Blue's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day (life viewed through the lens of depression)

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Some of you are aware of my existence by now, but for those who aren't, I'm fairly new to this forum. I've been stumbling my way along with depression for somewhere around seven years. It was triggered by a life event and exacerbated by circumstances since then, which I've done my best to eliminate where possible. About a year ago I changed track with that and made the huge decision to end the relationship I was in. Rough though that was, I finally started to see a bit of progress. I've still had a fight on my hands, to stay afloat and get control of my time and money and my peace of mind, all of which were tied up for a long time in untangling my finances from those of my ex (not his fault, the bank made it really damn hard, and my job and my own state of mind weren't helping).

Now I've started enjoying things again, and am not always instantly down when I'm on my own. I was once a (deliberately) solitary creature who enjoyed my own company and learning everything I could, so it's good to be more like that again. The depression's always there, lurking in the background, but I sometimes go a few weeks at a time without any prolonged episodes. Long enough to start feeling like I'm healing or that my emotions have some concept of cause and effect again. Then down I slam again, sometimes for a day or two, other times for weeks, and it feels like I've made no progress at all. In these periods my mind and my emotions are constantly at war, particularly when I'm alone and/or it's quiet. My mind is calm for the most part, and well aware I'm strong and capable and have strategies and I actively work on those in spite of the depression. My emotions, on the other hand, are running about with flags chock full of negative messages and even though I know it's not (or even close) I feel like everything is collapsing, that I can't deal with it and I just want everything to stop. That's where I'm at, today.

I do have an amazing partner now, who is extremely supportive, and has helped me immensely. My current problem is that I need my friends and family, too. I so rarely have time that isn't ruined by unsociable work hours and also the energy and will to socialise, but my friends are seldom available when I do. In those times I know it may be weeks or months before I can see them again, and I miss them, and that's mostly when I crash again these days. Dunno how to fix that yet, but I need to vent, and here I am. Getting better but having a really crap day.

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Blue,

Yes, coming out does seem to be potentially polarising. I think a reveal of anything of our true nature, if it doesn't entirely fit with others' world views, experiences, understandings etc, can be met with uncertainty, discomfort and potentially judgement from at least some others. Then there will be others who are fully supportive and embracing of our true selves. Have you found similar dynamics with revealing autism and ADHD, or has being genderqueer been the one that is most polarising? I have told almost no one about having complex PTSD, for example, because my sense has been they will have trouble understanding and it feels uncomfortable. Though that is not part of my identity as such, it's more just something that has affected how I am today and across my lifespan. While I'm certain of autism and ADHD traits in me, I only share that with a small number of people. My friend in the city recently mentioned she believes she's on the autism spectrum, so I was able to share my own sense of self in that regard and we can talk openly about that aspect of ourselves. It isn't surprising we get along easily as our brains and natures work in a similar way.

Yes, I think endlessly trying to explain, understand and solve things can in itself be a trauma response. It can even be a reflection of the traumatised child still trying to "fix" themselves because they have always had such an ingrained feeling of something being wrong with themselves. When, in fact, nothing was ever wrong with them. I think when you start to settle into peace and groundedness you realise you are transforming out of that state and into a different way of being. It is very powerful when that happens as all the trying to fix things can dissolve or fall away. I'm at a stage where I still can re-attach to old patterns, but I see them now and can rebalance myself.

Pendulation in Peter Levine's work stems directly from what he has observed (and experienced himself) in the nervous system. For him insights from these observations began to crystallise when observing animals in the wild. Basically where trauma is present the body will lock down energy in a freeze response if a person or animal cannot easily or safely escape a situation. Animals discharge this energy fairly quickly. Playing dead is one way animals do this when being preyed upon. However, their energy reserves are ready and waiting for when they can make an escape and the system springs into action. The system pendulates between total lockdown and dramatic action (fight-or-flight). If you google "Peter Levine slinky" you will see him discussing this by using a slinky toy as a prop. However, us humans have a very chronic tendency to get stuck in the freeze response. When this extends for a long time you can have PTSD. In the Somatic Experiencing approach you gradually release this locked down energy in a gently titrated way so as not to overwhelm the system. The nervous system has to pass through fight-or-flight on its way back to homeostasis, hence many will resist and return to freeze. This is where a very sensitive and attuned therapist is really important. Initially the system may have strong reactions (e.g. explosive anger or a need to run) which are normal. However, as the nervous system pendulates between action and freeze, these pendulations gradually become less dramatic and move towards homeostasis. Essentially the trauma resolves.

