing, and so I just made the cuts.
I've been getting steadily "better" about cutting out the nonsense ever since. I moved out of the bed bug apartment in October, 2009, and have lived in the same apartment since then, and every 6 months or so I've gone through everything and gotten rid of more. I would always stop when I felt like I couldn't get rid of more...but that always left a lot.
In my last post, I mentioned "letting it go" as one of my strategies for trying to get through days when I was down. One of the side effects of this I didn't expect. Some days, it helps with my depression. Some days, it doesn't, but EVERY day, it has left me nearly desperate to go through my belongings and find more that I don't need. It's amazing how good it feels to let go of all of this stuff that I've managed to accumulate. After all of the prior reductions, throwing away hundreds of books during the bed bugs, all the previous 6 month sort throughs, I've been able to reduce the books by almost another third. It's incredibly liberating. I think it's the kind of evaluation that would do a lot of people good. For books, the process for me is pretty simple:
1. Have I read this in how ever many years that I've owned it? Do I still want to?
2. Will I ever read it again?
3. Do I have a particular sentimental attachment to this book? (ie, was it my favorite book when I was six?)
Those are the only questions that matter. If I've been carting a book around for 10 years without reading it, why am I bothering? Sure, it might look interesting, but it's not like I haven't been reading OTHER books - I'm CONSTANTLY reading, which means that I AM reading what I want to read. If there's a book that hasn't been read, and that I don't have strong feelings about reading it (ie, I don't look at it and think, oh wow, I really wanted to read this!) then why do I still have it? Some books have guilt attached to them - it was a gift! I spent so much money on it! I really thought I wanted to read it! I've had it since I was a kid! But now, I've decided...none of this matters. If I haven't read it, if I don't intend to read it, and if I have no special sentimental reason to keep it...then I'm not going to keep it. I bet, in a year, I won't even remember which books I got rid of. And if I end up regretting one or two of my choices, then so be it - I can always replace one or two books, and the difference in the amount of clutter in my life will be epic. Furthermore, whenever possible I can replace them with digital copies, which will still mean I'm no longer moving crates and crates of books around.
For other types of items, I'm taking a pretty similar approach.
1. What is the function of this thing?
2. Do I ever use it for that function?
3. Do I still like it? (in the cases of, for example, decorative items)
4. And, of course...do I have a sentimental attachment to the item in question?
And again, if the answer is no, I'm going to just take it all to Goodwill. This isn't always easy. 5 years ago I got it in my head that it would be fun to collect shot glasses every where I travel. Now, I've got probably over a hundred shot glasses, and have spent a lot of money, and most of them sit in storage. Clearly, I don't need all of these damn shot glasses. It was fun while I collected them...but that doesn't mean I still need to. On the flip side, it doesn't mean I have to get rid of every single one - I can strike a happy medium between keeping ones that I like and am attached to and ditching the rest. The same objections come up - this was a gift! I spent a lot of money on this! This was bought by me or for me from XYZ and I could never replace it! I've had this since I was six! Yet, not everything that I've had a long time ACTUALLY has sentimental significance, and many other things that once had sentimental significance, I've forgotten the reasons, and all in all...there is just so much stuff, and what is having it all getting me?
I'm not saying one ditches everything. I've been collecting art since 2002. I've built my art collection very carefully, and every single piece I bought because I loved it, not because I thought "I really should buy a piece by this artist" or "this would fit with my other collected pieces." Almost all of my art is up on my (now almost full) walls...and I've been looking at it on my walls every day and thinking, "I still want all of these." So I will keep them all. And I'm still going to have over a thousand books when all is said and done (which tells you a lot about just how many I started with...). It's not about cutting all ties...it's about making sure that what I own, I own for a reason, and that things mean something to me, that I'm not just carting it all around thoughtlessly because that's what I've always done.
I haven't figured out so much about my life, I haven't figured out how not to be depressed or how to get over my break up or how to not be pessimistic about my chances of getting in to graduate school or any of that jazz...but I can start to liberate myself from the shackles I've made myself, the ways I've cluttered my life and dragged myself down. Onward...
I've finally come to understand that things are just things, and that I don't need them. That when all is said and done, I will be the sum of my experiences and the people I've loved and who have loved me, not of what I have accumulated.
Letting go has always been hard for me, and it's been a gradual process. My mother is borderline in to being a hoarder. She always wants more, and never seems to have enough. It doesn't matter how many projects she has the yarn for already, she always wants to buy more yarn for the new, shiny project in the newest issue of Vogue Knitting, ignoring all the many bins she already has. When that newest love affair doesn't end up getting made, she'll still buy more the next time. Or she'll buy all of the yarn for six projects that it'd take her a year to make, and maybe make one of them before getting distracted by something. And of course, when something is on sale, if you want it, it's okay. That's the mindset that I was raised with.
This got added to my own personality, a tendency towards collecting and trying to be complete and thorough and have ALL THE THINGS. When I was in high school, this was briefly a seriously problem, as it was the age of the Collectible Card Game, and I wanted to play the Star Trek CCG. But more than that, the cards were shiny, and I wanted ALL of them. I spent hundreds of dollars and all my allowance, and while I did end up with a zillion cards, I had no one to play the card with, and I still wasn't quite able to get all of them, though I got close. I came to recognize that this was not sustainable in the long term, and than my desire to collect and be complete was an issue. When I decided to play Magic: The Gathering with my friends, I did so under the express condition that I would NOT try to collect everything - a resolution which I kept. This was a useful lesson for me: I still wanted to collect, but I was able to control it. Definitely a win.
Still, throughout my life, this has come up over and over again. Once I get in to something, I have the bad habit of starting to think of it more as a collection and less as a dynamic reflection of my interests. When I got very into reading manga, it wasn't enough to just buy the manga that interested me and keep the manga I wanted, I started to look at it as a collection, to think, "I should get this because it will fit in" not because I particularly wanted to read it, to keep volumes even if I didn't particularly like them because it was part of the collection as a whole, and to keep buying series that I wasn't enjoying very much because I'd already collected the first 5 volumes, and I'd spent the money, might as well see it through.
These habits started to break 6 years ago when I broke up with my fiancee. We had excellent collections of video games and roleplaying game books that we'd built together, using our joint finances. The battles that resulted when we considered how to divide these things led me to be much less attached to things in general. Yet the manga experience happened AFTER this, so clearly I wasn't "cured." I moved 8 times in 5 years, and every time I would go through my books and try to reduce the number I had to move, but I still had about 50 boxes when all was said and done, and it was so hard to figure out how to reduce them.
The bed bugs were the next breaking point. In March, 2009, my apartment got bed bugs, and when that happens, you have to vacuum EVERYTHING in your apartment, especially around the infected areas, crate it up, and let the apartment get treated. Since all of my books were in my bedroom, a primary infected area, every single book had to be individually vacuumed on each side and on the front and back. It's amazing what you realize you don't need when you have to go to so much work. The most painful part was that, because of the infestation, I couldn't risk donating the books anywhere. It killed me to just throw them away (well, recycle them) but I did it because there just wasn't any choice, I had to pack up everything I owned in 4 days in preparation for the exterminator, and it all had to be vacuumed before packing, and so I just made the cuts.
I've been getting steadily "better" about cutting out the nonsense ever since. I moved out of the bed bug apartment in October, 2009, and have lived in the same apartment since then, and every 6 months or so I've gone through everything and gotten rid of more. I would always stop when I felt like I couldn't get rid of more...but that always left a lot.
