More on madness
Nov. 6th, 2018 09:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annwfynThis is rather turning into an epic. One day, when it's all written, I'll do a post linking these together and it'll be an index to SallyCrazy.
Today I feel the urge to explore depression more. Specifically, to try and make sense of what my 1-10 scale of depression is. This is sparked, particularly, by the weird revelation that what I thought was my baseline was actually low level depression and I just hadn't noticed it for years. I have no idea, by the way, if this matches up with any medical guidelines on what constitutes depression. It's all totally subjective, and totally me. It isn't based on any general universal 1-10 scale. Just mine.
So, Sally's 1-10 scale of depression.
1 - I'm convinced I'm OK. I'm not sad. I'm not noticeably struggling. I am periodically a bit anxious and can get flappy over small things that I probably shouldn't (like cleaning the house). I can get people'd out if I see people too often. I require one evening per week when I do nothing but stare at the TV before falling asleep at 9.30 pm. At work I tend to come in fits and starts - I'm not very good at a full day of going flat out, and will be lazy the next day. I can't concentrate on anything for more than two hours and a room full of people requires me vanishing into my phone every so often. Getting out of bed in the morning is work and I grumble about not being a morning person. It isn't really something that most people would recognize as depression and I really only include it because I've discovered that this isn't actually my baseline and I have much higher energy and concentration levels than I realized.
2 - Like 1, but a bit worse. The anxiety attacks are a bit more frequent and I start to describe myself as an anxious person. I might walk out of a pub because I can't find somewhere to sit with my back to a wall. I start skipping the gym. I have a couple of days at work when I can't do more than 2 or 3 properly useful things. I begin to feel overwhelmed by seeing people multiple nights in a row. I look like an introvert with ADHD. I need alone time to watch YouTube videos or read blog posts. I can read trashy novels, but stuff like Dickens is a bit hard.
3 - I'm still completely unaware this is depression. I'm fine. I mean, I'm getting more anxious. I called the Samaritans to discuss if I should kill myself because I had an argument on Facebook about whether anyone is really mentally ill without life trauma, and that means I'm not mentally ill, I'm just a terrible person. I've been beginning to wonder if there's any point taking my medication as it doesn't really do much anyway. I take minor comments as a sign that people around me don't like me, so I ought to avoid them. Shyness is beginning to ramp up and I need to psych myself up for a night when people I don't feel safe with are about. And that number is rising. The good news at this stage is that I can be distracted from the depression. A good night out in the pub will make me bounce. Exercise and food and nice people and good news at work can boost me back to normal for somewhere between hours, days and even sometimes kick me clear for a bit. I'm dipping down into the stupid bad thoughts, but they don't stay. It's at times like this that I wonder if I have something wrong with me that isn't bipolar as I seem to swing between states so quickly. No, I'm just depressed and experiencing brief bouts of respite.
4 - I am STILL convinced this isn't depression. I'm fine. It's just like stage 3, except the number of people I feel safe with is dropping. It takes more to lift me. It's easier to throw me down. The argument I had on Facebook will linger for days and I begin to obsess about the nature of good and evil. I feel evil. I can make lists of why. I'm beginning to skip showers so I can stay in bed for longer. I am not very keen on this world. I might sit on the sofa and not talk to Jez for a whole evening so I can do RP scenes on my computer and not be me for a while. He'll try and hug me. I'll ignore him. Nothing is wrong though. Why would anything be wrong? Bad news or life crisis at this point sends me to bed for a day. I lie there and stare at my phone rather than deal with reality. But I'm fine.
I haven't done the washing up either.
5 - At this point Jez is normally saying loudly "YOU ARE NOT WELL SALLY". If I'm on the way down to a bout of deeper depression, I'll probably deny it now. If I'm clawing my way out of the mire, I might be able to admit it around now and say that there is maybe an issue. If I do acknowledge I'm depressed I have the insight here to at least know I'll get through this. I will. It just feels shit. And it really feels shit. Doing stuff is getting harder here. I can't be bothered cleaning. I go from actively enjoying cooking to blowing money on takeout most nights. I don't like the taste of takeout. It's always dissatisfying. But it's easy.
