I've realized that the mind has its own methods of maintaining homeostasis so that it too can keep functioning at a stable level.
I've been gone awhile (in a synthetic kind of way through my absence from the blogosphere and in a very real mental kind of way) ..Its been a few months of feeling guilty every time my phone reminds me "blog post today!" I don't know why I didn't just take the reminder off... It felt awful realizing I had nothing to say. I had a lot of thoughts, but none I felt were worth the effort of putting into words. To make a long dramatic story short: I stopped taking my meds.
I think I was trying to convince myself that I was strong enough now to handle the waves of depression that would come. Or maybe I didn't really believe they would come. I felt good, my mind felt clear... I was ready to prove that I no longer had my illness.
Well, someone let every anti-depressant drug company know that I will be the front runner for their marketing campaign. It took a couple months for it to get bad enough that I was scared into going back to the doc. And I mean holy-sh**-this-is-destroying-my-husband-and-my-marriage bad.
As usual however, I've come out of this particularly nasty bout of depression with a hint of what you might call insight.
I believe people in general either try to avoid feeling uncomfortable, or when made uncomfortable in any kind of way try to remedy the situation by fleeing the scene, an awkward laugh or trying to focus everyone's attention elsewhere. I also believe that depressed people do this to a ridiculous extent. With a depressed mind, you're constantly (and most likely unconsciously) focused on your own mental stability. Overload it with stress of any kind and just like that it shuts down and all the sudden you're sleeping away all your afternoons, calling in sick to work and only eating what doesn't require preparation of any kind.
Everyone has a trigger that could lead to depression. For many people it requires a great deal to fall into a depressive state. For those of us with clinical depression, its always there and pretty much anything could be a trigger to maximize its effects. For my poor husband, all he had to do was ask me to do the dishes at the wrong moment and my mind would spiral into a black hole and suck away any positive energy I might've had.
It of course has nothing to do with the dishes, and for the record I'm totally fine doing the dishes... its just that the trigger throws my mind off. Its like I'm always trying to prepare myself to handle whats coming next, not really caring about the future but always planning for it. If I didn't, my mind would freak out trying to handle all the unexpected things it was being asked to do. And because I always had a plan for what would come next, any small or large change in that plan would wreck my mental homeostasis.
For some reason I'm reminded of a Spongebob episode from years ago where his brain starts setting itself on fire...
Yep it feels just like that.
So if I've planned a date or dinner and my husband comes home and expresses any opinion other than "Yes dear, good plan, you're awesome" --> brain fire.
If I go to work expecting to watch my favorite TV show, answer some phone calls, shoot some emails, and ultimately plan out where my time will be spent, but then someone comes to work at an unexpected time or a new project is starting --> fire!
If I've pictured myself as a hardworking, dinner-preparing, let-me-scrub-this-floor-until-it-shines kind of wife and homemaker.. and then find myself dragging my feet in the door after work and taking naps every afternoon --> brain fire... with constant hot coals under the surface that take care of simmering away hope and optimism. (poetic huh?)
From the outside its all completely selfish and irrational. From the inside its really just an exhausted brain trying to function.
The relief for me has set in with a new medication throwing water buckets on my brain. I'm getting things done and I'm not so horrible to my husband. Overall I just care. My mind's a lot happier with this arrangement as well, it doesn't have to plan so much. :)