In my last post, I mentioned "letting it go" as one of my strategies for trying to get through days when I was down. One of the side effects of this I didn't expect. Some days, it helps with my depression. Some days, it doesn't, but EVERY day, it has left me nearly desperate to go through my belongings and find more that I don't need. It's amazing how good it feels to let go of all of this stuff that I've managed to accumulate. After all of the prior reductions, throwing away hundreds of books during the bed bugs, all the previous 6 month sort throughs, I've been able to reduce the books by almost another third. It's incredibly liberating. I think it's the kind of evaluation that would do a lot of people good. For books, the process for me is pretty simple:
1. Have I read this in how ever many years that I've owned it? Do I still want to?
2. Will I ever read it again?
3. Do I have a particular sentimental attachment to this book? (ie, was it my favorite book when I was six?)
Those are the only questions that matter. If I've been carting a book around for 10 years without reading it, why am I bothering? Sure, it might look interesting, but it's not like I haven't been reading OTHER books - I'm CONSTANTLY reading, which means that I AM reading what I want to read. If there's a book that hasn't been read, and that I don't have strong feelings about reading it (ie, I don't look at it and think, oh wow, I really wanted to read this!) then why do I still have it? Some books have guilt attached to them - it was a gift! I spent so much money on it! I really thought I wanted to read it! I've had it since I was a kid! But now, I've decided...none of this matters. If I haven't read it, if I don't intend to read it, and if I have no special sentimental reason to keep it...then I'm not going to keep it. I bet, in a year, I won't even remember which books I got rid of. And if I end up regretting one or two of my choices, then so be it - I can always replace one or two books, and the difference in the amount of clutter in my life will be epic. Furthermore, whenever possible I can replace them with digital copies, which will still mean I'm no longer moving crates and crates of books around.
For other types of items, I'm taking a pretty similar approach.
1. What is the function of this thing?
2. Do I ever use it for that function?
3. Do I still like it? (in the cases of, for example, decorative items)
4. And, of course...do I have a sentimental attachment to the item in question?
And again, if the answer is no, I'm going to just take it all to Goodwill. This isn't always easy. 5 years ago I got it in my head that it would be fun to collect shot glasses every where I travel. Now, I've got probably over a hundred shot glasses, and have spent a lot of money, and most of them sit in storage. Clearly, I don't need all of these damn shot glasses. It was fun while I collected them...but that doesn't mean I still need to. On the flip side, it doesn't mean I have to get rid of every single one - I can strike a happy medium between keeping ones that I like and am attached to and ditching the rest. The same objections come up - this was a gift! I spent a lot of money on this! This was bought by me or for me from XYZ and I could never replace it! I've had this since I was six! Yet, not everything that I've had a long time ACTUALLY has sentimental significance, and many other things that once had sentimental significance, I've forgotten the reasons, and all in all...there is just so much stuff, and what is having it all getting me?
I'm not saying one ditches everything. I've been collecting art since 2002. I've built my art collection very carefully, and every single piece I bought because I loved it, not because I thought "I really should buy a piece by this artist" or "this would fit with my other collected pieces." Almost all of my art is up on my (now almost full) walls...and I've been looking at it on my walls every day and thinking, "I still want all of these." So I will keep them all. And I'm still going to have over a thousand books when all is said and done (which tells you a lot about just how many I started with...). It's not about cutting all ties...it's about making sure that what I own, I own for a reason, and that things mean something to me, that I'm not just carting it all around thoughtlessly because that's what I've always done.
I haven't figured out so much about my life, I haven't figured out how not to be depressed or how to get over my break up or how to not be pessimistic about my chances of getting in to graduate school or any of that jazz...but I can start to liberate myself from the shackles I've made myself, the ways I've cluttered my life and dragged myself down. Onward...
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Let Go
My stepmother attends Al-Anon meetings because of the troubles she's had as a result of my step-brother's behavior and life choices. She used to blame herself, and right after she started attending, little signs appeared all her and my dad's house. They said a wide range of affirmations, but the one that always stood out to me is "let go and let god." Now, the message doesn't work for me at all - I'm not religious in the least, and in fact I'm an atheist, so I don't really think that god is going to be doing much of anything for me. On the contrary, I feel that things happen if I make them happen; good things take place if I work hard for them.
My road trip afforded me a lot of time to think. Before setting off on it, I wasn't sure if that would be a good thing or a bad thing. As it turned out...it was both. There were definitely times alone in the car when thinking was the worst thing that could be going on - that I just went round and round, and got more and more sad. But the last few days of the road trip - early last week - I started to make a break through, and I was surprised to find that the biggest breakthrough I made was the addition of a single phrase: "let go."
When I'm really depressed, and I start to cycle through Bad Things I Probably Shouldn't Be Thinking About, there is very little that I can do to help. However, when I'm feeling neutral or okay or good and I start to go down directions of thought that upset me, I've now got a set of things that I can do that seem to help - most of the time. :)
1. Self-Acceptance. "It's okay that I feel sad/hurt/down/angry/annoyed/frustrated/guilty/etc." I've been amazed by how often I've found myself feeling worse and worse and I've just cut it off cold by reminding myself that it's okay that I feel however I feel, and that there is nothing wrong with me just because I'm still sad or still depressed. I've turned entire days around this way.
2. Distraction (and more self-acceptance!). "What do I want to do?" And then I do it. I've given up on asking myself "what do I want?" as a general statement, because in the past four months I've only had one, unachievable answer to that one. If the answer is that I really don't want to do anything, I don't do anything. I put aside all of the "shoulds" - I should be crafting for Nerd Wars! I should be working for my day job! I should be reading! - and focus on it being okay. Last night, all I really wanted to do was watch my baseball game...so that's all I did. It's taken four months, but the side effect of persistently focusing on only doing what I want to do and not doing what I don't want to do...is that I finally want to do things again! I've finally picked my crochet hook back up. I'm reading more. I'm getting more done. But it has to be constantly reinforced - I have to honor my own desires.
3. Ask why. It's very easy to get into a cycle of bad, thinking about all the things that I'm still hurting about, wishing. Instead, now, I try to think, "why do I feel this way right now?" This weekend, it was because I realized that it would have been the six month anniversary of my relationship, had it worked out. Realizing this didn't really help me feel better, in fact I think it made me feel worse, but I still felt that it was better that I knew than that I didn't know.
4. Naming it. When I've got enough spunk, when I notice things taking a turn, I just call it up short: "Shut up, Cushan!" (recall: I nicknamed my inner demon Chushanrishathiam...) It doesn't work every time, but if I'm generally having a day where I feel okay, this can really work to stop the whole thing from derailing.
5. Self-encouragement. Simple reinforcement stuff. "I look nice today," or "I did well yesterday," or, "I've been getting a lot done!" It's easy to look at things that "don't matter" but that you did and took a long time, and then say, "damn it I wasted all this time!" Wrong attitude. When that starts to happen - and when it does it'll always drag me down other bad directions - I just remind myself, "no, it's okay. I've done well. I made the choice to do this thing. I'm on top of what I need to do." Even if I do fall behind, I try to keep the inner message positive.
6. Let go. This is my most recent addition, my epiphany last weekend that has helped me a lot in getting through this most recent week, and it's clearly derived from my step-mother's Al-Anon signs. When I really start to cycle, I say to myself, "let it go. I know that it hurts, I know that I'm sad/angry/guilty/frustrated/what-not, but there's nothing I can do about it. So let it go." I've noticed that increasingly, this is accompanied by a visual: my fist in a death grip around...nothing, scraps of paper, air, feelings, I don't know, and I just visualize pulling my fingers away, one by one, and...whatever it is...blows away in the wind. There's nothing there, really, yet I can kinda...see it...dissipate.
Do these things work every time? No. Last night, for example, they didn't work at all - but I know for sure that hormones were involved. When I start really low, none of this makes much impact at all. I have to have enough spirit to fight back before I can really tell Cushan to shove off. But I've found that all of these strategies have really helped me on the days where I'm mostly doing okay but I start to go down lines of thought that upset me. I'm sure I'll keep coming up with more, sure that I'll keep experimenting and discarding. What kinds of things do you all do?
My road trip afforded me a lot of time to think. Before setting off on it, I wasn't sure if that would be a good thing or a bad thing. As it turned out...it was both. There were definitely times alone in the car when thinking was the worst thing that could be going on - that I just went round and round, and got more and more sad. But the last few days of the road trip - early last week - I started to make a break through, and I was surprised to find that the biggest breakthrough I made was the addition of a single phrase: "let go."
When I'm really depressed, and I start to cycle through Bad Things I Probably Shouldn't Be Thinking About, there is very little that I can do to help. However, when I'm feeling neutral or okay or good and I start to go down directions of thought that upset me, I've now got a set of things that I can do that seem to help - most of the time. :)
1. Self-Acceptance. "It's okay that I feel sad/hurt/down/angry/annoyed/frustrated/guilty/etc." I've been amazed by how often I've found myself feeling worse and worse and I've just cut it off cold by reminding myself that it's okay that I feel however I feel, and that there is nothing wrong with me just because I'm still sad or still depressed. I've turned entire days around this way.