I'm getting more and more tired. I am not sleeping very well, but I want to lie restlessly in bed pretty much all the time. I want to go to bed at 9 and lie there until 10 the next morning. Being semi-conscious is way better than trying to be awake and holding conversations. Everything feels physically exhausting. Doing anything at all seems overwhelming and impossible. You ask me to write an email and I want to cry because it's too damn much. I'm not sad, I always say around here. And I'm not. I'm exhausted and overwhelmed and can't concentrate. I do start hitting a lot of suicide ideation around now, but it comes in response to other stuff. It's an easy place to go to, and it's not detailed exactly. I'm not planning out how to do it. I just find myself thinking it would be easier if I wasn't here, if I could just be...undone. I have nowhere near enough energy to do a damn thing.
6 - Like 5, but worse. At this point I'm either not eating and starting to lose weight (because everything tastes a bit wrong) or I'm eating waaaay too much and gaining weight (because everything tastes a bit wrong and I keep eating more to try and find the right flavours). I start struggling to go to work at this stage because I feel so exhausted and that's beginning to manifest as 'unwell'. I get bouts of intense giddiness sometimes at this stage and I feel nauseous with fear over difficult things. I'm pretty convinced that a number of my labyrinthitis diagnosis are actually this kind of depression. People flirting with me seems threatening. I'm not sure why, but any attempt at contact is beginning to feel like an attack. I know it's ridiculous. I freak out anyway.
At this point I may burst into tears if asked to do anything. Because everything is fricking impossibly hard.
7 - I have had at least one day of work off sick because I just couldn't face going on. I've cancelled on seeing people at least once. I'm starting to get paranoid and fretting that people are annoyed that I'm around. Tiny things are currently seeming too difficult. Other tiny things feel like reasons why everyone hates me. I'm beginning to find fewer and fewer people safe to be around. Some nights it's down to Jez as everyone else is too difficult. This sucks. And I can't really see a way out anymore. This, I'm sure, is my new normal. There is no hope for the future.
8 - The paranoia is ramping up into something weird. I've had at least one meltdown, possibly involving self harm, as I'm so agitated about everyone wanting me to kill myself. Or possibly I've had days where I just can't leave the house as I get giddy and physically fall over when I am trying to traverse 'stairs' and my brain knows that this means 'out'. I am basically OK if I'm in bed. The sitting room feels like a long way away. I could spend forever lying in bed reading the same five Agatha Christie novels over and over again. I stop replying to IC letters or scene messages anymore as they are too much. At this point, I feel under attack if a close friend messages me to say "hi". Everything is too much.
9 - I am beginning to get the same thoughts in my brain on a loop. Why aren't I dead? I'm so fucking useless at this, and this is never going to get better. Stage 8 depression hasn't lifted for a week. Nothing is cheering me up about now. Jez plays me the songs I normally dance too and I burst into tears because remembering any kind of happiness feels like adding insult to injury.
And the suicidal thoughts are getting intrusive. I start to write suicide letters over and over. I don't, because I know Jez and I my dad would be upset. I literally cannot imagine anyone else feeling a damn thing if I died beyond relief. I imagine my funeral. I am 100% sure it would be empty. This stage is why I don't think suicide is selfish. When I've wanted to die this badly, I've thought a lot about other people. If I thought that I would hurt or upset anyone by dying, I wouldn't be suicidal.
10 - The intrusive thoughts are becoming psychotic. I can hear them taking distinct form and shape. I have to die. Everyone hates me. Everyone is watching me, and they are angry that I'm not dead. I begin to see things. I am not sure when the nightmares stop and real life begins. It's all very confusing.
I begin to worry, when I leave the house, that passers by will kill me. I'm scared of the train coming into the station. I feel like I'm being sucked in. It's a lot like a mixed manic episode in terms of the crazy, but without the restless energy which probably saves my life. Physically, I feel incredibly unwell. Standing up is hard some days. Everything hurts. Everything is confusing. My head spins and I can't remember words some days. I probably would kill myself but that's very hard to do when you struggle leaving your bed. I'm barely aware of myself as human anymore.
Thankfully, 10 is very rare these days. Very rare. It's never been that common. I do think I lived a number of years thinking my baseline was 1-3 with regular dips as low as 8. The 9 and 10 have never been very common at all - 10 has happened two or three times in my life, and once it's unclear if that was a mixed manic episode or not for at least one of those. 9 happens more regularly, but normally only for a couple of weeks every few years and not for the last two years at all.
