Tag: triggers

Absent – on a work leave

My maternity leave has ended. Vacation started and has ended. Work has started. My blog has suffered a leave of absence.

I was so sure I’d be writing MOS regardless of what I do during the day. Wrong. There is a difference between being a stay at home mum and being a working mum. There are perks to each. In regard to being depressed or not, I choose work. I haven’t been as depressed because I had so much to do and little time to ponder. Of course, there’s still the same amount of work to be done on my issues. Different content, different flavours and triggers, but mostly same issues as before. More insight, less time to comb through a tangled mess of my thoughts.

I did three-quarters of my next-in-line homework but never posted. It says 9 August. It must wait.  A lot has happened since I last posted. That must take priority. I’ll give you a blurb. Anney Bird’s real-life persona got a job offer. And a lot of compliments that she’s reluctant to take. A lot of thinking due…

I missed writing. Thus the clichés, and complicated words and sentences. Grammarly caught up with my inactivity, at last. Let’s see what it says tomorrow, in my weekly report.

P.s. I still have guilt over not posting, a need to prove myself to you. I shouldn’t. I should do it for myself, and the blog should just be a media type to do so. But… it is also a good thing. My guilt forces me to write eventually unless I want my few readers to pack and flee from boredom.

Well then, not so few words I hoped to write. I need to work on my eloquence, too. All in its own time.

 

TS 3: Dealing with a peculiar panic attack

I woke my own shrink in the middle of the night. Luckily, MOS is I.

This is just wonderful, having myself for a shrink. If I feel for a session in the middle of the night, I can do it, no resentment. Continue reading TS 3: Dealing with a peculiar panic attack

The tornado, so-called Mum

I wasn’t in too good a mood to start with.

My mother called by yesterday to check in on me and my (ill) children. It all looked it’d go for the better. She held my baby for me so I could go to the bathroom (for two days my girl was clinging to me any given second, even during sleep). She was playing with my son, we talked a little and then she declared she must go. Okay … my face fell. I was a bit clingy myself.
I fear to be alone with my children. I feel I’m not enough to keep them occupied, not caring enough to discern their needs, not motherly enough to enjoy spending time with them. I like someone to be around so they can step in if I screw up. So … Continue reading The tornado, so-called Mum

TS 1: The reasons why I get depressed

I’m yet again in a bout of depression. Depression is such a broad term. It represents chaos, melancholy, feelings of hopelessness, and inability to change.

A first session with a therapist usually consists of niceties, getting to know each other, questions about sessions, about the methods a therapist uses, rules of conduct, etc.
I’ll skip it. Use your imagination.

Mos is the name of myself as a therapist. A ‘she’. You can read about the players in this game here.
My lines are in plain, non-italicised letters, Mos’ lines are italicised.

—

Hello Mos,
my life is chaos. I feel like drowning in everything I should be, should do, and, trying to do everything, I end up doing nothing properly.

I cannot focus, I feel overwhelmed by everything, by what I should do, all at once, I cannot prioritise. Everybody else is better off. I hate myself. At least when I’m depressed, I really deeply hate myself. When I’m not too low, I don’t hate myself, but I’m just low. I feel it’s hormonal – in my “normal” state I have my cognitive processes fully running, but feel chemicals do their (wrong) job so I feel unhappy. Or indifferent at best.

I don’t know whether I need a psychoanalysis, or CBT, or NLP, or just going out more. I just oscillate between ‘can’t-stand-it’ and ‘let’s-survive-another-day’.

Hi Anney,
we’ll sort it out. Let’s find a thread with which to start untangling these feelings.
You may just need to talk about it. To say it out loud. To give your thoughts structure, cohesion.

I don’t know where to start. I wish to have a beginning and a clear goal. Then I could tell you what’s wrong with me.  

That’s why we are here. We wouldn’t be here if you knew everything.
You are also at the beginning, so why put yourself under pressure for later problems?

I know myself quite well. I know everything how I should act, what to do to be better, but I don’t do it. I know my depression types and all.
I don’t do feelings. They’re complicated, so I just ignore them. I know I should tackle them now and then, but …
I came here to tackle them, but I don’t want to.