2. Distraction (and more self-acceptance!). "What do I want to do?" And then I do it. I've given up on asking myself "what do I want?" as a general statement, because in the past four months I've only had one, unachievable answer to that one. If the answer is that I really don't want to do anything, I don't do anything. I put aside all of the "shoulds" - I should be crafting for Nerd Wars! I should be working for my day job! I should be reading! - and focus on it being okay. Last night, all I really wanted to do was watch my baseball game...so that's all I did. It's taken four months, but the side effect of persistently focusing on only doing what I want to do and not doing what I don't want to do...is that I finally want to do things again! I've finally picked my crochet hook back up. I'm reading more. I'm getting more done. But it has to be constantly reinforced - I have to honor my own desires.
3. Ask why. It's very easy to get into a cycle of bad, thinking about all the things that I'm still hurting about, wishing. Instead, now, I try to think, "why do I feel this way right now?" This weekend, it was because I realized that it would have been the six month anniversary of my relationship, had it worked out. Realizing this didn't really help me feel better, in fact I think it made me feel worse, but I still felt that it was better that I knew than that I didn't know.
4. Naming it. When I've got enough spunk, when I notice things taking a turn, I just call it up short: "Shut up, Cushan!" (recall: I nicknamed my inner demon Chushanrishathiam...) It doesn't work every time, but if I'm generally having a day where I feel okay, this can really work to stop the whole thing from derailing.
5. Self-encouragement. Simple reinforcement stuff. "I look nice today," or "I did well yesterday," or, "I've been getting a lot done!" It's easy to look at things that "don't matter" but that you did and took a long time, and then say, "damn it I wasted all this time!" Wrong attitude. When that starts to happen - and when it does it'll always drag me down other bad directions - I just remind myself, "no, it's okay. I've done well. I made the choice to do this thing. I'm on top of what I need to do." Even if I do fall behind, I try to keep the inner message positive.
6. Let go. This is my most recent addition, my epiphany last weekend that has helped me a lot in getting through this most recent week, and it's clearly derived from my step-mother's Al-Anon signs. When I really start to cycle, I say to myself, "let it go. I know that it hurts, I know that I'm sad/angry/guilty/frustrated/what-not, but there's nothing I can do about it. So let it go." I've noticed that increasingly, this is accompanied by a visual: my fist in a death grip around...nothing, scraps of paper, air, feelings, I don't know, and I just visualize pulling my fingers away, one by one, and...whatever it is...blows away in the wind. There's nothing there, really, yet I can kinda...see it...dissipate.
Do these things work every time? No. Last night, for example, they didn't work at all - but I know for sure that hormones were involved. When I start really low, none of this makes much impact at all. I have to have enough spirit to fight back before I can really tell Cushan to shove off. But I've found that all of these strategies have really helped me on the days where I'm mostly doing okay but I start to go down lines of thought that upset me. I'm sure I'll keep coming up with more, sure that I'll keep experimenting and discarding. What kinds of things do you all do?
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Gut Punches
It's odd. When I started this blog, I had a number of ideas for posts, on all manner of topics related to the strategies that I had been working on to get over my depression. Yet, as the weeks have passed, I've found that I largely haven't been writing about those things, because every week brings something new. This week has been no different in terms of new and unexpected changes, and this time not for the better.
It's very difficult not to hope. As I planned the road trip that I'm currently on, I debated back and forth about what I should do when I passed through Akron. Should I ask my ex if he wanted to get dinner? Even knowing that I still have very strong feelings for him, and even knowing that there was no reason to expect anything out of such a meeting? Knowing that the relationship was over? Despite myself, despite having no expectations, I know I went in to last Tuesday night with much more hope than was warranted. I had thought, leading up to the evening, that I should kill that hope, but whenever I tried to kill it I ended up feeling like doing so was equivalent to killing myself (mostly figuratively...) - if I can't hope about John, why should I bother hoping about other things, either? Most of the things I'm currently hoping for feel like such a long shot, that if I can't put my faith in one long shot, how can I put it in to any other? So I didn't quell the hope. I hadn't even seen John, though, before I realized what a monumentally bad idea dinner had actually been. I was having trouble not breaking down just walking up to the building where he works, and it didn't get any better throughout dinner. I held it together...barely...but I didn't at all behave as I had hoped. I just wanted to be the upbeat, cheerful, interesting girl that he was starting to fall for, but there was just no way. There is too much sadness in me now, too much struggle, to be that person, and so the depression kept peaking through. And despite myself, I did end up crying in his presence before the end of the night, and I was furious with myself about that, too. For a dinner that probably went almost as well as could legitimately have been expected (by which I mean: amicable conversation with an ex-boyfriend that is a continuing part of the process of attempting to salvage a friendship from the wreckage of a love).
Tuesday night was shattering to me.
Before that, I was starting to get my feet back under me. Before that, I was starting to wake up each morning with a little bit of pep and think, this won't be so bad. Before that, I was starting to think the worst was over and I was going to start recovering, and in that recovery I'd be able to take a more reasoned look at some of the many things I've thought about the last three months and figure out which have any merit and which were just Chushanrishathiam being a douche bag in my head.
After dinner...the hope just died, and once again, as when he first broke up with me, I felt like there was nothing left at all, that everything was pointless. I still had a two hour drive after leaving him, and I spent most of it sobbing, and the rest on the phone with a friend who I sufficiently impressed with the seriousness of the situation that she didn't want to let me off the phone because I was scaring her. I have enough fight in me not to succumb to those thoughts, fortunately, but it was not a good drive, and I've hardly felt better since. More fortunately, the friend who I would call to talk me off the ledge, who I was talking to that night, is also the friend who I was staying with starting Friday (And I actually ended up changing the original plan, and coming out to her place Thursday instead). I've been there since, though I leave today.
I don't have much good feeling right now. I'm just pleased that I went from entirely bleak this morning to feeling decidedly neutral right now - I think entirely because despite it all I've managed to chip away at my to-do list just a little, which had been building up the last week. I'm still behind, but I'll be spending the next few days with friends who work during the day, so it's getting more manageable. Anyway. That's a tangent. Since I don't have much good feeling the last few days, I thought I'd take this post to instead describe just what the worst feels like. I'll never forget, my freshman year of college, feeling low and not being able to figure out what the feeling was. Why do I feel this way? What is this emotion? I didn't remember ever feeling it before...I talked it over with a friend, and finally we put a name to it: I was lonely. When one has never felt an emotion before, it can be shockingly hard to put a name to it, to figure if that thing you're feeling is what other people are talking about when they mean sadness, anger, joy, euphoria, or whatnot. After this past week, and these past months, I'm starting to feel like an expert on depression, so here goes, the elements that compose my depression.
1. Hopelessness. This is the core of it, for me. The feeling that there is no point in even trying because no matter what I do, good things have not happened and will never happen. That never part is important, it projects the current feeling of hopelessness in to the future and makes it immutable and unchangeable.
2. Helplessness. Nothing I do can change anything. This starts at the local level: why am I still depressed? nothing I do can shake this feeling of depression. From that simple level, it grows out from there - nothing I do, nothing I try, no matter how hard I've worked, nothing I do makes any difference at all. I could disappear and no one would even notice.
3. Loneliness and Neglect and Isolation. All of these goes hand in hand. It's about feeling alone, but it's also about not wanting to be a burden. It's about feeling like no one cares, yet being unwilling to ask for help. I mean, three nights ago I cried myself to sleep when there was help fifteen feet away in another room, because I didn't want to put my friend out when it was already midnight and I knew she had her own issues going on. Yet on some level, I wanted her to find me, to discover me. I remember the day before John broke up with me, I couldn't sleep at all, so I went into the living room so I wouldn't bother him, and I ended up crying for most of an hour. I didn't want to be a burden or disturb anyone else, but secretly I was hoping that he'd come out and tell me that everything was going to be okay - but he had room mate who I DEFINITELY didn't want involved - and so I fought this ridiculous internal battle about just how much noise it would be okay for me to make while crying. I wanted to be quiet, obviously, but since part of me hoped for discovery, I also wanted to make some noise. The whole process was sick and ridiculous and left me feeling like a manipulative bitch. (In the end, I was undiscovered, and I decided to try to go back to sleep, but I couldn't, and he woke up, and I ended up owning that I'd been crying in the living room for an hour, and the whole situation fell apart quickly. I'm not really sure how I SHOULD have handled it, but I clearly handled it wrong...probably I should have just woken him up and been like, "I feel like shit. Can we talk about this?" ...but we'd already BEEN talk about it and there was nothing left to say and mostly I was crying because I was scared that things weren't seeming to get resolved...and as it turns out I guess I was right to be scared...)