And this will helpfully be useful if I need to explain what I'm feeling in the future.
Today I feel the urge to explore depression more. Specifically, to try and make sense of what my 1-10 scale of depression is. This is sparked, particularly, by the weird revelation that what I thought was my baseline was actually low level depression and I just hadn't noticed it for years. I have no idea, by the way, if this matches up with any medical guidelines on what constitutes depression. It's all totally subjective, and totally me. It isn't based on any general universal 1-10 scale. Just mine.
So, Sally's 1-10 scale of depression.
1 - I'm convinced I'm OK. I'm not sad. I'm not noticeably struggling. I am periodically a bit anxious and can get flappy over small things that I probably shouldn't (like cleaning the house). I can get people'd out if I see people too often. I require one evening per week when I do nothing but stare at the TV before falling asleep at 9.30 pm. At work I tend to come in fits and starts - I'm not very good at a full day of going flat out, and will be lazy the next day. I can't concentrate on anything for more than two hours and a room full of people requires me vanishing into my phone every so often. Getting out of bed in the morning is work and I grumble about not being a morning person. It isn't really something that most people would recognize as depression and I really only include it because I've discovered that this isn't actually my baseline and I have much higher energy and concentration levels than I realized.
2 - Like 1, but a bit worse. The anxiety attacks are a bit more frequent and I start to describe myself as an anxious person. I might walk out of a pub because I can't find somewhere to sit with my back to a wall. I start skipping the gym. I have a couple of days at work when I can't do more than 2 or 3 properly useful things. I begin to feel overwhelmed by seeing people multiple nights in a row. I look like an introvert with ADHD. I need alone time to watch YouTube videos or read blog posts. I can read trashy novels, but stuff like Dickens is a bit hard.
3 - I'm still completely unaware this is depression. I'm fine. I mean, I'm getting more anxious. I called the Samaritans to discuss if I should kill myself because I had an argument on Facebook about whether anyone is really mentally ill without life trauma, and that means I'm not mentally ill, I'm just a terrible person. I've been beginning to wonder if there's any point taking my medication as it doesn't really do much anyway. I take minor comments as a sign that people around me don't like me, so I ought to avoid them. Shyness is beginning to ramp up and I need to psych myself up for a night when people I don't feel safe with are about. And that number is rising. The good news at this stage is that I can be distracted from the depression. A good night out in the pub will make me bounce. Exercise and food and nice people and good news at work can boost me back to normal for somewhere between hours, days and even sometimes kick me clear for a bit. I'm dipping down into the stupid bad thoughts, but they don't stay. It's at times like this that I wonder if I have something wrong with me that isn't bipolar as I seem to swing between states so quickly. No, I'm just depressed and experiencing brief bouts of respite.
4 - I am STILL convinced this isn't depression. I'm fine. It's just like stage 3, except the number of people I feel safe with is dropping. It takes more to lift me. It's easier to throw me down. The argument I had on Facebook will linger for days and I begin to obsess about the nature of good and evil. I feel evil. I can make lists of why. I'm beginning to skip showers so I can stay in bed for longer. I am not very keen on this world. I might sit on the sofa and not talk to Jez for a whole evening so I can do RP scenes on my computer and not be me for a while. He'll try and hug me. I'll ignore him. Nothing is wrong though. Why would anything be wrong? Bad news or life crisis at this point sends me to bed for a day. I lie there and stare at my phone rather than deal with reality. But I'm fine.
I haven't done the washing up either.
5 - At this point Jez is normally saying loudly "YOU ARE NOT WELL SALLY". If I'm on the way down to a bout of deeper depression, I'll probably deny it now. If I'm clawing my way out of the mire, I might be able to admit it around now and say that there is maybe an issue. If I do acknowledge I'm depressed I have the insight here to at least know I'll get through this. I will. It just feels shit. And it really feels shit. Doing stuff is getting harder here. I can't be bothered cleaning. I go from actively enjoying cooking to blowing money on takeout most nights. I don't like the taste of takeout. It's always dissatisfying. But it's easy.
