The Rollercoaster
As they say, “Today is a new day.” I don’t know what yesterday was all about, or where the mood came from, but it seems to be gone today. I woke this morning feeling much better. I was afraid that my mood might decay like it did yesterday as the day went on, but at 2:00, its still good. I went to lunch with my daughter. Spending time with her is always good for my mental health. We played some basketball and I helped her with her lay-ups when we got home.
I have spent a lot of time today thinking about what was on my mind yesterday, and what was driving my mood. I have a fear, which never goes away but gets better and worse, that I am not and will not be able to support my family and that, as a result, we will lose our home and way of life. I also have this feeling of guilt, worthlessness, and hopelessness which comes from my not working, and really not doing a lot around the house. Melissa works part-time, pays the bills and manages the money, and really has been taking care of everything while I have been in treatment and getting well. That’s all fine, as long as I can see that I will be doing my part again after the “getting well” is done. But with total melt-downs like yesterday, I get this notion that I will never be able to manage going to work or managing our finances or doing much of anything else. I certainly would not have been capable of going to work yesterday.
3:00. Mood is sliding a little. I can’t sit in the room with my son and watch the Olympics. He is just not good for my mood when my mood is fragile.
I’ve been thinking more and more about work and working. I can envision going to work in the lawyer role I interviewed for last week. That’s a pretty high level but low stress and low volume position with people I know and have worked with. But anything else, including the job I left when I started ECT (I still “work” there but I’m on disability), I just can’t imagine doing. I wonder if the commitement to going to the Dumb Friends League (animal shelter) to volunteer yesterday was what started my mood decline. It feels like almost any commitment, where I have to be somewhere to do something at a certain time, creates this very strong drag on my mood. I feel like that should make me feel lazy or useless, but it doesn’t. Its not that I want to lay on the couch and do nothing instead of working. I want to do something and be active and engaged. I just can’t think of anything I feel like I could tolerate doing for any period of time. I feel lost.
This mood, where I am now, is difficult to explain. Its flat, or hollow, or empty. I feel hopeless and trapped and like there are so many negative “things” in my head that I need to deal with in order to be happy, but there are so many I can’t even begin to get them organized. And I know that, in reality, not much has changed in my world since just a week ago when I was feeling so good. I can’t help thinking that, maybe, I was never really mentally healthier or better. But rather that the ECT just confused me enough that I could pretend that all of these negative things weren’t there, and that I could pretend to feel better. And that when the ECT stopped and that confusion wore off, the ability to pretend wore off too.
4:15: My mood has continued to slide. Feels something like one part of my consciousness was dragging me down, forcing all of these negative things (i.e. employment, income, my mentally ill son, things around my house that need fixing, etc.) into the front of my mind. And there was another part of my mind that, for a while, fought all of that off, questioned whether I was “really” upset about those things and felt like I was consciously forcing myself to feel bad because I felt like I should feel bad. The negativity won that battle. I began to feel like I would rather not exist at all than to do anything or be anywhere I could think of. It just felt bad. Not as bad as yesterday, but certainly not as good as it has been recently. Just bad.
6:00: I don’t think I felt as overall bad today. I wasn’t as out of control emotionally, but I was at least as depressed. And certainly more unsafe to myself. There was a point today where I realized that I didn’t have the means to end my life today if I wanted to. I didn’t have access to the things I would need to make that happen in the way I would employ if I decided to do that. That, alone, made me feel trapped. No matter how bad things get in my head, I always know that the one bit of control that I have involves ending my life. If felt like my head, or my world, was so out of control that the control over the decision to kill myself would have provided at least that slim bit of solaced. I also spent a fair amount of time today thinking about how tired I am of impacting my family’s life. It is terrible enough that my world feels like this to me. It is unacceptable, to me, that I impose my misery on my family. My wife has spent 21 days in the waiting room at the hospital while my treatments are performed. 21 three to four hour periods waiting. And she hasn’t complained once. I know that I could not have been as strong for her as she has been for me, and I know that no one else would have been as strong for me either. Without her by my side, I would not still be here. I can’t ask any more of her.