4. Desolation. Just a feeling of absolute and complete emptiness. I look for something to say, something cheerful, something happy, some glimmer of thought, and find...absolutely nothing. Blank slate.
5. Lack of appetite. One of my only physical symptoms, my appetite goes poof. When I'm a somewhat less depressed point - pretty but not entirely depressed - I actually end up eating MORE because I lack the energy to tell myself no when I want the enormous dessert all to myself - but when I hit the depths, I just don't feel hungry at all anymore, and I have to make myself eat. I also get headaches (Especially when I've been crying...which is a lot...) and have trouble falling asleep. 6. Disinterest/Lack of Preference. What do I want to eat? I don't care. What show do I want to watch? It's all the same to me. It's not that I find I'm opposed to eating out, or watching TV, or what not, but in terms of having an actual opinion? I really couldn't care less. 7. Inability to Face Simple Tasks. Like getting out of bed. Or, in my case, most frequently, walking the dog. I HAVE to walk the dog, but I've often reached the point the past week that the idea of having to take her out has been so daunting that I was struggling to get up in the morning. 8. The Merry-Go-Round. This is my short hand for what I'm actually thinking in my own head. At the risk of triggering some pretty bad thoughts for the rest of the day while I'm actually currently feeling functional, I think it'd be easier to replicate some of this out-right than try to describe what I mean. The thought process goes something like this: I wish I understood why John broke up with me. Why did he abandon me? Why does everyone abandon me? It must be something about me. In the end, everyone leaves, everyone gives up. He gave up on me, even though I wasn't willing to give up on him. I guess he's no different than I am, because I'm just giving up on myself, now. What's the point? If I try again, it'll just end the same. People told me to be myself, and this is the closest to being myself that I've ever been in a relationship, and he ran screaming in the opposite direction. The next guy will just do the same. No one will want to stay when they see what I'm like. I'm just too crazy. I can't put up with myself, so why should anyone else put up with me? And now that I'm so depressed, it's even worse, like my only redeeming feature was being the girl with pep and spunk and energy and now I have none of those so why would anyone want me around at all? If being myself wasn't good enough, then what's the point? It's not like I can be someone else, but who I am sucks. He broke up with me because I'm a wreck, and everyone else will also think I'm a wreck. There's no point in even trying. Chushanrishathiam (reminder: my new name for my inner monologue when it's being all evil) goes on like this, and on and on, and worries at the same points for hours and days and weeks, and that's why I call it the Merry-Go-Round: even if I beat a particular piece of unpleasantness on one day, the feelings eventually cycle around and I have to try to beat them another day. When I try to argue back (I'm not pathetic! It's about his issues, not mine! This is just depression, I'll feel better eventually! I'm not crazy!) I don't really get anywhere, even when I marshal evidence (I know I'm not crazy, because crazy people aren't able to accomplish the things that I've accomplished without supports of kinds that I haven't needed)! All in all, for me, the MGR is at the crux of all of my problems, and the difference between good days and bad days tends to be my ability to shut the MGR down. Increasingly, though, I've found that the methods that were working to stop it have been less effective this past week.
9. Suicidal Thoughts. This is always a tough place to go, to admit to others that I've been experiencing. It feels SO manipulative to even say that I've been thinking about killing myself that I hate to even own it. Yet, it IS part and parcel of all of this, and it's not going to go away if I pretend I haven't been thinking it. I've found the worst combination has been when I've felt awful while driving, because it just feels like it'd be so easy, just jerk the steering wheel and I have nothing left to worry about. More than specific thoughts on attempting suicide, though, I've persistently thought in the past few months - when I've been having a bad day - that I just wish I'd go to sleep and not wake up the next morning. I've even managed to get in to the "I wish I'd never been born" stage of things - the kind of useless conjecture that is comforting because it's the only version that hurts no one else. I don't WANT to hurt those around me, I want them to be happy, and I know that plucking myself out of their lives would make them very unhappy, and that's the main thing that keeps me from taking an extreme action - but if I just died anyway, or even better if I'd never been born, that's less pain for them. The suicidal thoughts have been one of the scariest aspects of all of this for me, because while I'd suffered from depression before, I'd never so consistently found myself wondering why I'm still alive, what the point is, and - on the worst days - staring at my wrists and wondering what the knife would feel like cutting in. I've had more than one day like that in the last week, and as soon as my head is a little clearer I'm horrified by it. Heck, even when I'm experiencing it, I'm horrified by it, but that horror doesn't stop me thinking about it.
10. Fear. I know there have been times in the past when I didn't feel this way, but now it seems like I have no idea when I'll feel this way or for how long. What happens if this is what the rest of life is like? This tends to tie in to the previous, because if I AM going to feel this way for the rest of life, than what's the point? Obviously none of the things I want and hope for will be accomplishable while I feel awful.
11. Inflicting pain because of the inside pain. While there is an element of actual physical masochism in this, for me what I actually more mean is a tendency to, when talking to my support network, say things that I know will make them sad, or worried, or frightened for me, because there's just so much pain and emptiness inside of me that I can't NOT share it. I'd say this is the main piece I've found that is actually damaging to the people around me. And of course, when I realize I'm doing it, I roundly condemn myself, and that doesn't make me feel any better.
12. Resentment. Another piece that involves the projection and competition with others, I've noticed an increasing tendency in myself to channel anger that I can't express at it's actual targets towards targets that are not at all deserving. I'm finding I increasingly resent and am jealous of the friends that have the things I want - particularly a spouse and a family - even when, when I look at their life more closely, it's clear that there is no joy in it. In the cases where my friends have a good and actually happy life, it's jealousy: don't I deserve what they have? Haven't I done enough? Haven't I done as much or more than they have? In the cases where it's my friends who actually are kind of a wreck, the thought is: they have what I want and they're totally screwing it up. If I was given the chances they've been given, I wouldn't blow it like they have. It's not fair.
The hardest part to remember, for me, is how many pieces of this aren't true. Of COURSE people would notice if I disappeared! I'm actually - when I'm not depressed - well aware that I am a well-liked person with a lot of caring friends. But in so many ways depression isn't about reality. I've come to think it's about a projecting the way it feels inside (empty, desolate, lonely) onto a world that is, generally speaking, entirely indifferent, and occasionally genuinely caring - and only exceptionally rarely actively hostile. However, I feel undesirable and hopeless, and that gets converted inside to, "no one loves me, no one cares," despite ample evidence to the contrary. Evidence means very little to that darkness within, I've found. One of the questions I've wondered a lot this past week, and haven't found an answer for yet, is why AM I still fighting? Even in those very black moments - hours sometimes - when it felt like I just didn't care at all and didn't have a shred of hope to cut through the empty desolation inside, well, I'm still alive, SOMETHING in there still thinks there's something worth fighting for. I feel like if I could dig through all the sludge to uncover that something, I'd have a potent tool to shine through the darkness. Yet I haven't got a clue what it is. A lot of it, though, is embodied in a song I know by Goldfinger. I can't remember if I've quoted it before, but it seems apropos at this moment. The song is called "Disorder," and the second verse goes:
"I sit there at the bar, and wonder what I've done.
Should I just fuck it all, or should I go back home?
Cause if I take that drink, I might as well just die
And if I kill myself, I'll be giving up my try,
So I fall down."
I've said that to myself a lot the last three months: If I kill myself, I'll be giving up my try. This depression is the scariest, hardest thing I've ever faced, but I guess some small part of me DOES still believe that there will be something worthwhile on the other end...
