Bugger. First black dogbreath whiffs (grey dog, perhaps, as others have said, as really I'm a pretty lightweight traveller) since the Dark Times™ four years ago. Probably fraudulent popping in here because so many of you you do it far tougher. Just a precaution, I guess. This (or its predecessor) was a good Safe Place™ to be back then.
Yesterday evening I went for a cycle (exercise) and when the chain came off I sat in the middle of nowhere and simply howled. Not because of the chain, which was easily fixed, but just because. I am not often plagued by black dogs, but all of us have things to mourn just now. If you also have a black dog it must make it so much worse.
All sorts of strange little things are making me tearful lately. I don't know if I am developing a black dog, or if this is just a typical reaction to this situation and will go away once things have moved forward. Though I don't think things are just going to go back to how they were - I don't think this is possible, or even desirable.
Somebody somewhere quoted an ICU nurse as saying that in her experience, people tended to cope with major life disasters well up to weeks 4-6 or thereabouts, and then have weepy howling bits (er, breakdowns in various manifestations). I gather this is normal and also that it passes. But for most of us, this is right where we are in the time frame, so it may be expect-able...
A good friend of mine has dealt with the vicious black dog at times and now seems to have taken a crash because of various issues of the virus and living circumstances. One is that she is a very devout Catholic and the Church, her church friends, Mass, and the penitential rite have been central to keeping her afloat. Please pray for RR.
Yesterday evening I went for a cycle (exercise) and when the chain came off I sat in the middle of nowhere and simply howled. Not because of the chain, which was easily fixed, but just because. I am not often plagued by black dogs, but all of us have things to mourn just now. If you also have a black dog it must make it so much worse.
Prayers and love for Zappa, fineline, Thomasina, Cathscats, RR, and anybody else who might be lurking.
After I posted last week, I had a huge sense of humour failure, did a lot of shouting and crashing about the kitchen, and then took myself out for a run, which always makes me more cheerful (the migraine had gone by then). It was earlier than I usually run, and I wondered why there were lots of people standing outside their houses, some of them with pots and pans....
Turns out my run coincided with a weekly thing in the U.K. where people show their support for NHS and other key workers by clapping, banging and generally making a racket. It was at first acutely embarrassing, and then totally hilarious to run through.
@Cathscats I’m sorry to hear about the bicycle and sobbing incident. I’m glad you felt better afterwards. I hope you won’t be offended if I say that my immediate response to your post (having spent a bit of time in the Methodist church as a teen) was to sing to myself, “My chains fell off, my heart was free....”
Bugger. First black dogbreath whiffs (grey dog, perhaps, as others have said, as really I'm a pretty lightweight traveller) since the Dark Times™ four years ago. Probably fraudulent popping in here because so many of you you do it far tougher. Just a precaution, I guess. This (or its predecessor) was a good Safe Place™ to be back then.
Hey Zappa,
I think that most people who suffer depression feel fraudulent some of the time. I was just reflecting on this yesterday. A page or so back I posted about my current struggles and that I am on medication for the first time in nearly 20 years.
The truth is that I feel great right now. Whether it's the medication or the fact that I am exercising every day or the time with family or that I am able to do some of my research work or the fact that locally the Covid-19 threat is ebbing I don't really know but I feel the best I have felt in ages. I think it could be the meds - My usual joke is that a day with only one existential crisis in it (when I want to sit in a corner and stop existing) is a good day. And that's what I used to consider normal so maybe my brain chemistry is a bit fucked and I needed a boost all along.
Anyway, as I have mentioned before my personal Black Dog is not especially persistent and gets bored easily such that I haven't had more than a few bad hours in years until this recent episode. Last time I was on medication I was just down most of the time for weeks and weeks. However, my Black Dog is a loyal bastard and always seems to follow me around.
So, my reflection is this - I have never been as bad as many people I know. I have not struggled to manage my depression until very recently and currently on medication, I feel very well indeed. So I feel like a fraud.
I think it is probably a feature of depression for most of us that we minimise and think we shouldn't complain because others have it worse.
So, here's the thing: don't minimise. It's a real and horrible disease. In the current times many of us are struggling. Be kind to yourself.
I am trying to be kind to myself.
I have said it before but very very lovely people here... this is a good place to share. I am thankful for how good I am feeling right now (my concentration is back to normal too! Although I am not sleeping properly still). I am doing well. I am grateful.
The Black Dog is a bastard and often it's a very lonely fight. You are not a fraud, I am not a fraud. We fight together.