I'm getting more and more tired. I am not sleeping very well, but I want to lie restlessly in bed pretty much all the time. I want to go to bed at 9 and lie there until 10 the next morning. Being semi-conscious is way better than trying to be awake and holding conversations. Everything feels physically exhausting. Doing anything at all seems overwhelming and impossible. You ask me to write an email and I want to cry because it's too damn much. I'm not sad, I always say around here. And I'm not. I'm exhausted and overwhelmed and can't concentrate. I do start hitting a lot of suicide ideation around now, but it comes in response to other stuff. It's an easy place to go to, and it's not detailed exactly. I'm not planning out how to do it. I just find myself thinking it would be easier if I wasn't here, if I could just be...undone. I have nowhere near enough energy to do a damn thing.
6 - Like 5, but worse. At this point I'm either not eating and starting to lose weight (because everything tastes a bit wrong) or I'm eating waaaay too much and gaining weight (because everything tastes a bit wrong and I keep eating more to try and find the right flavours). I start struggling to go to work at this stage because I feel so exhausted and that's beginning to manifest as 'unwell'. I get bouts of intense giddiness sometimes at this stage and I feel nauseous with fear over difficult things. I'm pretty convinced that a number of my labyrinthitis diagnosis are actually this kind of depression. People flirting with me seems threatening. I'm not sure why, but any attempt at contact is beginning to feel like an attack. I know it's ridiculous. I freak out anyway.
At this point I may burst into tears if asked to do anything. Because everything is fricking impossibly hard.
7 - I have had at least one day of work off sick because I just couldn't face going on. I've cancelled on seeing people at least once. I'm starting to get paranoid and fretting that people are annoyed that I'm around. Tiny things are currently seeming too difficult. Other tiny things feel like reasons why everyone hates me. I'm beginning to find fewer and fewer people safe to be around. Some nights it's down to Jez as everyone else is too difficult. This sucks. And I can't really see a way out anymore. This, I'm sure, is my new normal. There is no hope for the future.
8 - The paranoia is ramping up into something weird. I've had at least one meltdown, possibly involving self harm, as I'm so agitated about everyone wanting me to kill myself. Or possibly I've had days where I just can't leave the house as I get giddy and physically fall over when I am trying to traverse 'stairs' and my brain knows that this means 'out'. I am basically OK if I'm in bed. The sitting room feels like a long way away. I could spend forever lying in bed reading the same five Agatha Christie novels over and over again. I stop replying to IC letters or scene messages anymore as they are too much. At this point, I feel under attack if a close friend messages me to say "hi". Everything is too much.
9 - I am beginning to get the same thoughts in my brain on a loop. Why aren't I dead? I'm so fucking useless at this, and this is never going to get better. Stage 8 depression hasn't lifted for a week. Nothing is cheering me up about now. Jez plays me the songs I normally dance too and I burst into tears because remembering any kind of happiness feels like adding insult to injury.
And the suicidal thoughts are getting intrusive. I start to write suicide letters over and over. I don't, because I know Jez and I my dad would be upset. I literally cannot imagine anyone else feeling a damn thing if I died beyond relief. I imagine my funeral. I am 100% sure it would be empty. This stage is why I don't think suicide is selfish. When I've wanted to die this badly, I've thought a lot about other people. If I thought that I would hurt or upset anyone by dying, I wouldn't be suicidal.
10 - The intrusive thoughts are becoming psychotic. I can hear them taking distinct form and shape. I have to die. Everyone hates me. Everyone is watching me, and they are angry that I'm not dead. I begin to see things. I am not sure when the nightmares stop and real life begins. It's all very confusing.
I begin to worry, when I leave the house, that passers by will kill me. I'm scared of the train coming into the station. I feel like I'm being sucked in. It's a lot like a mixed manic episode in terms of the crazy, but without the restless energy which probably saves my life. Physically, I feel incredibly unwell. Standing up is hard some days. Everything hurts. Everything is confusing. My head spins and I can't remember words some days. I probably would kill myself but that's very hard to do when you struggle leaving your bed. I'm barely aware of myself as human anymore.
Thankfully, 10 is very rare these days. Very rare. It's never been that common. I do think I lived a number of years thinking my baseline was 1-3 with regular dips as low as 8. The 9 and 10 have never been very common at all - 10 has happened two or three times in my life, and once it's unclear if that was a mixed manic episode or not for at least one of those. 9 happens more regularly, but normally only for a couple of weeks every few years and not for the last two years at all.
And this will helpfully be useful if I need to explain what I'm feeling in the future.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-10 04:32 pm (UTC)