Relapsing for no reason

[D Walsh]

I've had depression for about ten years now and I am on maintenance doses of antidepressants under a specialist. I am someone who is generally highly active with work and exercise. Every few months I still have relapses in my depression and for no real apparent reason. I know it is an illness and their doesn't have to be a trigger, but it is really hard to deal with.  I usually notice it coming on when my dreaming becomes really vivid and I can't get into a deep sleep and I get the early morning waking cycle back. I was wondering whether anyone else experiences the same thing and what are their way of dealing with this?

[HA1]

Hi D Walsh,

You say that there does not have to be a trigger.  I am not so sure.  There is always a trigger, you just need to identify what that trigger is. I went through a long time wondering why.   But then together with my psych we embarked on an exercise to nail those triggers - and yes, there were some that I had not realised could have contributed to my illness.

However,  I too suffer the weird and vivid dreams you speak of.  But like you, I have not found a good way of dealing with them.  I started to try and psychoanalyse them, but that was pretty useless, given their weirdness.  So what I do now, and always have, is get up and and distract myself for a while, and then try and get back to sleep again.  Sometimes it works other times I just lie awake straing at the ceiling. The imprtant thing is though that I have learn't to accept that these dreams are just part of the package I have been dealt with my illness, so I try and dont dwell to much on the content of the dreams (unless they are really exciting LOL).

[D Walsh]

Thanks for your reply.  It helps knowing there are others who go through the same thing. 

 As for triggers, I know my sleep has a lot to do with it. If I have been burning at both ends too much and neglecting my sleep I often find myself going through the motions of a relapse. What's annoying is that because I have been going through this for so long now I find myself becoming too conscious about symptoms and I panic whenever I have a bad sleep, can't concentrate or get a tense neck. It's almost like PTSD from depression!!

 With my dreams it is always generally the same thing. I dream about still being at school and I have an exam coming up that I haven't studied for. This is when I started having problems with anxiety and depression. Maybe it's my brain telling me to cut back a bit ?!? I don't know

[romantic_thi3f]

Hi D Walsh,

Thanks for reaching out.

I agree with Hideaway in that there is usually a reason for a relapse - although sometimes the trigger can be so subtle that we don't actually realise that it's happening.
I know with my specialist I go through thought challenging behaviours so when I start to notice that my thoughts become more and more negative that's when I know I'm starting to fall behind and need to take care of myself first.

It's great that you are noticing an impact on your dreams.  I've heard that the dream of being back at school is incredibly common and nothing to worry about. From a dream interpretation point of view, if they are common they are said to reflect facing challenges and your confidence/self-esteem.  Dreammoods is a great website and I found it very useful when interpreting mine.  Even writing them down can help if they don't seem to make sense.

Hope this helps.  Remember to put yourself first and prioritise you - you can see some of the physical triggers (like dreaming and sleep), so focus on this and remember that there are mental triggers too.

Take care,