Not Linear

I really, really wish I could get people to understand this about depression - it is not moodiness. It is not the blues. It is not being in a funk. It is like a bottomless pit of despair, hopelessness and fear.

If you are familiar with how J.K. Rowling describes what it is like to be around dementors, it is a lot like that. Every good feeling, thought, memory, emotion is sucked from your body.

"It’s no coincidence that [dementors] are a portmanteau of dement and  tormentor. If you want to understand what depression feels like,  these gravity-challenged entities hit the mark: “If it can, the Dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself… soulless and evil. You’ll be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life.” They then “freeze your insides”. And to top it off: “they don’t need walls” to keep their prisoners, their prisoners become “trapped inside their own heads”.

From: http://www.mamamia.com.au/jk-rowling-depression-dementors/

In fact, J.K. Rowling has experienced severe depression and even struggled with suicidal thoughts. She knows.

It is not possible to just "get over" depression. Telling a person with depression to just cheer up is like telling someone with lung disease to take two aspirin and stop breathing so funny.

Recovery is also not linear.

The last two days have been very bad.

I am doing what I should be doing. I am getting out. I am gardening. I am exercising. I am meeting friends. I even came up with 11 new ideas for children's books and got art supplies today to get started on one I've already written!

But I cannot shut off the negative thought loop inside my head. I'm reading about all sorts of things to try to shut it off, but nothing seems to take hold and I cannot describe how mentally exhausting it is to constantly try to redirect my thoughts. Eventually, I'm just too tired to keep pushing them away and they take over again.

I know this will pass. I'm just so scared I am never going to escape the cycle.

Once More, With Feeling.

With a nod to Buffy, the Vampire Slayer for the title of this post. One of the best episodes ever and the lyrics below are from it and quite fitting.

"Every single night
The same arrangement
I go out and fight the fight
Still, I always feel the strange estrangement
Nothing here is real
Nothing here is right

I've been making shows of trading blows
Just hoping no one knows
That I've been going through the motions
Walking through the part
Nothing seems to penetrate my heart"

My last post, written over a year ago, could have been written at any point over these last two weeks, which is truly frightening.

How many more times in my life will I go through this? How can I break the cycle? I'm trapped.

I posted the above image on Facebook recently. It's very apt. I am tired to the core of dealing with depression and all the emotions that come with it. Sometimes I want to stick an ice pick in my brain just to shut it up. Maybe it would function as sort of a homemade lobotomy.

I know what triggered this one, but I'm not getting into it here. It doesn't matter anyway, because once it is triggered, depression takes on a life of it's own and grows so much more massive than the event that triggered it.

I just started a book called Uncovering Happiness. Haven't gotten too far yet, but it is good so far. It says recent research shows the brain has much more plasticity than previously believed which is very good news for people with depression because part of the problem with us is that our neural pathways have become fucked up from so many depressions and our thought processes are now ingrained.  The author says you can retrain your thought processes. It advocates a 5 fold approach, including mindfulness and self-compassion. I have zero self-compassion. In fact, my self-compassion is in the negative digits. I am flat out vicious to myself. I'm not sure when it started, but these thought patterns were definitely taking shape by junior high school.

With mindfulness, I have to constantly redirect my thoughts to the present moment. You are supposed to take in what is going on in your senses now. My parents live on a steep hill and lately I have been walking up and down it for exercise. Today I really tried to focus on the present. The baby lambs chasing each other. The forsythia in full bloom, and so gloriously yellow against the blue sky. The birds twittering. I really love the sound of birds. I didn't get to hear them often before my cochlear implant surgery. But mindfulness is difficult. As I walked up and down the hill, my mind would wander to negative things and I would have to take a deep breath and refocus on the present. It takes so much mental energy to do that. I always seem to end up giving up.

I have heard depression called a liar. And a bully.

It is also a thief. It robs you of life's joy. I can be with my family, people I love with all of my heart and who I know love me, and feel utterly lonely and full of sadness and despair even during the best of moments. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of it stealing from me.

My therapist suggested this blog last year. As you can see. I wrote 3 times and stopped. I really love to write and find it very therapeutic and I am determined to stick with it this time. I hope it helps.