Yes. I have been avoiding it. I’ve been moving furniture instead. And toying with the idea of creating a plugin for WordPress. That, of course, is a skill I need to learn right now. It is very important that I learn PHP and smart CSS tricks. That I fix holes. Or learn how to fly a plane. Or how to turn straw into gold.
It is almost 1am and I haven’t written anything particularly purposeful for days. I don’t mean that I should be writing about depression all the time, but I feel very scattered and I can’t make sense of what I’m doing.
Actually, I know what I’m doing. I’m creating work for myself. I’m creating more burdens. I am bombarding myself with new ideas and new responsibilities. In a normal situation, that would be great. It would be one of those times when inspiration floods. At the moment, however, it just makes everything seem out of control. It’s supposed to, I guess. Because if I was in control, my messed up head wouldn’t be able to force me to look at myself.
That’s why I am so suspicious of people who think you can just behave your way back to normal. Pushing your behaviour is a part of moving out of this place, yes. But not the whole of it. If you don’t want to descend again, you have to face the ogres. You have to really spend time inside yourself. You have to listen. All this pressure – this imaginary pressure – it is telling me to listen.
I just can’t hear anything yet.
Right now, I’m going through a crazy cycle. Instead of feeling so exhausted that I don’t want to get out of bed, I really cannot force myself to sleep. Instead, my head is throbbing and my whole body is aching and I am typing frenetically, doing everything frenetically, but I have completely lost perspective on everything. If I stood up now, I think I would fall over. Instead of not being able to concentrate, I am concentrating too intently.
I should go to bed. I will make myself go to bed.
As I write that, my mind has already moved on to starting a new post. Because this one is finished. And the post after that is writing itself too. It just won’t stop. It physically hurts.
I. Am. Going. To. Bed.
If I didn’t have Caspar, that would not happen.
Caspar is a good, good thing.
I do that too. Create work that is “safe” to focus on. To divert myself from having to concentrate on why I’m numb, depressed apathetic etc.
It’s amazing how resilient the mind is, isn’t it? When it learns so well how to protect us, it’s hard to make it stop doing it.
Sounds a bit manic to me, darling. Not that I am qualified to make diagnoses. But maybe you should ask someone who is to check your seratonin levels or something?
AS for behaving your way back to normal … well, see, because most of us feel ‘down’ from time to time, and the word ‘depression’ is used in non-clinical ways, people imagine that shifting the clinical kind is just the same as getting oneself out of a bit of self-pity. And it’s not.
I remember when I was in group therapy, a young woman who had severe depression reeling off this long list of helpful suggestions she had received: everything from ‘take up gardening’ to ‘have a baby’! As if.
If someone is seeking therapeutic help for depression, you can bet they’ve already tried other options to ‘get themselves out of it’.
As I think I have said, I in my time was diagnosed with anxiety state rather than depression – but I can tell you that the expert help was vital. The whole point was that I couldn’t find my way out of it without help. It was not a mild thing! It was beyond my ability to control.
There are therapists and therapists, of course. I was very fortunate to find a person who thought his patients were people and never patronised them, not even slightly. He has been dead since 1992, so I can’t recommend him to you; but it’s clear you have enough gumption and discernment to choose well for yourself.
And yes, Caspar is obviously a very good thing!
Having dealt with major depressive episodes, I truly believe that finding pleasure in something is essential. You know, something *pleasurable*, not something that will stress you out. Something as simple as a cup of hot chocolate or a good book. Those are the things that helped get me through. (Although, of course, I needed medication, too)
Hoping the best for you. You sound so similar to where I was before.. including the depopulated world.
Rosemary – I might address the “manic” issue in a post. It is something I have thought about before. And yes – the advice people give is sometimes ridiculous.
Chani – even taking into consideration the comment Rosemary made about advice, I do agree that a cuppa (for me, coffee in a coffee shop) is a good thing.
I love coffee in a coffee shop too. And I think Chani is qualified to give advice, as she says she has dealt with ‘major depressive episodes’. Unlike the well-meaning fools I was talking about, she proposes simple pleasures to help you get through, not preposterous ‘cures’.
[...] mentioned in her comment on Avoiding depression… that it sounded manic. And it is, and I am. So I’m going to write a little about Bipolar [...]
All I can say is you’re right – Caspar is a good thing. I have been exactly there, but I did not go to bed. I would go in cycles of 36 hours awake, 24 hours asleep. It was like torture. Then there was the time when I got onto a cycle of being awake only at night time, and could not seem to get out of it.
I did get a lot of stuff done, but the sleep deprivation was terrible.
I don’t necessarily think it is manic, though I think it is worth getting that checked out. I think for me it was a side effect of the depression. I just didn’t feel like I could sleep and if I wasn’t doing something, anything, to keep my mind off the fact I couldn’t sleep it upset me.
I agree with Chani re the hot chocolate. In fact I think I’m going to make one right now.
Cheers,
Snoskred
If Caspar wasn’t around, I would be like that now – awake all night. As it is, I am finding myself have to force myself to bed at 3am. Not a lot of sleeping getting done. And that isn’t helpful. I’ve been trying to cut down on the coffee and drink more water. That’s something.
The manic thing. kind of threw me actually, partly because I feel so ignorant about it, and partly because the last few days I have literally been feeling crazed, still unable to concentrate but totally wired and spinning out of control. I’m making a doctor’s appointment for next week though. (I was supposed to have done that already.) I’ll let her figure it out. What do I know?
Milo. That’s what I know.
Nice Blog. I have been looking for blogs and such that I can relate to. I invite you to come to my blog and join me in my delightful spiral into death depression and nothing.
Thanks for your time. Remain happy ?
Hi FH, (Sorry, I just can’t bring myself to call you Fathead). I visited your blog today and I actually like your “delightful spiral into death depression and nothing”. I hope that isn’t what it turns out to be in reality though.