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]

Hey Blue,

Yes, working through layers is an interesting process isn’t it. For me at the moment two stuck emotions are starting to release, anger and grief. These emotions come from layers and layers of past traumatic experiences. Often the anger comes first followed by grief. Not immediately followed but as in anger comes out one day and grief the next. I’m just allowing my body to feel certain emotions. If I don’t allow my body to feel the emotions they don’t release. It’s taken me decades to realise how much anger and grief is there.

I’m glad your new psych seems promising. I have found a good psych makes a profound difference where you feel like you are actually achieving things. Things shift and transform within when working with the right person. I was so over the experience of going to therapy and trying to talk about things but feeling like I was getting nowhere with a therapist who was not co-present with me and would talk at me but not with me. My current psych is so completely there with me and it’s a totally different experience.

What you describe about your mum not trying anymore I can say I have seen in others. My brother is like that. He has so much unresolved trauma but has put it in a box, locked it and thrown away the key. Every few years he’s had a massive emotional breakdown where it pours out uncontrollably. Then after a week or two he locks it all up and throws away the key again. But I don’t think there’s anything we can do to help the family member other than continue working on healing ourselves. I’ve spent exhausting time caring for my brother through his breakdown experiences and there were glimmers of him beginning to deal with his emotions. Then that would all close down again. Sometimes if they see us healing I think it can help them shift a bit, but there’s no counting on that. I feel really deep sadness about my brother’s future trajectory but I also have to leave him to how he does things which is his particular coping mechanism.

Yes, the nervous system is truly amazing! In developing his Somatic Experiencing method Peter Levine studied animals in the wild and he could see how their nervous systems resolved trauma quite quickly compared to us humans. Many animals face daily threats to their survival yet do not have persistent trauma. So he wanted to understand how humans can release trauma naturally and more easily, something our society is so out of touch with. I think so much anxiety and depression is basically trapped trauma that just needs to energetically resolve in the body, after which the mind begins to heal also. With animals kept in unnatural settings like zoos you see them start to develop the same tendencies and symptoms as humans. They start losing their capacity to naturally release trauma from the body, doing things like pacing or showing signs of depression or obsessive compulsion. They are all signs of stress and a lesson to us about what is actually healthy vs unhealthy. There’s so much we can learn from animals and tend to forget we are one too.

I hope you, hubby and Mr Feisty are enjoying your weekend 🙂

Take care and warm wishes,

ER