It's very difficult not to hope. As I planned the road trip that I'm currently on, I debated back and forth about what I should do when I passed through Akron. Should I ask my ex if he wanted to get dinner? Even knowing that I still have very strong feelings for him, and even knowing that there was no reason to expect anything out of such a meeting? Knowing that the relationship was over? Despite myself, despite having no expectations, I know I went in to last Tuesday night with much more hope than was warranted. I had thought, leading up to the evening, that I should kill that hope, but whenever I tried to kill it I ended up feeling like doing so was equivalent to killing myself (mostly figuratively...) - if I can't hope about John, why should I bother hoping about other things, either? Most of the things I'm currently hoping for feel like such a long shot, that if I can't put my faith in one long shot, how can I put it in to any other? So I didn't quell the hope. I hadn't even seen John, though, before I realized what a monumentally bad idea dinner had actually been. I was having trouble not breaking down just walking up to the building where he works, and it didn't get any better throughout dinner. I held it together...barely...but I didn't at all behave as I had hoped. I just wanted to be the upbeat, cheerful, interesting girl that he was starting to fall for, but there was just no way. There is too much sadness in me now, too much struggle, to be that person, and so the depression kept peaking through. And despite myself, I did end up crying in his presence before the end of the night, and I was furious with myself about that, too. For a dinner that probably went almost as well as could legitimately have been expected (by which I mean: amicable conversation with an ex-boyfriend that is a continuing part of the process of attempting to salvage a friendship from the wreckage of a love).
Tuesday night was shattering to me.
Before that, I was starting to get my feet back under me. Before that, I was starting to wake up each morning with a little bit of pep and think, this won't be so bad. Before that, I was starting to think the worst was over and I was going to start recovering, and in that recovery I'd be able to take a more reasoned look at some of the many things I've thought about the last three months and figure out which have any merit and which were just Chushanrishathiam being a douche bag in my head.
After dinner...the hope just died, and once again, as when he first broke up with me, I felt like there was nothing left at all, that everything was pointless. I still had a two hour drive after leaving him, and I spent most of it sobbing, and the rest on the phone with a friend who I sufficiently impressed with the seriousness of the situation that she didn't want to let me off the phone because I was scaring her. I have enough fight in me not to succumb to those thoughts, fortunately, but it was not a good drive, and I've hardly felt better since. More fortunately, the friend who I would call to talk me off the ledge, who I was talking to that night, is also the friend who I was staying with starting Friday (And I actually ended up changing the original plan, and coming out to her place Thursday instead). I've been there since, though I leave today.
I don't have much good feeling right now. I'm just pleased that I went from entirely bleak this morning to feeling decidedly neutral right now - I think entirely because despite it all I've managed to chip away at my to-do list just a little, which had been building up the last week. I'm still behind, but I'll be spending the next few days with friends who work during the day, so it's getting more manageable. Anyway. That's a tangent. Since I don't have much good feeling the last few days, I thought I'd take this post to instead describe just what the worst feels like. I'll never forget, my freshman year of college, feeling low and not being able to figure out what the feeling was. Why do I feel this way? What is this emotion? I didn't remember ever feeling it before...I talked it over with a friend, and finally we put a name to it: I was lonely. When one has never felt an emotion before, it can be shockingly hard to put a name to it, to figure if that thing you're feeling is what other people are talking about when they mean sadness, anger, joy, euphoria, or whatnot. After this past week, and these past months, I'm starting to feel like an expert on depression, so here goes, the elements that compose my depression.
1. Hopelessness. This is the core of it, for me. The feeling that there is no point in even trying because no matter what I do, good things have not happened and will never happen. That never part is important, it projects the current feeling of hopelessness in to the future and makes it immutable and unchangeable.
2. Helplessness. Nothing I do can change anything. This starts at the local level: why am I still depressed? nothing I do can shake this feeling of depression. From that simple level, it grows out from there - nothing I do, nothing I try, no matter how hard I've worked, nothing I do makes any difference at all. I could disappear and no one would even notice.
3. Loneliness and Neglect and Isolation. All of these goes hand in hand. It's about feeling alone, but it's also about not wanting to be a burden. It's about feeling like no one cares, yet being unwilling to ask for help. I mean, three nights ago I cried myself to sleep when there was help fifteen feet away in another room, because I didn't want to put my friend out when it was already midnight and I knew she had her own issues going on. Yet on some level, I wanted her to find me, to discover me. I remember the day before John broke up with me, I couldn't sleep at all, so I went into the living room so I wouldn't bother him, and I ended up crying for most of an hour. I didn't want to be a burden or disturb anyone else, but secretly I was hoping that he'd come out and tell me that everything was going to be okay - but he had room mate who I DEFINITELY didn't want involved - and so I fought this ridiculous internal battle about just how much noise it would be okay for me to make while crying. I wanted to be quiet, obviously, but since part of me hoped for discovery, I also wanted to make some noise. The whole process was sick and ridiculous and left me feeling like a manipulative bitch. (In the end, I was undiscovered, and I decided to try to go back to sleep, but I couldn't, and he woke up, and I ended up owning that I'd been crying in the living room for an hour, and the whole situation fell apart quickly. I'm not really sure how I SHOULD have handled it, but I clearly handled it wrong...probably I should have just woken him up and been like, "I feel like shit. Can we talk about this?" ...but we'd already BEEN talk about it and there was nothing left to say and mostly I was crying because I was scared that things weren't seeming to get resolved...and as it turns out I guess I was right to be scared...)
4. Desolation. Just a feeling of absolute and complete emptiness. I look for something to say, something cheerful, something happy, some glimmer of thought, and find...absolutely nothing. Blank slate.
5. Lack of appetite. One of my only physical symptoms, my appetite goes poof. When I'm a somewhat less depressed point - pretty but not entirely depressed - I actually end up eating MORE because I lack the energy to tell myself no when I want the enormous dessert all to myself - but when I hit the depths, I just don't feel hungry at all anymore, and I have to make myself eat. I also get headaches (Especially when I've been crying...which is a lot...) and have trouble falling asleep. 6. Disinterest/Lack of Preference. What do I want to eat? I don't care. What show do I want to watch? It's all the same to me. It's not that I find I'm opposed to eating out, or watching TV, or what not, but in terms of having an actual opinion? I really couldn't care less. 7. Inability to Face Simple Tasks. Like getting out of bed. Or, in my case, most frequently, walking the dog. I HAVE to walk the dog, but I've often reached the point the past week that the idea of having to take her out has been so daunting that I was struggling to get up in the morning. 8. The Merry-Go-Round. This is my short hand for what I'm actually thinking in my own head. At the risk of triggering some pretty bad thoughts for the rest of the day while I'm actually currently feeling functional, I think it'd be easier to replicate some of this out-right than try to describe what I mean. The thought process goes something like this: I wish I understood why John broke up with me. Why did he abandon me? Why does everyone abandon me? It must be something about me. In the end, everyone leaves, everyone gives up. He gave up on me, even though I wasn't willing to give up on him. I guess he's no different than I am, because I'm just giving up on myself, now. What's the point? If I try again, it'll just end the same. People told me to be myself, and this is the closest to being myself that I've ever been in a relationship, and he ran screaming in the opposite direction. The next guy will just do the same. No one will want to stay when they see what I'm like. I'm just too crazy. I can't put up with myself, so why should anyone else put up with me? And now that I'm so depressed, it's even worse, like my only redeeming feature was being the girl with pep and spunk and energy and now I have none of those so why would anyone want me around at all? If being myself wasn't good enough, then what's the point? It's not like I can be someone else, but who I am sucks. He broke up with me because I'm a wreck, and everyone else will also think I'm a wreck. There's no point in even trying. Chushanrishathiam (reminder: my new name for my inner monologue when it's being all evil) goes on like this, and on and on, and worries at the same points for hours and days and weeks, and that's why I call it the Merry-Go-Round: even if I beat a particular piece of unpleasantness on one day, the feelings eventually cycle around and I have to try to beat them another day. When I try to argue back (I'm not pathetic! It's about his issues, not mine! This is just depression, I'll feel better eventually! I'm not crazy!) I don't really get anywhere, even when I marshal evidence (I know I'm not crazy, because crazy people aren't able to accomplish the things that I've accomplished without supports of kinds that I haven't needed)! All in all, for me, the MGR is at the crux of all of my problems, and the difference between good days and bad days tends to be my ability to shut the MGR down. Increasingly, though, I've found that the methods that were working to stop it have been less effective this past week.