I'm probably almost over word count, but this has definitely manifested for me through doing Somatic Experiencing with my psychologist. Early on I got bursts of energy at a ridiculous level, including the impulse to run. I was at my favourite place by the ocean. I'd been so disabled with extreme fatigue for a long time. All of a sudden now I was running and I couldn't stop. I was running up and down the car park there at night under the stars. Rage began to come out. I screamed into the wind and in my car. I'd spend an hour kicking a box around the house until I'd expended that energy. Mid 2023 my run impulse emerged in the form of getting in my car and driving to remote locations, an extreme flight response to break out of freeze connected with my fear of people. It worked! Now my system doesn't need such dramatic responses and the pendulation between different states is still there but more subtle.

I think the shackles you speak about are part of such a process, including it becoming easier to kick them away. Eventually a kind of homeostasis is reached with hiccups here and there, but a more or less grounded balance is established.

Hugs,

ER

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Hey ER,

Revealing myself to be genderqueer has definitely been the most polarising. There is certainly still a lot of ignorance and stigma around autism and ADHD, but I have found people more willing to be educated around those things for the most part, I don't see the same judgement around them. Atypical gender presentations, however, seem to have become the political punching bag of late for people to pour their hate into. Thankfully I haven't been on the receiving end of too much of the real hate (ironically, only from my own family), though there have been some really off/inappropriate comments & questions from people in the general community, who treat my gender identity as a novelty or a joke (this typically comes up - thankfully not too often - with hubby's medical people when one of us corrects their use of pronoun toward me). It's pretty gross. I don't get that around my neurotype.

It's understandable that you don't talk much about your autism/ADHD, or your PTSD with many people. I think they are all deeply personal things, and things that aren't necessarily relevant for everyone to know. I talk about my autism/ADHD plenty because most of the people I know socially have one or both, and otherwise I am communicating with service providers for my own disability or for things it influences around my caring role. PTSD is a bit trickier, because that is specific to trauma. If there is a conversation around trauma, it may be relevant/appropriate to reveal, but most people want to steer away from that level of depth in conversation, I've found. I'm glad you have that connection with your friend. Sharing a neurotype sure helps with relating to someone.

Yeah, the inner child trying to fix themselves is another thing that comes up with trauma. Not really a thing with me, I was more one who hoped others could be convinced to be reasonable with the right information. Being around healthy people has helped break me out of that; it's easier to step back and see the pattern of deflection and evasion of any reasonable discourse in the unhealthy people, instead of getting stuck in details. There is no right information for those people, they are not open to resolving anything. I agree that from a safer place, our various old survival responses to abusive people start to fall away. I don't dissociate like I used to, and can notice my gut feeling in the moment about whether I am safe or not, and can respond appropriately to my needs. I'm glad you are at a stage of being able to see and do something about old patterns trying to take hold again. I think I'm past that stage, I have zero tolerance for behaviour like I grew up around, it's like a wall goes up when I see it, I'm so ready to shut it out.

Thanks for that description, it makes a lot of sense. I wonder how you would even titrate the release of such energy. I may talk to my psych about that. I definitely have a lot of restless energy around going no contact with my brother and mother, not really sure what it is or what to do with it. It's a messy kind of thing, no closure really. Sounds like quite an experience you had with releasing your energy, you obviously had a lot to let out. I relate to impulsive driving, used to do a lot of that, long drives at odd hours of the night. Usually when I was in situations in which I felt trapped - funny about that.

I think you're right. I'm in a bit of a hiccup stage at the moment, but noticing I'm handling it a lot better than I might have even six months ago, the spikes of unhealthy energy are smaller and don't last as long.

Hugs,

Blue.

[Eagle Ray]

Hey Blue,

Gender identity does seem to be something that some still don’t grasp. It’s like it really takes time for commonly held assumptions to be dismantled. I know certain stereotypes about autism persisted for a long time and are now beginning to be broken down. The challenging thing with gender is some people think only certain gender identities are real and not others. I only hope that, as with other areas where people have had limited perspectives, that in the not too distant future greater understanding will be normalised. I remember a friend of mine saying in 2015 that she thought marriage equality would never happen in her lifetime. She is in a long-term lesbian relationship herself. But then in 2017 it did happen. I do hope society continues to open up, even though at times there seem to be forces in the opposing direction.