How can silly little things plunge you right down? I know they are silly little things, and yet they can make that awful blackness and blankness tip over you. I just want to site down, fall asleep (that's the easy bit) and never wake up. But I do. and its still there.
Thomasina, I have been in a similar place in the past and it sucks. I hope it changes for you.
I have developed a urinary tract infection. I know it won't kill me, but I'm feeling really sorry for myself, which is the effect they usually have. A neighbour has offered to pick up any medication for me, so intellectually I know I will be OK, but knowing that doesn't really help much.
Knowing one thing but feeling the opposite is something that can really drag me down. I often find that when I am unwell and know it, the idea that I shouldn't feel this way logically can be a millstone.
At the moment, my talk guy is saying, "just sit with the feeling. Look at it, examine it, feel its contours, but steer clear of judgement." I think though that this advice is good if you are well, but very hard to do if you are unwell. Thank God my medication is working.
Hugs to Thomasina and Huia. I’m struggling due to physical ill health (post-covid) at the moment, and it just wears you down so much. In my case the uncertainty doesn’t help; the doctors are just as bewildered as I am. I expect I will fully recover but when, who knows?
((((((Heavenlyannie)))))) Be kind to yourself. Your body has taken a battering, it needs time.
Wish I could take my own advice! Everything just getting worse. but I don't know where to go. I don't want to worry my family, they've got their own problems. And who hasn't? Makes me feel selfish.
At the moment, my talk guy is saying, "just sit with the feeling. Look at it, examine it, feel its contours, but steer clear of judgement." I think though that this advice is good if you are well, but very hard to do if you are unwell. Thank God my medication is working.
I think this is kind of what I'm doing, and I think it is helping a little. I got to a point where I figured I might as well accept that feeling sad, tearful and chaotic, and also feeling more unwell than usual, is simply my new normal. And as there's not much I can currently do to change anything, I'm just going with it. Observing it, acknowledging it, not fighting it or worrying about it.
It's weird - it isn't stopping me feeling sad, chaotic or unwell, of course, but I'm feeling more settled within myself - less up and down emotionally. On the one hand it seemed useful to be concerned that I was getting depressed, so that I could try to address it, but on the other hand it feels like a doubling of misery to be upset by the fact I'm upset, and frustratingly pointless when nothing actually can be done to address it, so accepting it as the new normal seemed the only choice.
I'm helped by the fact that my body seems to have finally calmed down a bit and is adapting to this new normal - it was much harder when my heart rate was all over the place all the time. I also think tiring myself out by very long walks in the woods helps - probably not ideal in normal circumstances, but it means I'm too tired to think much, and I sleep at night. I fell asleep in my garden this afternoon. I think, though, I have forgotten what it feels like to feel happy. Maybe that is a point in acceptance - when you forget what happy feels like, you don't miss it so poignantly as when you remember.
Is ti common for the brain to just feel sluggish and lethargic after the loss of livelihood - after massive reorgs - and then COVID hitting - and the onlook of several more months of waiting...
Waiting for the time to be right for Mum to put her home in Seaford on the market - so we are able to move to Weston.. and I finally consolidate with her...
I found my brain to be sluggish.. I miss fixing incidents..
Is ti common for the brain to just feel sluggish and lethargic after the loss of livelihood - after massive reorgs - and then COVID hitting - and the onlook of several more months of waiting...
Waiting for the time to be right for Mum to put her home in Seaford on the market - so we are able to move to Weston.. and I finally consolidate with her...
I found my brain to be sluggish.. I miss fixing incidents..
Quite frankly if there had been no changes whatsoever in how you were managing, given all those stresses, that would worry me more.
Alex its totally normal and a reaction to circumstances. FWIW, depression in response to life circumstances is a bastard of a thing to go through and may require treatment. Seek it out, if you can, or talk to a trusted friend or loved one. Its not clinical depression, as I understand the difference, but it is still something that needs to be addressed.
Your post rings a bell with me. I think I've been where you are.
I'm helped by the fact that my body seems to have finally calmed down a bit and is adapting to this new normal - it was much harder when my heart rate was all over the place all the time. I also think tiring myself out by very long walks in the woods helps - probably not ideal in normal circumstances, but it means I'm too tired to think much, and I sleep at night. I fell asleep in my garden this afternoon. I think, though, I have forgotten what it feels like to feel happy. Maybe that is a point in acceptance - when you forget what happy feels like, you don't miss it so poignantly as when you remember.
