My Depression Connection Question of the Week!

Hiya Merely Me,  This is a great question. Firstlly glad to hear you woke up feeling good. You deserve it . When Im feeling very good and happy in myself I hear a slightly faded voice in the Background 'this too shall pass'  I think [for me] it is a Safety Net so that when the Depression comes knocking at my Door again, Im sort of 'ready' for it.

Theres nothing as daunting or as dissapointing as being really well, getting involved in new hobbies and having the energy and then Bang !! the anxiety/Insomnia/ really sad black feelings come down like a ton of  bricks. the awful Distorted thinking.  I feel that because its a sort of come and go cyclical illness for most of us, its an insurance policy to remind ourselves that it wont last, so that when Depression does hit, we wont feel so overwhelmed by it. 

I'm with Rose on this one.  It sounds odd, but when I'm feeling good, I almost don't feel like myself, sort of like I'm whistling in the dark.  I know where it comes from, but I always have this feeling like I'm going to have to pay or answer to someone for it.  Nothing I tell myself makes it go away.  I think I might actually feel some peace if I could truly enjoy it when I feel pretty good, doesn't even have to be wonderful, just pretty good.  Feeling wonderful might do me in!

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Merely:

The wounds that run deepest, the bruises on the bones of my mind, have for so long been buried away. Just as Freud described, my inner screams have found three voices. For decades I kept unconsciously seeking situations that mimicked my original abuses. I couldn’t confront the people who abused me as a child. I wasn’t strong enough, yet. I wasn’t ready. I needed practice. So my unconscious mind blindly sought situations, friends, and lovers that felt abusive in the old ways. Mastering these relationships would also resolve the failures of the past.  That was the unconscious plan.

Of course it didn’t work, but it was necessary. The swallowed tears of so many years and beatings were poisoning my mind. I was denying it all to protect myself, and my mind was groping for any way to spit it all out.

I hit rock bottom. Everything in my life failed: too many girlfriends lost, so many jobs lost, friends and family estranged, trapped in a marriage of emotional convenience–with no money, no pleasure, no passion, and no creativity or poems. I stayed in bed, weeping, for days. I finally understood what was happening to me. I hit the concrete floor of my psyche and scraped off a layer of skin. It hurt from my center out. I had never been so scared, but I still wanted to fight.

I needed to remember what had happened to me. I started talking it out with my few true friends and my family. I worked with a few great therapists and — for one surreal month — a sagely  psychiatrist at the end of his practice.

Slowly, very slowly, I started scraping away at my shell of repression. I gradually started remembering. Today, I experience sudden and overwhelming emotional connections. I realize why I made certain past choices. I feel stupid and ashamed and worthless. I cry. I shake. I curl in a ball. I remember. I remember. I remember. I suddenly started writing.

The pain is so old it smells dusty, it bursts from my  pores. I hurt in the old ways. I taste the adrenaline of the original fear in my  mouth. I feel the old clench of terror in my entire body. Every muscles braces for more punishment.

It seize me up sometimes. I’m at the kitchen sink, doing the dishes, and I freeze. I remember in my body, as much as my mind. I shake. I flash back. I feel waves of terror and confusion wash over me. It’s all coming out, at last.

All I can think to do is write it all out, so I do. It helps. It’s healing. I am forgiving the past for its failings. I am forgiving myself, slowly, for my own.

I am finally speaking, repeating it all — one horrifying flash at a time — remembering and working through.

Charles Bivona

http://charlesbivona.com

I think it's just a case of not being used to it. When you feel different and yet the circumstances are the same it can be jarring/odd/feel wrong. Being intelligent we get that it's a bit silly that feeling good should feel odd (or ironically bad) but it's simply because most of the time that we are going through these same motions of the day that we are feeling good about we feel bad. Something inside is saying 'hey that's not right, that's not how it's supposed to be' simply because we're used to it being perhaps the polar opposite.

I think it's kind of like me with compliments. I couldn't take them for the longest time (and even now I go all red faced and all 'oh gosh' squirmy, you know?) because I was used to insults and if there were compliments I certainly didn't register them. But over time and lots of compliments later I can accept that someone is actually being honest and at least kind of take what they are giving me without that warning bell in my head screaming out that this is some sort of set up or that it's just a joke or I heard wrong, etc.

Just like with anything in life whatever you're used to having happen the most feels right even if it makes you feel terrible. Anything out of the norm puts you on edge because it's unfamiliar territory even if it's exactly what you want.

Hopefully in time we will all have more good days and then we'll get used to them and the warning bells/wrong feeling will go away.

Hi,

I am really touched by all the comments so far!  Charles you write so well of your  abuse and and the experience of remembering and hurting in bringing the repressed feelings forward  In therapy that is exactly what I am working at doing.  The fear to bring even small bits of information forward is so scary.  Thank you for giving me support that although it hurts, we do survive these things.

As far as having a good day for this usually depressed person is always a plesant surprise, even if I know it may soon go away.  I don't want it to.  I want to savor the good days forever.  But that's not the case.  Maybe, just maybe, I hope, my new medications will keep the depression "in check" - or am I dreaming?

Surprisingly, when I got up this morning, my mind was out of the fog.  I could think and feel good - hurray!  I felt like - is this real?  It is today, but I just know I will returning to that foggy and low energy depressed state.  Maybe I'm cynical.  Could it be that my attitude affects going back to depression?  I just don't know.  I do know that I'm going to enjoy the day.  It started with my husband bringing me my morning cup of coffee.  What a sweetheart!  I could appreciate the gesture without the burden of all the bad feelings.  It felt so good.  Again, I want it to last forever, but even without depression, life has its' ups and downs.  And the downs can be so devastating, with or without the depression.  For example, my husband was just diagnosed last week with cancer of the throat area.  Wow, I immediately went into support mode and will continue to do so.  That is my example of life's journey with or without depression.  But news like that can surely throw your emotional state - fast!

I am glad for this good day.  I hope everyone, including you Merely Me, has the best day the can.

Gina

Whenever I have a good day, I do feel suspicious of my mood. I usually can't figure out WHY I'm having a good day. Is it because my meds are working? Or is it because I had a really good conversation with the man that started all this? And since weekends are my worst time (I don't get to see him or talk to him on the weekends) I know that by Sunday night I'm going to be miserable again. And then there are the random weekdays that I wake up in the dumps again, for no reason that I can identify. I've never personally experienced real depression before this, and I struggle with the seeming randomness of my moods. Sometimes I feel like I can handle anything and that I'm getting myself back on the right track, and then I end up right back where I started, crying again, half the time without knowing what triggered the tears. In a response to a question on here, I said that sometimes it seems that the people in my life expect miracles from me because they know I'm seeing a therapist and taking antidepressants. Maybe I expect miracles too. I just want to be NORMAL again. Before all this crazy change in my life, I was a generally happy person. My students always commented on how I seemed to be the kind of person that lights up a room. I can't believe that was only a month ago. I don't want to be like this anymore, and I don't know how to make it stop.