Yes, I feel things like complex PTSD and the extent to which I fall into neurodiverse categories are not necessarily relevant things to bring up most of the time. I feel such topics can only be discussed in the right contexts with the right people who are sensitive and understanding. I did mention complex PTSD to a couple of relatives in the past couple of years, in passing and not much detail. But to be honest I think it just made them uncomfortable and they didn’t know how to react to it. It felt like it created an impediment in the relationship because they didn’t know how to respond and I could feel the discomfort.

Yes, from what you have described it sounds like you already had a sense of the worth of yourself early on, rather than the feeling of something being wrong and needing to fix yourself. You were aware there was something primarily wrong in caregivers and hoped they would come to see and act differently. It’s good that sense of self was intact for you. I definitely had deep feelings of self-disgust and worthlessness created by the forms of abuse from the beginning. It’s been my life’s work in a way to unlearn that conditioning and begin to see myself at all, and that I might even have any value as a human being. I was severely dissociated from myself.

When it comes to such energy being locked down in somatic work, one approach Peter Levine has to titrate it is to get a person to gradually move into a body sensation and then out of it. For example, where there is stored tension or anger or defensiveness, he might get a person to gently open their jaw to a point of resistance and then gently close it again, and repeat this to gradually develop awareness of where and how the body may be bracing. Another one is moving into a clenched fist and out again, just enough to feel it but not really strongly. Often we are so unconscious of what our bodies are even doing, so this can be a starting point for even noticing at the simplest level what is going on.

I’ve been through various assaults in the past and have processed some of these somatically with my therapist. She guides me to gently revisit the part I am struggling with, but the process is directed by what I want to do, not her telling me what to do. I drop into an altered state and sense into what my body wanted to do at the time but couldn’t. That then plays out and I enact the defence or escape which has manifested in responses such as throwing something in the direction of the abuser (e.g. throwing cushion into couch). She then gets me to repeat this in slow motion. That’s where the magic happens and my brain, for the first time, begins to integrate the traumatic memory. So, for example, the first time I did this with her my mind at this point turned the abuser into a hologram that then subsequently disappeared into thin air. It was totally incredible in how it resolved the trauma and my nervous system finally knew it was safe. This was possible in the safe holding presence of the therapist who was gently supportive and knew what things to ask and suggest in the process. I think it’s a similar outcome to EMDR where fragmented trauma memories become integrated and therefore the trauma is neutralised. I prefer the Somatic Experiencing method over EMDR as it feels more naturally organic to me, as Peter Levine has really derived it from the way animals naturally recover (and we humans are animals even though we often forget it).

There may be ways you can resolve that restless energy with your brother and mother. In fact, I’m sure your body holds that innate wisdom. It’s just sensing and feeling into what that looks like for you. Your therapist may have some ideas to help guide you to sense how to proceed with resolving those feelings.

I hope you are having a lovely weekend Blue.

Hugs,

ER

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Hey ER,

Gonna have to come back to this. My kitchen has been invaded by ants, and it's causing rather extreme stress right now, they're in everything and ignoring the baits, even though all the food is in sealed containers they can't get into. I'm worried they'll range out and find Mr Feisty's food - he's an insectivore, and what he eats is highly appealing to ants. That would be a complete disaster.

Hugs,

Blue.

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Blue,

Yes, attend to the ants! The place I was housesitting recently had a bit of an ant invasion. In that case it seemed they were looking for water in hot weather. I hope you have it all under control soon!

Hugs,

ER

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Hey ER,

Yeah, they do sometimes come in for water. These ones found a honey bottle in my cupboard that had leaked a bit, so I know they want sweet stuff. Cleaned it up straight away, but they haven't lost interest in the cupboard. Have changed to a different bait and they are taking it now. Problem is, I don't know how long it's going to take to eradicate the nest, and until then they are in my kitchen, crawling all over everything. It's having a huge impact on my mental health and hubby's. It's very difficult to prepare food (a task I already struggle greatly with) with the kitchen infested, so our nutrition is suffering. The stress is impacting my sleep heavily and thus my resilience to stress. We're worried about Mr Feisty, and just generally don't feel safe or able to relax in our own home. Just didn't need this right now, I was already overloaded and losing some resilience from lack of having time to connect with things that fill my cup. I know my healing isn't undone by a bad patch, but it sure is hard to see that from within this nightmare.

Hope things are going better for you than they are for me.

Hugs,

Blue.