9. Suicidal Thoughts. This is always a tough place to go, to admit to others that I've been experiencing. It feels SO manipulative to even say that I've been thinking about killing myself that I hate to even own it. Yet, it IS part and parcel of all of this, and it's not going to go away if I pretend I haven't been thinking it. I've found the worst combination has been when I've felt awful while driving, because it just feels like it'd be so easy, just jerk the steering wheel and I have nothing left to worry about. More than specific thoughts on attempting suicide, though, I've persistently thought in the past few months - when I've been having a bad day - that I just wish I'd go to sleep and not wake up the next morning. I've even managed to get in to the "I wish I'd never been born" stage of things - the kind of useless conjecture that is comforting because it's the only version that hurts no one else. I don't WANT to hurt those around me, I want them to be happy, and I know that plucking myself out of their lives would make them very unhappy, and that's the main thing that keeps me from taking an extreme action - but if I just died anyway, or even better if I'd never been born, that's less pain for them. The suicidal thoughts have been one of the scariest aspects of all of this for me, because while I'd suffered from depression before, I'd never so consistently found myself wondering why I'm still alive, what the point is, and - on the worst days - staring at my wrists and wondering what the knife would feel like cutting in. I've had more than one day like that in the last week, and as soon as my head is a little clearer I'm horrified by it. Heck, even when I'm experiencing it, I'm horrified by it, but that horror doesn't stop me thinking about it.
10. Fear. I know there have been times in the past when I didn't feel this way, but now it seems like I have no idea when I'll feel this way or for how long. What happens if this is what the rest of life is like? This tends to tie in to the previous, because if I AM going to feel this way for the rest of life, than what's the point? Obviously none of the things I want and hope for will be accomplishable while I feel awful.
11. Inflicting pain because of the inside pain. While there is an element of actual physical masochism in this, for me what I actually more mean is a tendency to, when talking to my support network, say things that I know will make them sad, or worried, or frightened for me, because there's just so much pain and emptiness inside of me that I can't NOT share it. I'd say this is the main piece I've found that is actually damaging to the people around me. And of course, when I realize I'm doing it, I roundly condemn myself, and that doesn't make me feel any better.
12. Resentment. Another piece that involves the projection and competition with others, I've noticed an increasing tendency in myself to channel anger that I can't express at it's actual targets towards targets that are not at all deserving. I'm finding I increasingly resent and am jealous of the friends that have the things I want - particularly a spouse and a family - even when, when I look at their life more closely, it's clear that there is no joy in it. In the cases where my friends have a good and actually happy life, it's jealousy: don't I deserve what they have? Haven't I done enough? Haven't I done as much or more than they have? In the cases where it's my friends who actually are kind of a wreck, the thought is: they have what I want and they're totally screwing it up. If I was given the chances they've been given, I wouldn't blow it like they have. It's not fair.
The hardest part to remember, for me, is how many pieces of this aren't true. Of COURSE people would notice if I disappeared! I'm actually - when I'm not depressed - well aware that I am a well-liked person with a lot of caring friends. But in so many ways depression isn't about reality. I've come to think it's about a projecting the way it feels inside (empty, desolate, lonely) onto a world that is, generally speaking, entirely indifferent, and occasionally genuinely caring - and only exceptionally rarely actively hostile. However, I feel undesirable and hopeless, and that gets converted inside to, "no one loves me, no one cares," despite ample evidence to the contrary. Evidence means very little to that darkness within, I've found. One of the questions I've wondered a lot this past week, and haven't found an answer for yet, is why AM I still fighting? Even in those very black moments - hours sometimes - when it felt like I just didn't care at all and didn't have a shred of hope to cut through the empty desolation inside, well, I'm still alive, SOMETHING in there still thinks there's something worth fighting for. I feel like if I could dig through all the sludge to uncover that something, I'd have a potent tool to shine through the darkness. Yet I haven't got a clue what it is. A lot of it, though, is embodied in a song I know by Goldfinger. I can't remember if I've quoted it before, but it seems apropos at this moment. The song is called "Disorder," and the second verse goes:
"I sit there at the bar, and wonder what I've done.
Should I just fuck it all, or should I go back home?
Cause if I take that drink, I might as well just die
And if I kill myself, I'll be giving up my try,
So I fall down."
I've said that to myself a lot the last three months: If I kill myself, I'll be giving up my try. This depression is the scariest, hardest thing I've ever faced, but I guess some small part of me DOES still believe that there will be something worthwhile on the other end...
Monday, March 19, 2012
What's in a Name?
When I was a kid, I had two nearly all-consuming phobias. One was of the dark. I couldn't STAND that dark. It freaked me the hell out. I remember once, when I was very young (four or five years old?) we were visiting my grandfather's house. I'm from NYC, where it's NEVER all that dark, but he lived outside of a small town in New Hampshire - VERY dark. I was sleeping in the basement with my brother and my mom in nearby beds, and I was absolutely petrified with fear, but I was afraid to tell anyone. I was convinced that in the inky darkness, through which I couldn't see, there was a panther that had opened up the storm doors nearby and was stalking me. Only by telling myself that the panther couldn't see me unless I opened my eyes did I force myself to lie down, close my eyes, and try to sleep. But sleep was a long time coming. Nightlights became mandatory, or at home, the hall light had to be on (outside the room I shared with my mom). My second phobia was both scarier and worse, and it started at about the same time - though it persisted even as I started getting over the darkness phobia. I was afraid of death. I used to have nightmares in which the skeletons of my parents would dance around me and there was nothing I could do. As I got older, the dreams got more common, and I started to be afraid to go to sleep, and over time it developed in to fairly bad insomnia. It came and went, of course, but when it was bad it was REALLY bad. My mother used to let me stay up late and stuff me full of Sleepy Time tea to calm me down, and that often helped, but when I'd spend summers at my grandfather it was more problematic. Finally, when I was 10 or so (it was either the summer after 5th, 6th or 7th grade...I think 6th...) it started to get unmanageable. I was so afraid to go asleep that I would just sit on the bed in the dark (with a nightlight, and no longer in the basement!) and rock back and forth and cry. Poppop was, of course, worried about me. One night I woke up in the middle of the night after a nightmare, and had a full-blown panic attack. Poppop came in, and calmed me down, and promised me that the next day, we would go in to town and we would find me a guardian.
We ended up at a mall with quirky local shops. We didn't have much luck at first, but finally, tucked away on the second floor in a place that I remember mostly having furniture, we suddenly found it: a wolf, about two feet tall, his mouth open to howl. I knew he was the one, but he was $65 and I felt REALLY guilty asking for him. But Poppop didn't even hesitate, and the wolf went home with us. When we got back to his place, he went digging out the bookshelves and pulled out a book for me: bible names and their meanings. "Why don't you find a good name for your wolf?" Poppop suggested to me. So I diligently sat down on his bed with the book and paged through. I ended up with three or four names, but I only remember the one I ended up picking: Hezekiah. The book said it meant "fortress." That was what I needed, I thought: something that would protect me, and give me strength, and keep the bad things out while I was sleeping inside. It was decided, and he was promptly nicknamed Hez. Yet I was nervous: would this work? I wasn't a little kid any more - I knew that there was no Santa Claus, and I knew all my swear words and what they meant, and I knew that dolls were just dolls, they didn't DO anything. As night came, I got more and more scared. It wasn't going to work! It was just a doll! All the things that scared me would still be waiting when I closed my eyes.
I got in to bed, and Poppop put Hez in my arms, and turned off the light. The scary things started immediately, but I closed my eyes, and held Hez close, and thought, "Hez will protect me." I thought it over and over again, concentrated on that thought...and everything else fell away. The only thing in there was, "Hez will protect me." And that night, I slept.
I slept with my fortress every night until my senior year of high school. At that point, I decided that college kids don't sleep with dolls, so I weaned myself into sleeping with a pillow instead - but Hez was never far. I brought him to school with me, and in my junior year of college when things started getting rough with my boyfriend in ways that I didn't really understand, I started sleeping with Hez again, and continued until I was in graduate school and I'd broken up with said boyfriend. The only reason I stopped was that when my dog was a puppy I used to close her in my room. Puppy on the floor, Hez on the bed. I got home from work to find that Jonie had ripped Hez' sad, worn leather nose to shreds - her first act of destruction after she started teething. I was VERY upset but there was nothing to be done, and I carefully put Hez in a place she couldn't reach him and went back to sleeping with a pillow. I STILL sleep with a pillow. And I still need to fix Hez' nose.