Fineline, you are one of the people who writes amazing posts that I read and find I have nothing to say in response but 'wow'. But in the light of Mousethief's and LC's confessions, I would like to say, 'wow' explicitly.
Do you really think you have forgotten what its like to be happy? What is happy? For me, happy is the same as 'at peace', 'content', 'calm'. That's a different definition to a younger more externally focused me. Then, happy meant 'excited', 'social', 'partying', 'firing on all cylinders'. What is happy to you?
As someone with bipolar disorder, I can relate to ‘happy’ being calm and peaceful. But that’s because I often associate other manifestations of ‘happy’ with being hypomanic, which is not restful. I’m hypomanic most of the time and it eventually gets tiring.
When I am calm and peaceful I am in a normative state, therefore I am happy.
I'm helped by the fact that my body seems to have finally calmed down a bit and is adapting to this new normal - it was much harder when my heart rate was all over the place all the time. I also think tiring myself out by very long walks in the woods helps - probably not ideal in normal circumstances, but it means I'm too tired to think much, and I sleep at night. I fell asleep in my garden this afternoon. I think, though, I have forgotten what it feels like to feel happy. Maybe that is a point in acceptance - when you forget what happy feels like, you don't miss it so poignantly as when you remember.
Fineline, you are one of the people who writes amazing posts that I read and find I have nothing to say in response but 'wow'. But in the light of Mousethief's and LC's confessions, I would like to say, 'wow' explicitly.
Do you really think you have forgotten what its like to be happy? What is happy? For me, happy is the same as 'at peace', 'content', 'calm'. That's a different definition to a younger more externally focused me. Then, happy meant 'excited', 'social', 'partying', 'firing on all cylinders'. What is happy to you?
I definitely don't mean firing on all cylinders - it's been many years since I've experienced that feeling. But yes, happy is a vague word, I agree, and can mean different things to different people. What I mean is a sort of lightness, alertness, interest in the world, and yes, a kind of calm and peace. Which has actually finally returned to me this week to some extent, though I am still feeling easily tearful.
I think I reached a peak of inner chaos and sadness and despair, and at that point just felt flat and empty, and accepted this was how I feel now. It was an acceptance, but not a feeling of calm and peace - more a feeling of being completely flat and sad, and just sitting with that, because I had nothing else to do with it, no energy to rage against it. And so, yes, I had reached a point where I couldn't remember the happy feeling - couldn't imagine it or re-feel it in my memory, because there was an emptiness inside me. I kept hearing news from more and more people I care about that they'd lost loved ones, and I was feeling so helpless, not able to be there for them. I thought my neighbour was going to die. I was having work issues too and struggling with many different things, and it got to a point where I stopped struggling and just felt completely flat and empty. And the only thing to help was to tire myself out going for a long walk, and I cried on the walks, and picked nettles and wild garlic to give me a focus.
I don't know if that explanation makes any sense. Equally, I think my new adjusted state of 'feeling better' is not the same as my usual wellbeing norm outside of lockdown, and it won't return to that during lockdown. I don't think I can remember what that felt like, other than being aware that it was not what I am feeling right now. This is a new norm for me, which I am adapting to for the present. And the longer the new norm goes on for, the more you do adapt and forget what you felt like before (or I do, at least), because it feels like a different world.
Fineline, again, 'wow'. You write so vividly about your feelings and inner life that it is easy to empathise.
What I mean is a sort of lightness, alertness, interest in the world, and yes, a kind of calm and peace. Which has actually finally returned to me this week to some extent, though I am still feeling easily tearful.
I very much like your description of happiness, especially 'alertness, interest in the world'. You do lose that in low mood states. The tearfulness is very familiar to me. Its one of my signs that things aren't right - when I feel emotion intensely.
Your next two paragraphs are also familiar. All I can do is give you an e-hug and e-sit with you.
I seldom have very low moods (I major in hypomania) but your description of emptiness resonates with my low moods too, as well as the tearfulness. In fact, I often don’t realise I am depressed until the tearfulness arrives.
Hugs to you
(wistfully) hypomania sounds rather nice. I struggle with the opposite--a permanent lowness of mood and energy which doesn't quite meet the criteria for major depression. Of course, I'm also not far out from the deaths of several family members (18 months?) and all in all, it's a bit of a mess.
Hypomania does have its positive aspects; it can be quite fun as the world is so alive, and I definitely would miss it. It can also be quite tiring and heavy on the wallet (addictive behaviours are common in bipolar disorder). It isn’t always good for personal relationships as people tend to get irritated by the non-stop chatter and restlessness and manics can respond quite thoughtlessly to others - I’ve seen a manic depressive friend get into terrible rows. Following through with projects can be a trial due to lack of concentration, though sometimes it can mean more energy to get things done. I sometimes get anxiety when hypomanic, or in the twilight zone between hypomania and depression when they overlap.
