Time passes.
It has been a very long time since I have updated my lj. The internet moves on, I suppose. Still, this is the only internet place I have where I'd even remotely consider writing personal entries (aside from the occasional facebook status rant, which is hardly the same). I wonder if anyone reads this anymore, aside, perhaps, from the one friend I know who still uses hirs.
I spent about ten weeks feeling pretty normal. A few ups and downs, but I think those were all fairly usual even for folks without mood disorders. The debilitating depression had eased up after 5 long weeks of feeling (and fearing) that it would never end. Now it is back. Not as bad, yet, as I remember it being in the end, which actually just makes me scared. Two weeks ago, I started to feel extremely tired. My thoughts centered around my bed, mainly, and everything else just got pushed out of the way so I could lie down and not fall asleep for a frustratingly long time. Sleep didn't help. Coffee helped a little, for a few hours after drinking it. This past week, my feelings went a bit numb. It is hard to interact with humans when you can't really feel anything, even if you know intellectually what feelings you WOULD be feeling and manage a reasonable facsimile thereof. Always that lingering "did I get that right? Did I seem weird?"
I have been totally avoiding actual human contact, with limited amounts of texting and chatting on Facebook. Around the house, I keep my headphones and music pumped up to avoid hearing anything that might require, or tempt, me into interacting. Lots of time in my room. I've finished two books! Terry Pratchett still makes me laugh, somehow, even without the underlying emotions that normally accompanying my giggling over his novels.
Now I am sliding down into the emotional part of depression, which consists (obviously) only of the negative emotions. Yesterday and today so far I am constantly on the edge of tears, cannot handle even the limited human interaction on Facebook and such, since every little silence feels like a slight or an admission of secret dislike. I don't know how to deal with this part. Exhaustion - make no plans, sleep as much as possible. No feelings - isolate self, have lots of me-designated-time. Bad feelings - ???
Isolate self? IT'S TRUE, I HAVE NO FRIENDS!
Not isolate self? ALL MY "FRIENDS" SECRETLY HATE ME!
Try to practice self-care? WHAT'S THE POINT, I'LL NEVER FEEL BETTER
Remind myself that it has passed before and will probably pass again? WHATEVER, NOT THIS TIME PROBABLY!
Even calling this negative voice the Jerkbrain, when I know that's what it is, feels like people are trivializing my feelings and making a joke out of me. I am not unaware of what is happening to me - I'm extremely aware. I know the signs, I know the patterns, I know what is reasonable and what is not reasonable, I know which thoughts I have when I am not depressed match and do not match up with what I think when I am depressed. None of this mitigates the emotional impact of my warped thinking, though it does give me something to cling to and some material to use to try and have marginally normal interactions with people, when I can brave it.
Inside, I'm always floundering. It's a deeply intellectual, not instinctive, process. Heading off my passive-aggressive impulses takes so much energy, every minute. Every thought has to be examined and reexamined, every action I might want to engage in takes endless scrutiny to make sure it's not motivated by meanness, or calculated to have manipulative effect.
Meanwhile, I'm thinking about the ultimate pointlessness of everything I do and wishing that I could just stop existing somehow - not kill myself, but just blink out of existence, or suddenly and painlessly die. I fantasize about finding out that I have terminal cancer or nobly sacrificing my life to save someone else.
Every once in a while I have an urge to put a sign, or something, that says "DO NOT DISTURB: IMPORTANT CRYING IN PROGRESS" - I want people to know (which I suppose on some level is why I'm writing this) and I also simultaneously REALLY DON'T WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW. I can be open while chatting with a friend who lives across the ocean because zie will just send me supportive facebook private messages every once in a while, hir interaction limited by distance and time zones to a minimal level that I can deal with. Telling the people I live with? No way!
Last night, a friend texted and asked why I hadn't made it to an event. I almost said "I don't want to talk about it." I didn't, because I realized that was just asking for attention "LOOK AT ME I HAVE AN ISSUE AND I'M GOING TO MAKE YOU TEAR IT OUT OF ME BECAUSE JUST TELLING YOU WOULD BE TOO EASY." And ultimately, I'm so conflicted about the possibility of actually getting any attention that I choose not to ask for it, because 1. my impulse is always to ask for it in really harmful and fucked up ways, and 2. I think honestly that it would just upset me further. Of course, that doesn't stop me from resenting people for not noticing, but that's meanness, when I am actively making sure that they don't interact with me, and is therefore my stuff to deal with, not theirs. I'm sure they've noticed my avoidance, and have rightfully taken it as a cue to leave me alone. How can respect feel so much like neglect?
Anyway, no one knows what kind of support might actually make me feel better, least of all me! And worse! To ask for support and not get it. At least if I don't ask, I don't have to spend the rest of my depressive period measuring people unfairly against some kind of idealized magic support person who knows what I want when I don't, accusing people in my mind of not caring about me, or - my real fear - having people not care enough to support me.
Am I writing this so that one friend who still uses lj will read it? I'm not sure. I am sure that I am not writing it so that person will respond at all. Mostly, I think I'm writing it just because I feel like writing, and in a public forum. Maybe someone will stumble across it and it will resonate. Maybe it will linger forever unseen in the bowels of the internet. I feel slightly less awful having written it, so maybe that's why. Something about a possible-but-not-certain audience is different from scribbling in my paper journal enough to change how I feel about writing it. Maybe this feels like sharing, whereas that feels isolating - just me talking to myself about how lonely and awful and pointless I am. This is more like a electronic wish to the world, or a deity I don't believe in, that I will again feel better, eventually. It gives me a crumb of strength, like a message in bottle - someday I'll get off this barren island. And maybe, it's good to have a record of how I feel on given days during this kind of episode. Maybe this record will help me pull through next time.
