On one hand, I have grown and developed and am full of awesome. I keep hearing my dad say that I am the healthiest he has ever know me. That is not something that would be easy for my dad to say so it has a lot of impact on me. I have managed to learn to deal with daily doses of stuff whereas I used to shunt anything hard onto what I thought was limbo but turned out to be a credit card that started demanding payment on the principle as well has the years of interest. I feel good about this. I managed to work around defenses, mine and others, really well. There is a lot that I have gotten so much better at that I can’t even describe.
But…
I am paying a price. In dismantling processes developed in times if crisis or very damaging times, I have lost some of what I used to handle day to day functionality. It has been that way for awhile but I figured I would bounce back. I am not bouncing. I am not used to not bouncing, this isn’t me.
I am noticing that I have lost most of my motivation. For anything. When my job ended, I had lots of ideas of things to do to make use of the time and space. All of them have dropped off and I just have no interest in them.
I don’t have any resources anymore. I used to be good at pulling things out at the last moment but I just don’t have the juice anymore. I have been running on the edge so much lately that I have nothing stored up in reserves.
I am hesitant to take on any responsibility because I find myself actively working against myself in relationship to it. But I do because I know it is good for me to do things.
I am not getting better. I keep waiting and doing what I can and it isn’t working. I have the meds, I have the therapists.
I reach out to make contact because it is good for me, but when it doesn’t work, it is counting as a failure and eats away at my ability to reach out again. I feel like I am getting close to not being able to reach out again. I am so tired and drained.
My normal emotional “food” is spinning up and entertaining others and providing info that others would want. I find I am doing that now but it doesn’t feed me. It isn’t even provide empty calories.
Everything is so hard. I am not doing well. I don’t know when or if I ever will again. In past depressions I felt like the depression extended to the ends of time both forward and backward. I have learned how to no see it in this way. I feel like there should be an end, there will be an end. But it has been long enough, the end should have shown up or at least be on a horizon and it isn’t. I feel like I am teetering on the edge of giving up this new way of seeing things. This worries me because I don’t have the armour in place to deal with the old style depressions in my old ways.
It seems the only things I am interested in right now are my TV shows (approximately 26 per week) and the library books I have. Sad thing is that I have gotten to binge reading. I don’t read for days and then I spend all day reading one book. This is unusual for me and I get less enjoyment out of the books.
I hold up a lot of statistics (how messing the house it, the dishes, number of tv shows, frequency of showers, frequency of leaving the house, frequency of even opening the front door, etc) to force myself to be concerned. On one level I am. On another level I don’t care and I just reset the baseline to the new low. I used to need to eat 6 times a day. Now I drink one of my nutritional shakes, eat a candy bar and have one real meal (which can consist of a turkey sandwich) a day. I am sometimes sleeping in 18-20 hour stretches and awake either for 12 hours or 6 and then it is back to sleep.
And because I don’t seem to be able to allow myself to really get into the bad stuff, I have to point out that I am doing things that I couldn’t do during a break/depression a decade ago. I am paying my bills and sending in my unemployment checks. I am also being a lot more personally destructive this time instead of destroying my situation.
There are moments if brightness and I am concerned that those allow me to think things are really ok and not address the stuff that isn’t working.
I wish I had some more advice to give you. all I can say is, you will get better, and perhaps bring these concerns up to your therapist, heck print out the entry.
Appreciate the moments of brightness for what they are, but keep working so that they aren’t moments of brightness, but a brighter life in general.
“But it has been long enough, the end should have shown up or at least be on a horizon and it isn’t.”
There is no schedule for this sort of thing hon. How I wish there were. But it’s not predictable, nor rational, nor measurable. You get there as you get there – and usually, the “end” is something seen in retrospect, not in process.
I’m so sorry to hear that you are going through all of this right now. It’s exhausting, being depressed and finding your way through to the other side.
I will say that I think you need to talk to the therapists – the meds you have are not doing what they are supposed to be doing. There’s a difference between “not devestatingly crippled by emotions” and “surviving” and “actually doing well” – sounds like what you are on is keeping the first at bay, but only getting to the second. That means the meds aren’t adjusted right.
This is coming from my own experience.
And if, for some reason, you start doing the same thing I do where you start getting disturbed by the fact that you have to medicate what most people don’t? Remember that if you were a diabetic and your insulin was off, you wouldn’t hesitate to go to the doctor and say “fix it!” So do the same with depression medication.
p.s. I miss you.
(((((((hug))))))))
And yeah, I’m a sucky friend who is also wrapped up in my own current survival/emotional/physical stuff right now – but I still love you.
I’m experiencing the same sort of malaise, and have the same sort of personal optimistic outlook on it changing anytime soon.
If nothing else, you’re not alone in this.
I don’t know what to say, but I read this, and I care, and since a lot of it sounds like my own situation only moreso, I think I kind of understand.
–Ember–
I totally understand what you mean. My bf and I are both 7′s who’ve seemed to finally reach the end of our resiliency over the past couple of years. As you say, it doesn’t feel normal. I went through years of never seeing the end, as you mention, and though I have supposedly “rested up” for a couple of years now, when things go wrong, I still feel completely unable to deal. I can only hope that someday this will change, and that I (and my boyfriend, and yourself) will eventually regain our “bounciness”.
I certainly hope you feel better soon, wish there was something I could do to help.
hi there.
Sorry to hear you are having to endure this.
Still here, still listening.
Also I still have a warm fuzzy red chenille cardigan for you, if we can find a way to get it to you. Warm, red, chenille is a day-brightener for me in these days of grey autumn damp.
Let me know, I can probably drop it off for you sometime, maybe Thursday? Send me an email if that is a good day for you. And we could go get hot chocolate or something.
OMG I totally forgot about the cardigan. Yes yes yes. thursday would be great. My day is completely free so let me know when.