Full mania can be very scary with delusions where you can really lose touch with reality.
Depression, though, is the pits and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. The description earlier of emptiness fits with my experience of it.
May your black dog be banished Lamb Chopped
Could I ask for your prayers, please. Being prone to depression, though mostly of the SAD variety, I’m struggling a little at the moment, especially with hearing about another death of a good friend (the third in a month) this morning. And, of course, for all their families 🕯.
Three in a month! Doone, that must be quite an emotional hit. I'll pray for you too.
Thank you so much, @Simon Toad . Four now, my dear friend, whose husband died a couple of weeks ago and has his funeral on Wednesday, phoned me in tears yesterday afternoon to say her son’s father in law had just unexpectedly died as well - a vale of tears indeed at the moment 🕯. I wish my faith was stronger at the moment, but being here helps 😢.
Comments
🕯
(I felt much better after my weep.)
I *so* understand that
Yes. Winter too
After I posted last week, I had a huge sense of humour failure, did a lot of shouting and crashing about the kitchen, and then took myself out for a run, which always makes me more cheerful (the migraine had gone by then). It was earlier than I usually run, and I wondered why there were lots of people standing outside their houses, some of them with pots and pans....
Turns out my run coincided with a weekly thing in the U.K. where people show their support for NHS and other key workers by clapping, banging and generally making a racket. It was at first acutely embarrassing, and then totally hilarious to run through.
@Cathscats I’m sorry to hear about the bicycle and sobbing incident. I’m glad you felt better afterwards. I hope you won’t be offended if I say that my immediate response to your post (having spent a bit of time in the Methodist church as a teen) was to sing to myself, “My chains fell off, my heart was free....”
Hey Zappa,
I think that most people who suffer depression feel fraudulent some of the time. I was just reflecting on this yesterday. A page or so back I posted about my current struggles and that I am on medication for the first time in nearly 20 years.
The truth is that I feel great right now. Whether it's the medication or the fact that I am exercising every day or the time with family or that I am able to do some of my research work or the fact that locally the Covid-19 threat is ebbing I don't really know but I feel the best I have felt in ages. I think it could be the meds - My usual joke is that a day with only one existential crisis in it (when I want to sit in a corner and stop existing) is a good day. And that's what I used to consider normal so maybe my brain chemistry is a bit fucked and I needed a boost all along.
Anyway, as I have mentioned before my personal Black Dog is not especially persistent and gets bored easily such that I haven't had more than a few bad hours in years until this recent episode. Last time I was on medication I was just down most of the time for weeks and weeks. However, my Black Dog is a loyal bastard and always seems to follow me around.
So, my reflection is this - I have never been as bad as many people I know. I have not struggled to manage my depression until very recently and currently on medication, I feel very well indeed. So I feel like a fraud.
I think it is probably a feature of depression for most of us that we minimise and think we shouldn't complain because others have it worse.
So, here's the thing: don't minimise. It's a real and horrible disease. In the current times many of us are struggling. Be kind to yourself.
I am trying to be kind to myself.
I have said it before but very very lovely people here... this is a good place to share. I am thankful for how good I am feeling right now (my concentration is back to normal too! Although I am not sleeping properly still). I am doing well. I am grateful.
The Black Dog is a bastard and often it's a very lonely fight. You are not a fraud, I am not a fraud. We fight together.
AFZ
I'm happy to hear you are feeling happy, alienfromzog; wonderful news.
And best wishes to all.
I have developed a urinary tract infection. I know it won't kill me, but I'm feeling really sorry for myself, which is the effect they usually have. A neighbour has offered to pick up any medication for me, so intellectually I know I will be OK, but knowing that doesn't really help much.
Knowing one thing but feeling the opposite is something that can really drag me down. I often find that when I am unwell and know it, the idea that I shouldn't feel this way logically can be a millstone.
At the moment, my talk guy is saying, "just sit with the feeling. Look at it, examine it, feel its contours, but steer clear of judgement." I think though that this advice is good if you are well, but very hard to do if you are unwell. Thank God my medication is working.
Wish I could take my own advice! Everything just getting worse. but I don't know where to go. I don't want to worry my family, they've got their own problems. And who hasn't? Makes me feel selfish.