Not the best pic, but the only one I have - Hez is up in the upper left hand corner.
So, why talk about all this now?
I need a new name. There is this person in my head - I know it's me, yet at the same time, it's NOT me - a voice who produces so many mean things that I sometimes can hardly even face my own criticism. When I describe this to other people, such as in posts in this blog, I keep saying things like, "my brain then said..." or "my inner demon." But none of that feels right. My therapist calls this voice "the brother in my head," after the unavoidable conclusion that the voice reflects an internalization of the things that my brother used to say to me when we were kids. He was very verbally abusive, and used to call me stupid and pathetic. But I can't call it my brother - for better or for worse, he and I are adults now and we actually do have a relationship, and not a bad one all things considered, and it gets better every year and I want to continue that. Heck, I'm staying at his house starting tomorrow night, and when I touched base with him by text earlier, he mentioned potentially going out and visiting William T. Sherman's house with me - he knows that Sherman is my personal hero - which is to say, he does care about me, and cares about what I'm interested in only because I'm interested in it, and I care about him, and it's not been easy but we've REALLY worked at it, and so I don't want to make that voice be him if it means villainizing him after all we've tried to overcome.
What I realized a few days ago was...that voice needs a name!
I don't have my grandfather any longer - he died last August - and I don't have a book of bible names, but I do have the internet. So I've wondered over to unusual biblical names. Hmm...Abishag, it means "father of error" or "blundering" - that seems appropriately derogatory for an internal monologue that's always putting me down. Achaia, Achaicus, Achan, Achor, Jachan, all mean "trouble" or something similar. This one I like a lot: Achzib, which means "deceit." Akkub - insidious. Amasa, Massa - burden. Buzi - contempt. Chozeba - falsehood. Chushanrishathaim - twice-wicked Cushan (which means "darkness"). Eshek - oppressor. Hagab - locust. Hareph - reproachful. Ikkesh - twisted. Ishbosheth - man of shame. Kelaiah - insignificant. Maachah - oppression. Maalehacrabbim - hill of scorpions. Mahli, Mahlon - sick. Merari - sad or bitter. Phaseah - lame. Shephuphan, Shupham, Shuppim - serpent. Ulam - solitary.
Hmm...well, I think I need to sleep on this, but from the moment I read it, I've been leaning heavily towards Chushanrishathaim. I could call it Cushan for short. Darkness seems very appropriate for me, given my childhood phobias (which still, on rare occasions, give me trouble). Chushanrishathaim.
On a much lighter note, I also found Zemaraim. It means "double fleece of wool." I loled.
We ended up at a mall with quirky local shops. We didn't have much luck at first, but finally, tucked away on the second floor in a place that I remember mostly having furniture, we suddenly found it: a wolf, about two feet tall, his mouth open to howl. I knew he was the one, but he was $65 and I felt REALLY guilty asking for him. But Poppop didn't even hesitate, and the wolf went home with us. When we got back to his place, he went digging out the bookshelves and pulled out a book for me: bible names and their meanings. "Why don't you find a good name for your wolf?" Poppop suggested to me. So I diligently sat down on his bed with the book and paged through. I ended up with three or four names, but I only remember the one I ended up picking: Hezekiah. The book said it meant "fortress." That was what I needed, I thought: something that would protect me, and give me strength, and keep the bad things out while I was sleeping inside. It was decided, and he was promptly nicknamed Hez. Yet I was nervous: would this work? I wasn't a little kid any more - I knew that there was no Santa Claus, and I knew all my swear words and what they meant, and I knew that dolls were just dolls, they didn't DO anything. As night came, I got more and more scared. It wasn't going to work! It was just a doll! All the things that scared me would still be waiting when I closed my eyes.
I got in to bed, and Poppop put Hez in my arms, and turned off the light. The scary things started immediately, but I closed my eyes, and held Hez close, and thought, "Hez will protect me." I thought it over and over again, concentrated on that thought...and everything else fell away. The only thing in there was, "Hez will protect me." And that night, I slept.
I slept with my fortress every night until my senior year of high school. At that point, I decided that college kids don't sleep with dolls, so I weaned myself into sleeping with a pillow instead - but Hez was never far. I brought him to school with me, and in my junior year of college when things started getting rough with my boyfriend in ways that I didn't really understand, I started sleeping with Hez again, and continued until I was in graduate school and I'd broken up with said boyfriend. The only reason I stopped was that when my dog was a puppy I used to close her in my room. Puppy on the floor, Hez on the bed. I got home from work to find that Jonie had ripped Hez' sad, worn leather nose to shreds - her first act of destruction after she started teething. I was VERY upset but there was nothing to be done, and I carefully put Hez in a place she couldn't reach him and went back to sleeping with a pillow. I STILL sleep with a pillow. And I still need to fix Hez' nose.
Not the best pic, but the only one I have - Hez is up in the upper left hand corner.
So, why talk about all this now?
I need a new name. There is this person in my head - I know it's me, yet at the same time, it's NOT me - a voice who produces so many mean things that I sometimes can hardly even face my own criticism. When I describe this to other people, such as in posts in this blog, I keep saying things like, "my brain then said..." or "my inner demon." But none of that feels right. My therapist calls this voice "the brother in my head," after the unavoidable conclusion that the voice reflects an internalization of the things that my brother used to say to me when we were kids. He was very verbally abusive, and used to call me stupid and pathetic. But I can't call it my brother - for better or for worse, he and I are adults now and we actually do have a relationship, and not a bad one all things considered, and it gets better every year and I want to continue that. Heck, I'm staying at his house starting tomorrow night, and when I touched base with him by text earlier, he mentioned potentially going out and visiting William T. Sherman's house with me - he knows that Sherman is my personal hero - which is to say, he does care about me, and cares about what I'm interested in only because I'm interested in it, and I care about him, and it's not been easy but we've REALLY worked at it, and so I don't want to make that voice be him if it means villainizing him after all we've tried to overcome.
What I realized a few days ago was...that voice needs a name!
I don't have my grandfather any longer - he died last August - and I don't have a book of bible names, but I do have the internet. So I've wondered over to unusual biblical names. Hmm...Abishag, it means "father of error" or "blundering" - that seems appropriately derogatory for an internal monologue that's always putting me down. Achaia, Achaicus, Achan, Achor, Jachan, all mean "trouble" or something similar. This one I like a lot: Achzib, which means "deceit." Akkub - insidious. Amasa, Massa - burden. Buzi - contempt. Chozeba - falsehood. Chushanrishathaim - twice-wicked Cushan (which means "darkness"). Eshek - oppressor. Hagab - locust. Hareph - reproachful. Ikkesh - twisted. Ishbosheth - man of shame. Kelaiah - insignificant. Maachah - oppression. Maalehacrabbim - hill of scorpions. Mahli, Mahlon - sick. Merari - sad or bitter. Phaseah - lame. Shephuphan, Shupham, Shuppim - serpent. Ulam - solitary.
Hmm...well, I think I need to sleep on this, but from the moment I read it, I've been leaning heavily towards Chushanrishathaim. I could call it Cushan for short. Darkness seems very appropriate for me, given my childhood phobias (which still, on rare occasions, give me trouble). Chushanrishathaim.
On a much lighter note, I also found Zemaraim. It means "double fleece of wool." I loled.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Endings and Beginnings
Since Friday...I've felt okay. In fact, I've felt pretty much like myself. It's been really good. Each night when I got to bed, I worry that it won't last, but so far, well, it's Tuesday, and I've made it. Anyway, I don't have much time right now - I'm heading out the door, about to start a four week road trip! For the trip, I'll be making fourteen stops (!!) where I'll be seeing family, lots of old friends, and finally meeting some new friends, getting dinner with my ex and possibly seeing both my other exes. I've been nervous about it, I'll admit - lots of time alone in the car, also worrisome - but in the end, I think it'll be exciting. Sussex, NJ; Binghamton, NY; a stop for a meal in Syracuse, NY; Rochester, NY; University Park, PA; a stop for a meal in Akron, OH; Columbus, OH; Indianapolis, IN; Chicago, IL; Bloomington, IN; Louisville, KY; a stop for a meal in Nashville, TN; Savannah, TN; probably a random excursion down to Corinth, MI (I've never been to Mississippi before! Is that the right state abbreviation?); Lynchburg, VA; drive down to Chapel Hill, NC; drive up to Charlottesville, VA; a stop for a meal in Silver Springs, MD; and finally back home! Four weeks, total, and it'll be exciting.