It’s only natural to feel the fear of unknown. If you’ve never dealt with feelings, you don’t know them. So you fear them. We’ll start small, and grow from there. All right?

I suppose.

Tell me of the things you feel sure about.

Uhm …

You feel depressed, you said you know your types. Do you mean major depressive disorder as opposed to dysthymia? *

Yes —. No. The types of depression are so confusing. I just say I have depression. It probably means major depressive disorder (MDD), or dysthymia, or melancholic depression. I would settle for minor depression, too. I can’t judge how severe my form is. And it doesn’t matter. If someone said I had major, or minor, would it change my feelings? No, I suffer as I suffer.
What I meant was, I know my symptoms, and I know what causes my depression.

Then you have a good starting point. There’s something you already know.

Yes. There are three types of my depression, I categorise them by possible causes. The first is the guilt induced. I feel guilty of something all the time.
The second is triggered by my low self-esteem, which mostly stems from my inability to do tasks which others do easily. Or by anything others can do which I can’t. Or by what I should / shouldn’t do. Here I might also put my constant underachievement. I don’t finish a task or a project, be it on a daily or long-term basis, and then I’m depressed.
And the third type is my fear of responsibility. I’m not afraid of admitting I’ve done something wrong. I’m afraid deciding, for fear the consequences of a decision might be devastating. 

These are your triggers? Usually, the triggers for depression episodes are a loss of a loved one, job, or a divorce, big changes. What you are saying is, your depression is triggered by daily events. How do you experience your episodes? How long they last?

Guilt for the past, low self-esteem for the present and fear of responsibility for the future. I’ve covered them all. [I can smile :)]
I don’t believe in episodes. I don’t know of a state without depression. Even if I am well, without depression, it’s usually of a short duration – a day or two. 

No, wait,– I know of an instance, a period without depression.
It was when I was pregnant with my first child. I felt ok. Not happy per se, but I said to myself, “Oh, so this is how it’s like to be without depression!”
This is how I know my depression is mostly hormonal. If I was in a different hormonal state then, then it’s the normal (depression-ist) state also hormonal. I must just figure out how to balance these hormones.
But I’m talking about the triggers, yes. Those that can’t be avoided. 

Triggers cannot be avoided, no, but we can develop mechanisms to be less sensitive to them. Maybe we can even become immune to some (or all) triggers after the process. 

Well, I doubt I can do this. I fail at all the things. And I’m not able to meet deadlines. And I’m always late. We’ll have many problems before I can start dealing with depression. And I procrastinate. And I don’t want to do it myself because I’m lazy. I want someone to do it for me–

Please calm down. We have all the time in the world to tackle what’s stressing you. We’ll pick one and work on it. And after that, we’ll pick another. And so on.
I must point out it’s harmful to talk or think in absolutes like you did just now. Always do this, never do that … Because your self-image is then distorted. Because sometimes things are different. You can change. I’ll talk about this another time.
It’s been enough for one session.

I have a homework for you. We’ll go specific.
Take notice, make a list of all the triggers for your guilt-induced depression occurrences. You can do it in real time this week or remember past examples. Describe the fashion in which feelings of guilt lead to depression. We’ll probably see a common denominator and tackle that manifestation of depression there, at the root.

Uhm … I have homework?

Yes. You need to work on your issues every day. By homework, you do it, you don’t just mull over. 
Good luck. See you next week.

See you. [Disconcerted by the early end. Don’t all sessions end too soon?]

—

*We don’t do a diagnosis, we just assume there’s one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_(differential_diagnoses)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mood_disorder#Depressive_disorders
https://www.psychologytoday.com/conditions/depressive-disorders
http://www.everydayhealth.com/hs/depression-pictures/avoiding-common-depression-triggers 
https://psychcentral.com/lib/top-relapse-triggers-for-depression-how-to-prevent-them/
http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/major-depression#1 
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/communication-central/201006/glee-club-results-oriented-vs-process-oriented-approaches
http://www.clinical-depression.co.uk/dlp/depression-information/causes-of-depression/ 

P.S. It’s hard to write of being depressed in a state when you aren’t. But then, this is what writers do. They write regardless of the mood. Some writers, at least.

P.P.S. This post is updated in a new post, ‘The flavours of my depression‘.