[Eagle Ray]

Dear Blue,

That's awful. I'm so sorry you are dealing with that. Is there someone who can come in and eradicate the nest? If concerned about pest control methods, I believe there are environmentally friendly pest controllers out there who don't use the toxic chemicals. You could do a search for businesses under terms such as "ecological pest control" or "environmentally friendly pest control".

I hope you might be feeling a bit better today. I may be a bit unresponsive at times as I've had some powerful news today and a lot of grief about someone I'm close with. I'm in a fair bit of shock and grief. I'm ok but pretty out of sorts.

I do hope things improve very soon. Take good care.

Hugs,

ER

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Hey ER,

Urgh, the thought of someone coming in is even worse than the ants, honestly. Also, after Mum being quite sick literally ever since a "safe" termite treatment about two decades ago, I don't trust "environmentally friendly" pest control anyway. If that can happen to a human, imagine what could happen to a bird. I'm loathe enough to use baits. That said, the second bait has been working. Yesterday I saw maybe 1-2 dozen ants throughout the course of the day. Today a few so far. Don't know how long there will still be stragglers, I admit I'm a bit concerned about the nest being rebuilt. I hope to see no ants for a while before I seal up the gaps they found to come in through, otherwise I'm sure they'll just find another spot to come out later.

Still feeling pretty stressed, have of course been having ant-related nightmares since all this began. Sleeping tablets are helping, but there's only so long I can take those safely. Doing my best with self-care, though I'm struggling somewhat with that. One day at a time, I guess. Lacking a sense of safety in my own home is unsurprisingly a huge trigger for me in and of itself, and is pretty closely related to mouse infestations which have heavily and directly impacted my life and both physical and relational safety in the past.

I'm sorry to hear you have had unsettling news about a close person. Here to listen, if you want to talk about it. I know I'm going through some stuff, but it won't burden me to hear if you're concerned about that.

Kind thoughts and hugs,

Blue.

[Eagle Ray]

Hey Blue,

Ok, yes, based on your mum’s experience  after the termite treatment I can understand not wanting to get someone in. I do not know enough to know how to discern between methods and which may be ok or not. It does sound like the situation is improving though. I lived in a share house with a mouse infestation 20 years ago. We got through it but, yes, it can be quite a full on feeling of invasion.

I won’t try to explain about my situation. I’m in huge amounts of emotional pain and just have to gently guide myself along. I threw up all my dinner last night and can’t imagine eating today but I’m going to try some breakfast shortly. I know, like all heartbreaking experiences, I will learn meaningful things from it and I am already.

Take care and I hope the ants are all gone.

Hugs,

ER

[Clues_Of_Blue]

Hey ER,

Between that and my huge problem with having people in the house in general, that option is absolute last resort. It's just not easy to tell what treatments are good, bad or otherwise. Competing companies will do what they can to get your business, and across various domains, there are some pretty dodgy and sometimes dangerous practices of misinformation. I'd need to do far more research than I have the energy to do, to know anything with reasonable certainty.

Yes, definitely a feeling of invasion, I can imagine you had a bad time in that share house. For me, both my mother and most recent ex are associated with mouse infestations and their completely checking out and abandoning me and my well-being in relation to, in the first instance not dealing with it and making a safe home for a child, and in the second, for not being a partner, for immediately undoing every bit of cleaning I did, and being the main reason we had an infestation in the first place (they were breeding in his office, which is the one place I left to his discretion whilst trying to maintain any hygiene at all in the shared spaces, which was a massive uphill battle at all times with him making mess faster than I could fix it). There is a lot of emotional baggage with this.

No problem. Just wanted you to know you have the option to talk about it if you want to - I find sometimes just knowing I can is enough. I'm sorry to hear you're struggling with eating, that's totally understandable if you are stressed and hurting, a lot of emotion goes straight to the stomach and messes with digestion. I hope that whatever you are learning through this is of some comfort in this difficult time. I am glad to see you are being gentle with yourself through it.

I only saw one ant yesterday, and none yet today. I'll keep putting bait out for maybe a week after I see none, to be sure. The whole thing is making me feel sick, I've had trouble with eating, too, not least because I have to keep the kitchen shut at all times to keep Mr Feisty safe. It really hampers and isolates me, having to shut the door every time I go in there. Hubby's newfound independence in the kitchen has been taken away, as he has an oxygen cord trailing behind him that risks dipping in the liquid ant bait on the floor and bringing it out where Mr Feisty may be endangered. I'm back to having to do everything in the kitchen, which was a problem we had only just begun to come out of. It's exhausting and incredibly disheartening.

Take care of yourself.

Hugs,

Blue.