Photo by Maksym Kaharlytskyi on Unsplash

 

I feel small today. Small and quiet.

My last post, How to Change Destructive Thinking, has a positive twang to it. It’s all about possibility and how we actually do have the ability to challenge our negative thoughts; we just need the tools to do so.

That hasn’t changed. It is still true for me, and it is still true for you. I wrote that post two days ago, published it yesterday, and sent it out to my dear subscribers this morning. I hope you’ve had a chance to take a look at it and get something out of it.

FEELING SMALL

I don’t know how to describe this feeling that I’ve had all morning. I’ve been awake for three hours, had my usual three cups of coffee, washed my hair (!), and even gotten dressed (!!). These are all good things.

And yet.

And yet, I can’t shake this feeling of being small and needing to be quiet. I am listening to music, which I do 24/7 most days. But I’ve been listening to mellow music, which I usually reserve for the early mornings and later at night. Hell, I might even turn it off!

Do you know what I mean? Do you ever feel this way?

It’s not even necessarily that I feel insignificant, like I don’t matter. But I’ve been going through a depressive episode lately and my moods have been all over the place. Yesterday, I felt decent for a lot of the day. The day before, I was really depressed. The day before that, I flew off the handle – publicly – about something that had nothing to do with me. (I blamed myself in a big way for something that wasn’t my fault.)

I’m depressed, yes, but I am in no way suicidal or desperate for the pain to end. I know it will, especially since I started another round of TMS this week. I will feel consistently better within another week or so, if this course of treatments works the way it always has.

I feel like hiding, in a way. I’m barely even talking to the cats. I’d just like to sit outside, enjoy the gray and rainy weather, and smoke my brains out. I don’t want to talk to anyone and I’m still not even sure if I want to listen to music, which is really weird for me. I don’t want to hear anything. I don’t want to say anything. I don’t want to interact with anyone. I don’t even really want to check my email or see if I have any texts.

I just want to be alone.

DEPRESSION SUCKS

I guess this is just a symptom of my depression, albeit one that I don’t feel very often. I mean, I’m an introvert, so I absolutely love my quiet time. My mornings are almost always quiet because I get up earlier than my wife and mother-in-law do. I don’t function very well if my morning starts out with noise and people asking me for things. I get overwhelmed and irritable right away when that happens.

But this feeling, this smallness, feels sad and kind of lonely. I suppose I should be used to that by now, but every time it hits, it hurts. Even though I have Hope and I am, overall, doing positive things for my mental health, right now just kind of sucks.

Another symptom I’ve been feeling a lot of lately is irritability. Now, I don’t know about you, but that’s a BIG sign for me that things aren’t right. I’m not normally a sunny, happy-go-lucky kind of girl, but when I’m healthy, my moods are stable and my baseline is closer to “normal” than it used to be.

I can get irritable so quickly it makes my head spin. My poor wife; she often bears the brunt of it. The good news is that my irritability is pretty obvious even to me, and I usually notice it right away. That’s progress. I’m getting good at apologizing to her when I notice that I’ve snipped at her, and she’s getting really good at not taking it personally and accepting that it’s a part of my mood dysregulation.

As I mentioned in the previous section, I flew off the handle few days ago. It just happened to be my first day of TMS, and I walked into the office with a black cloud over my head and a chip on my shoulder. My self-imposed guilt and shame were having their way with me, and once inside the confines of the TMS room, I started throwing around F-bombs with little abandon.

Thankfully, I was in a psychiatry office, where they’ve seen and heard just about everything. Knowing this, it was easier to blow off some steam and not feel quite so self-conscious about it (although I did apologize, and by the time the TMS was done, I was practically asleep).

I apologized the next day, also, and felt a little embarrassed by my behavior (but not a lot). Though it was out of the ordinary for me to act out like that, I was assured that everything was good. Dr. Nelson, my pdoc, even made room for me in his schedule.

That’s the fun part of mood disorders, isn’t it? Knowing that it’s there but never being quite sure how it’s going to show up. For instance, sometimes my irritability is a sign of my anxiety disorder, but it feels different and I know that it has its basis in something other than depression.

THE UNPREDICTABILITY OF MOODS

Okay. So, I started this post four hours ago and told you how I was feeling so small and quiet. I just returned from a TMS session and even managed to run a few quick, easy errands and I feel a little better.