I spent about ten weeks feeling pretty normal. A few ups and downs, but I think those were all fairly usual even for folks without mood disorders. The debilitating depression had eased up after 5 long weeks of feeling (and fearing) that it would never end. Now it is back. Not as bad, yet, as I remember it being in the end, which actually just makes me scared. Two weeks ago, I started to feel extremely tired. My thoughts centered around my bed, mainly, and everything else just got pushed out of the way so I could lie down and not fall asleep for a frustratingly long time. Sleep didn't help. Coffee helped a little, for a few hours after drinking it. This past week, my feelings went a bit numb. It is hard to interact with humans when you can't really feel anything, even if you know intellectually what feelings you WOULD be feeling and manage a reasonable facsimile thereof. Always that lingering "did I get that right? Did I seem weird?"
I have been totally avoiding actual human contact, with limited amounts of texting and chatting on Facebook. Around the house, I keep my headphones and music pumped up to avoid hearing anything that might require, or tempt, me into interacting. Lots of time in my room. I've finished two books! Terry Pratchett still makes me laugh, somehow, even without the underlying emotions that normally accompanying my giggling over his novels.
Now I am sliding down into the emotional part of depression, which consists (obviously) only of the negative emotions. Yesterday and today so far I am constantly on the edge of tears, cannot handle even the limited human interaction on Facebook and such, since every little silence feels like a slight or an admission of secret dislike. I don't know how to deal with this part. Exhaustion - make no plans, sleep as much as possible. No feelings - isolate self, have lots of me-designated-time. Bad feelings - ???
Isolate self? IT'S TRUE, I HAVE NO FRIENDS!
Not isolate self? ALL MY "FRIENDS" SECRETLY HATE ME!
Try to practice self-care? WHAT'S THE POINT, I'LL NEVER FEEL BETTER
Remind myself that it has passed before and will probably pass again? WHATEVER, NOT THIS TIME PROBABLY!
Even calling this negative voice the Jerkbrain, when I know that's what it is, feels like people are trivializing my feelings and making a joke out of me. I am not unaware of what is happening to me - I'm extremely aware. I know the signs, I know the patterns, I know what is reasonable and what is not reasonable, I know which thoughts I have when I am not depressed match and do not match up with what I think when I am depressed. None of this mitigates the emotional impact of my warped thinking, though it does give me something to cling to and some material to use to try and have marginally normal interactions with people, when I can brave it.
Inside, I'm always floundering. It's a deeply intellectual, not instinctive, process. Heading off my passive-aggressive impulses takes so much energy, every minute. Every thought has to be examined and reexamined, every action I might want to engage in takes endless scrutiny to make sure it's not motivated by meanness, or calculated to have manipulative effect.
Meanwhile, I'm thinking about the ultimate pointlessness of everything I do and wishing that I could just stop existing somehow - not kill myself, but just blink out of existence, or suddenly and painlessly die. I fantasize about finding out that I have terminal cancer or nobly sacrificing my life to save someone else.
Every once in a while I have an urge to put a sign, or something, that says "DO NOT DISTURB: IMPORTANT CRYING IN PROGRESS" - I want people to know (which I suppose on some level is why I'm writing this) and I also simultaneously REALLY DON'T WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW. I can be open while chatting with a friend who lives across the ocean because zie will just send me supportive facebook private messages every once in a while, hir interaction limited by distance and time zones to a minimal level that I can deal with. Telling the people I live with? No way!
Last night, a friend texted and asked why I hadn't made it to an event. I almost said "I don't want to talk about it." I didn't, because I realized that was just asking for attention "LOOK AT ME I HAVE AN ISSUE AND I'M GOING TO MAKE YOU TEAR IT OUT OF ME BECAUSE JUST TELLING YOU WOULD BE TOO EASY." And ultimately, I'm so conflicted about the possibility of actually getting any attention that I choose not to ask for it, because 1. my impulse is always to ask for it in really harmful and fucked up ways, and 2. I think honestly that it would just upset me further. Of course, that doesn't stop me from resenting people for not noticing, but that's meanness, when I am actively making sure that they don't interact with me, and is therefore my stuff to deal with, not theirs. I'm sure they've noticed my avoidance, and have rightfully taken it as a cue to leave me alone. How can respect feel so much like neglect?
Anyway, no one knows what kind of support might actually make me feel better, least of all me! And worse! To ask for support and not get it. At least if I don't ask, I don't have to spend the rest of my depressive period measuring people unfairly against some kind of idealized magic support person who knows what I want when I don't, accusing people in my mind of not caring about me, or - my real fear - having people not care enough to support me.
Am I writing this so that one friend who still uses lj will read it? I'm not sure. I am sure that I am not writing it so that person will respond at all. Mostly, I think I'm writing it just because I feel like writing, and in a public forum. Maybe someone will stumble across it and it will resonate. Maybe it will linger forever unseen in the bowels of the internet. I feel slightly less awful having written it, so maybe that's why. Something about a possible-but-not-certain audience is different from scribbling in my paper journal enough to change how I feel about writing it. Maybe this feels like sharing, whereas that feels isolating - just me talking to myself about how lonely and awful and pointless I am. This is more like a electronic wish to the world, or a deity I don't believe in, that I will again feel better, eventually. It gives me a crumb of strength, like a message in bottle - someday I'll get off this barren island. And maybe, it's good to have a record of how I feel on given days during this kind of episode. Maybe this record will help me pull through next time.