I have spent a lot of time today thinking about what was on my mind yesterday, and what was driving my mood. I have a fear, which never goes away but gets better and worse, that I am not and will not be able to support my family and that, as a result, we will lose our home and way of life. I also have this feeling of guilt, worthlessness, and hopelessness which comes from my not working, and really not doing a lot around the house. Melissa works part-time, pays the bills and manages the money, and really has been taking care of everything while I have been in treatment and getting well. That’s all fine, as long as I can see that I will be doing my part again after the “getting well” is done. But with total melt-downs like yesterday, I get this notion that I will never be able to manage going to work or managing our finances or doing much of anything else. I certainly would not have been capable of going to work yesterday.
3:00. Mood is sliding a little. I can’t sit in the room with my son and watch the Olympics. He is just not good for my mood when my mood is fragile.
I’ve been thinking more and more about work and working. I can envision going to work in the lawyer role I interviewed for last week. That’s a pretty high level but low stress and low volume position with people I know and have worked with. But anything else, including the job I left when I started ECT (I still “work” there but I’m on disability), I just can’t imagine doing. I wonder if the commitement to going to the Dumb Friends League (animal shelter) to volunteer yesterday was what started my mood decline. It feels like almost any commitment, where I have to be somewhere to do something at a certain time, creates this very strong drag on my mood. I feel like that should make me feel lazy or useless, but it doesn’t. Its not that I want to lay on the couch and do nothing instead of working. I want to do something and be active and engaged. I just can’t think of anything I feel like I could tolerate doing for any period of time. I feel lost.
This mood, where I am now, is difficult to explain. Its flat, or hollow, or empty. I feel hopeless and trapped and like there are so many negative “things” in my head that I need to deal with in order to be happy, but there are so many I can’t even begin to get them organized. And I know that, in reality, not much has changed in my world since just a week ago when I was feeling so good. I can’t help thinking that, maybe, I was never really mentally healthier or better. But rather that the ECT just confused me enough that I could pretend that all of these negative things weren’t there, and that I could pretend to feel better. And that when the ECT stopped and that confusion wore off, the ability to pretend wore off too.
4:15: My mood has continued to slide. Feels something like one part of my consciousness was dragging me down, forcing all of these negative things (i.e. employment, income, my mentally ill son, things around my house that need fixing, etc.) into the front of my mind. And there was another part of my mind that, for a while, fought all of that off, questioned whether I was “really” upset about those things and felt like I was consciously forcing myself to feel bad because I felt like I should feel bad. The negativity won that battle. I began to feel like I would rather not exist at all than to do anything or be anywhere I could think of. It just felt bad. Not as bad as yesterday, but certainly not as good as it has been recently. Just bad.
6:00: I don’t think I felt as overall bad today. I wasn’t as out of control emotionally, but I was at least as depressed. And certainly more unsafe to myself. There was a point today where I realized that I didn’t have the means to end my life today if I wanted to. I didn’t have access to the things I would need to make that happen in the way I would employ if I decided to do that. That, alone, made me feel trapped. No matter how bad things get in my head, I always know that the one bit of control that I have involves ending my life. If felt like my head, or my world, was so out of control that the control over the decision to kill myself would have provided at least that slim bit of solaced. I also spent a fair amount of time today thinking about how tired I am of impacting my family’s life. It is terrible enough that my world feels like this to me. It is unacceptable, to me, that I impose my misery on my family. My wife has spent 21 days in the waiting room at the hospital while my treatments are performed. 21 three to four hour periods waiting. And she hasn’t complained once. I know that I could not have been as strong for her as she has been for me, and I know that no one else would have been as strong for me either. Without her by my side, I would not still be here. I can’t ask any more of her.
posted by DeMental at 8:19 AM
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