One hour at a time, right?

I don’t feel so small, and after a couple of hours without my Spotify playlists, I’ve turned the music back on again. I don’t know if that’s good or bad; maybe it’s neither. I just know that I feel different than I did two short hours ago.

It’s probably because I got out of the house. CeAnne has asked me before what she can do to help me when I’m depressed, and I’ve told her how important it is for me to get my ass off the couch and into the world. Getting stuck in negative thoughts and thinking the day is lost is not exactly productive. It is SO EASY to get sucked into the solitude my brain thinks it needs; I do it all the time.

But leaving the house and actually interacting with others often helps, at least in that moment. I may grumble and drag my feet and feel that hole where my heart should be, but when I’m able to get out and be friendly with a cashier or a pharmacist or whomever, it forces me to act differently. I may not be a bundle of energy, but I almost always have a smile and a friendly word or two for the people I encounter during my day, even if I feel like shit.

It’s like my previous therapist, Christina, used to tell me: You can feel like shit and still get stuff done. I forget that sometimes, but at other times, I cling to it like it’s a lifeline. For decades, I believed it was impossible to do anything when I was depressed; it was like there was this invisible force keeping me either on the couch or in bed.

I don’t believe that anymore.

I see now how simple – though not easy – it is to grab my bag and head for the store or take myself to Arby’s or something. That’s an important distinction there: “Simple” does not mean the same thing as “easy”. We do simple things all day long. We also do really hard things, like be productive at home or at work, do some problem-solving, take care of our ailing loved ones.

Simple is not necessarily easy. Pretty clear-cut, don’t you think?

ONE BREAK, COMING UP!

Maybe we should all give ourselves a break. As I recently told CeAnne, everyone needs some downtime here and there. Yes, even you. And before you say you don’t have time for “downtime”, think about it. There is nothing wrong with taking time out for yourself, especially if you struggle with a mental illness.

In fact, it’s a part of the recovery process, a BIG part. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? “Self-care”? LOL! Self-care is not only real, it is NECESSARY. Don’t just poo-poo it like I sometimes do. Take a look at all you do during a normal day and be amazed!

Whether you’re feeling okay or your depression has a hold of you, and whether you believe it or not, you get things done every day. Even if the only thing you do is get out of bed to pee, at least you haven’t completely given up and peed yourself. If you normally self-harm when depression or anxiety hits you and today you didn’t? That’s a big win.

We have to do what we can to take care of ourselves, because it is impossible for anyone else to take care of us. They can’t go about our day for us. They don’t live in our heads. They can’t live our lives for us, even if they wish they could to ease our suffering.

Take stock of the ways you can – or could – take care of you. Have some self-compassion (or ask your therapist how to develop it, like I do occasionally).

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

(Monty Python fans, rejoice!)

I’m giving you some homework for today. Sometimes, we have so many thoughts whirling about in our heads that we can’t make sense out of any of them. So, do yourself a favor and complete this assignment – not for me, but for yourself.

1. Grab your favorite pen, pencil, Sharpie, colored pencil, crayon, or whatever and a piece of paper.
2. Alternatively, sit down at your computer or laptop, start her up, and open a new Word document.
3. Give it a fancy-pants name, like “Laura told me to do this” or some such thing. LOL
4. Make a list of simple and easy ways you can give yourself a break today. If you’re an artistic kind of person, feel free to doodle or illustrate how you can be nice to yourself.
5. Try to think of at least ten different things you can do, not do, or say to yourself that will allow you a few moments to breathe.
6. DO SOME (or all) OF THEM!!
7. Keep this list so you can add to it later and refer back to it often, even when you’re feeling good. I’ve found that self-care often falls by the wayside when I’m feeling well, because I don’t think I need it. After all, I feel good, right? Well, yeah, but when we’re not actively working toward positive mental health, we are most vulnerable to start slipping.
8. Repeat after me: “I am a good person. I deserve to be nice to myself.”

Thanks for playing along with me. I would love it if you sent me some ideas for downtime activities either by leaving a comment or by sending them to me at Laura@DepressionWarrior.com. I’m always on the lookout for positive ways to spend my time.

As always, thanks for reading. Take some time for you today and Keep it Real.