I think this is kind of what I'm doing, and I think it is helping a little. I got to a point where I figured I might as well accept that feeling sad, tearful and chaotic, and also feeling more unwell than usual, is simply my new normal. And as there's not much I can currently do to change anything, I'm just going with it. Observing it, acknowledging it, not fighting it or worrying about it.
It's weird - it isn't stopping me feeling sad, chaotic or unwell, of course, but I'm feeling more settled within myself - less up and down emotionally. On the one hand it seemed useful to be concerned that I was getting depressed, so that I could try to address it, but on the other hand it feels like a doubling of misery to be upset by the fact I'm upset, and frustratingly pointless when nothing actually can be done to address it, so accepting it as the new normal seemed the only choice.
I'm helped by the fact that my body seems to have finally calmed down a bit and is adapting to this new normal - it was much harder when my heart rate was all over the place all the time. I also think tiring myself out by very long walks in the woods helps - probably not ideal in normal circumstances, but it means I'm too tired to think much, and I sleep at night. I fell asleep in my garden this afternoon. I think, though, I have forgotten what it feels like to feel happy. Maybe that is a point in acceptance - when you forget what happy feels like, you don't miss it so poignantly as when you remember.
Waiting for the time to be right for Mum to put her home in Seaford on the market - so we are able to move to Weston.. and I finally consolidate with her...
I found my brain to be sluggish.. I miss fixing incidents..
Quite frankly if there had been no changes whatsoever in how you were managing, given all those stresses, that would worry me more.
Take care Alex.
Your post rings a bell with me. I think I've been where you are.
@fineline wrote:
Fineline, you are one of the people who writes amazing posts that I read and find I have nothing to say in response but 'wow'. But in the light of Mousethief's and LC's confessions, I would like to say, 'wow' explicitly.
Do you really think you have forgotten what its like to be happy? What is happy? For me, happy is the same as 'at peace', 'content', 'calm'. That's a different definition to a younger more externally focused me. Then, happy meant 'excited', 'social', 'partying', 'firing on all cylinders'. What is happy to you?
When I am calm and peaceful I am in a normative state, therefore I am happy.
I definitely don't mean firing on all cylinders - it's been many years since I've experienced that feeling. But yes, happy is a vague word, I agree, and can mean different things to different people. What I mean is a sort of lightness, alertness, interest in the world, and yes, a kind of calm and peace. Which has actually finally returned to me this week to some extent, though I am still feeling easily tearful.
I think I reached a peak of inner chaos and sadness and despair, and at that point just felt flat and empty, and accepted this was how I feel now. It was an acceptance, but not a feeling of calm and peace - more a feeling of being completely flat and sad, and just sitting with that, because I had nothing else to do with it, no energy to rage against it. And so, yes, I had reached a point where I couldn't remember the happy feeling - couldn't imagine it or re-feel it in my memory, because there was an emptiness inside me. I kept hearing news from more and more people I care about that they'd lost loved ones, and I was feeling so helpless, not able to be there for them. I thought my neighbour was going to die. I was having work issues too and struggling with many different things, and it got to a point where I stopped struggling and just felt completely flat and empty. And the only thing to help was to tire myself out going for a long walk, and I cried on the walks, and picked nettles and wild garlic to give me a focus.
I don't know if that explanation makes any sense. Equally, I think my new adjusted state of 'feeling better' is not the same as my usual wellbeing norm outside of lockdown, and it won't return to that during lockdown. I don't think I can remember what that felt like, other than being aware that it was not what I am feeling right now. This is a new norm for me, which I am adapting to for the present. And the longer the new norm goes on for, the more you do adapt and forget what you felt like before (or I do, at least), because it feels like a different world.
I very much like your description of happiness, especially 'alertness, interest in the world'. You do lose that in low mood states. The tearfulness is very familiar to me. Its one of my signs that things aren't right - when I feel emotion intensely.
Your next two paragraphs are also familiar. All I can do is give you an e-hug and e-sit with you.
Hugs to you
It's not.
Full mania can be very scary with delusions where you can really lose touch with reality.
Depression, though, is the pits and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. The description earlier of emptiness fits with my experience of it.
May your black dog be banished Lamb Chopped
Annie
Thank you so much, @Simon Toad . Four now, my dear friend, whose husband died a couple of weeks ago and has his funeral on Wednesday, phoned me in tears yesterday afternoon to say her son’s father in law had just unexpectedly died as well - a vale of tears indeed at the moment 🕯. I wish my faith was stronger at the moment, but being here helps 😢.