The past week, I've done a lot of prep for this trip. The first step was to clean. I never want to come home to a messy apartment, so I put a bunch of time in to just straightening and cleaning and putting away. I'd already stashed most of the things related to my break up that made me sad to look at, but there's one thing I'd left out. Last January (2011), my dad came down to visit and found me down. He told me about a strategy he uses from time to time. When things get too rough, write down whatever you can't let go on a slip of paper. Put that slip of paper in a jar, or a bowl, or what not. When there are a lot of slips of paper, burn them all, without reading them. In the early days of this January, I'd filled out a LOT of slips of paper, and I'd been holding off on burning them until I was sure I wasn't that likely to add more. Finally, as part of cleaning, I took the jar (I keep mine in an old used up Yankee Candle jar, I can be positive it's fire proof...) and burned them.
I read one or two of them first, somewhat inadvertantly, since the text was facing up. In truth, I'm glad I did. There was one phrase written there that had been on my mind a lot the last few weeks. See, John (the ex over whom so much of this was triggered) had said to me on the phone in mid-February that he felt like he ruined everything. I'd really latched on to that phrase, and started to feel like I'd co-opted it from him when I started thinking it myself. But there, in my jar - which I hadn't added to since the second weekend of January - was written on a slip of paper, "I ruin everything." It wasn't from him, I'd had it all along. Seeing that, and then watching it burn, felt really good.
So that was my ending. I burned the last of the bad, on Sunday, and I think it's a piece of why I feel a lot better this week (which started Friday night, so it's not just that - it's really a combination of things which have happened, starting with a rock-bottom moment on Friday morning). I'd like to write about all of that, but I really don't have time just now...oh, screw it. Quick overview. On Friday morning, I was feeling very low. This culminated around 9 AM when I walked the dog, and I got in the elevator, and another woman was in there, and she gave me the hairy eyeball for getting in with my dog, who was acting a bit rambunctious. I hate when people do that to me, and so when I left I said, "you don't have to roll your eyes at me, she's not going to hurt you." It felt good to fight back, but it always feels lousy when folks are mean to my pooch, she's not well trained but she's perfectly sweet. The training is my part. Anyway, I got back to my apartment, and promptly started to cry. I'm assuming hormones, though not PMS, apparently. Still, it was shocking. That's just not normal. I pushed through, went about my day, and decided to go to a lecture that afternoon. While at the lecture, a strange but cute guy sat next to me and started a conversation. And...it was nice. We just talked. Then, after the lecture, we just talked more. We ended up walking back to the train together, at which point we shook hands and said goodbye. I'm sure I'll never see him again, yet it was just a great experience. It made me feel wanted and interesting, and feeling curious and mystified and intrigued and engaged by another person - and, really, by a cute guy - also felt good. I got home feeling much better. Then, on Saturday morning, out of the blue my ex called. I still really care about him and miss him and am coping with the sadness of the break up, and I'll admit it never occurred to me that he would just call me because he felt like talking about life. It was really nice, and we had a really pleasant conversation about nothing important. For an hour. And he said he would be happy to meet me for dinner when I drive through his area. Then...just, the weekend went okay. So add it all up, and I feel good about life. What a change from last Monday! And now really I have to stop.
For my new beginning...in all of this, one of the things that kept cropping up in my head was how alone I felt, how isolated, how I feel like no one cares. This is obviously nonsense, but surprisingly hard to refute. Yet, I'm about to go on a road trip where I will see literally dozens of people who care about me. Like, I'd have to count, but I'd guess around 30 or 40. Maybe even more. So, I'm going to ask all of these people if I can take their photographs, and I'm going to make myself an album of all of the people who care about me, and next time I start feeling like no one cares, I'll just pull that down. I won't get everyone in there - my mother, my friends in NYC, my friends and family who live in more distant places like Texas and California, I won't be seeing any of them, but I can add their pictures when I DO see them. I'm really looking forward to this project. It's sort of like a scrap book...but with out all the collage. ;)
The past week, I've done a lot of prep for this trip. The first step was to clean. I never want to come home to a messy apartment, so I put a bunch of time in to just straightening and cleaning and putting away. I'd already stashed most of the things related to my break up that made me sad to look at, but there's one thing I'd left out. Last January (2011), my dad came down to visit and found me down. He told me about a strategy he uses from time to time. When things get too rough, write down whatever you can't let go on a slip of paper. Put that slip of paper in a jar, or a bowl, or what not. When there are a lot of slips of paper, burn them all, without reading them. In the early days of this January, I'd filled out a LOT of slips of paper, and I'd been holding off on burning them until I was sure I wasn't that likely to add more. Finally, as part of cleaning, I took the jar (I keep mine in an old used up Yankee Candle jar, I can be positive it's fire proof...) and burned them.
I read one or two of them first, somewhat inadvertantly, since the text was facing up. In truth, I'm glad I did. There was one phrase written there that had been on my mind a lot the last few weeks. See, John (the ex over whom so much of this was triggered) had said to me on the phone in mid-February that he felt like he ruined everything. I'd really latched on to that phrase, and started to feel like I'd co-opted it from him when I started thinking it myself. But there, in my jar - which I hadn't added to since the second weekend of January - was written on a slip of paper, "I ruin everything." It wasn't from him, I'd had it all along. Seeing that, and then watching it burn, felt really good.
So that was my ending. I burned the last of the bad, on Sunday, and I think it's a piece of why I feel a lot better this week (which started Friday night, so it's not just that - it's really a combination of things which have happened, starting with a rock-bottom moment on Friday morning). I'd like to write about all of that, but I really don't have time just now...oh, screw it. Quick overview. On Friday morning, I was feeling very low. This culminated around 9 AM when I walked the dog, and I got in the elevator, and another woman was in there, and she gave me the hairy eyeball for getting in with my dog, who was acting a bit rambunctious. I hate when people do that to me, and so when I left I said, "you don't have to roll your eyes at me, she's not going to hurt you." It felt good to fight back, but it always feels lousy when folks are mean to my pooch, she's not well trained but she's perfectly sweet. The training is my part. Anyway, I got back to my apartment, and promptly started to cry. I'm assuming hormones, though not PMS, apparently. Still, it was shocking. That's just not normal. I pushed through, went about my day, and decided to go to a lecture that afternoon. While at the lecture, a strange but cute guy sat next to me and started a conversation. And...it was nice. We just talked. Then, after the lecture, we just talked more. We ended up walking back to the train together, at which point we shook hands and said goodbye. I'm sure I'll never see him again, yet it was just a great experience. It made me feel wanted and interesting, and feeling curious and mystified and intrigued and engaged by another person - and, really, by a cute guy - also felt good. I got home feeling much better. Then, on Saturday morning, out of the blue my ex called. I still really care about him and miss him and am coping with the sadness of the break up, and I'll admit it never occurred to me that he would just call me because he felt like talking about life. It was really nice, and we had a really pleasant conversation about nothing important. For an hour. And he said he would be happy to meet me for dinner when I drive through his area. Then...just, the weekend went okay. So add it all up, and I feel good about life. What a change from last Monday! And now really I have to stop.
For my new beginning...in all of this, one of the things that kept cropping up in my head was how alone I felt, how isolated, how I feel like no one cares. This is obviously nonsense, but surprisingly hard to refute. Yet, I'm about to go on a road trip where I will see literally dozens of people who care about me. Like, I'd have to count, but I'd guess around 30 or 40. Maybe even more. So, I'm going to ask all of these people if I can take their photographs, and I'm going to make myself an album of all of the people who care about me, and next time I start feeling like no one cares, I'll just pull that down. I won't get everyone in there - my mother, my friends in NYC, my friends and family who live in more distant places like Texas and California, I won't be seeing any of them, but I can add their pictures when I DO see them. I'm really looking forward to this project. It's sort of like a scrap book...but with out all the collage. ;)
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