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I have been in a... okay, look, there's a thing I do when I'm having a periodic depressive episode (as opposed to the chronic low-grade depression I also sometimes labor under), which I also refer to as my blue funks or brain-down-a-well episodes, and which last somewhere between one and three weeks. Basically I can feel myself sort of drifting out of touch with my life and the world around me -- disconnection, lack of motivation, anhedonia, etc. -- and I start reflexively trying to grab hold of something to keep me anchored.
The problem is that what I reflexively grab hold of tends to be reading. Which is... not really that great in terms of counteracting depressive symptoms, to be honest. I do a lot better with stuff like going for a long walk or being at work with clear tasks to accomplish. (This is one reason I am never ever going to try college as a full-time student ever again. It is very bad for my mental health because it makes drifting off and basically shipwrecking my life terrifyingly easy. Doing part-time school while also working full-time does eat my life, but in a manageable way, you know? Because I use the job to keep myself tethered.) But anyway, reading is what the back of my brain latches onto, probably because in good times reading is one of my biggest sources of pleasure and I can still read even when depression has temporarily made it punishingly difficult and unrewarding to create stuff (aka write).
So I get into these obsessive fanfic spirals, generally either with a fandom that is new to me or an old one I haven't touched in years so there's lots of new material I'm unfamiliar with. And this obsessive reading plays utter havoc with my sleeping schedule, which of course worsens the depression, and it's just a grubby little positive feedback spiral down into ugh, until I find some way to hit the circuit breaker.
What this means in practical terms is that I've been caught in one of those spirals this past week, with a temporary break for my trip to NJ, but I think I may finally have found the short-circuit last night when I ate a BLT for dinner and let the accompanying Benadryl crash shove me into bed around 8pm. I did not get up until 10am this morning (with a brief interlude of puttering around at midnight when the Benadryl wore off), and then I took a two-hour nap from 6-8pm this evening because I still felt utterly drained and full of glurge.
I mean, it's annoying that I finally started feeling awake at about 9:30pm and am still feeling more or less coherent at 11:30pm, because I need to go to bed soon to continue forcing myself back onto a helpful sleep schedule (and also I have work tomorrow), but still. Sometimes a hard reset is the only way to go. *sigh*
Celexa doesn't do a whole lot about my blue funks -- I mean, I think it softens them a little? -- but that's not why I take it. I can handle blue funks. Obviously I'd be happier without them! But on their own, they're just annoying. They pass. The Celexa is to fight off the chronic depression, because if I can't recalibrate back to level ground after falling down the well, I am in no shape to deal with much of anything. Celexa lets me find that level ground instead of getting stuck permanently halfway down the well.
And now I am going to bed. Because sleep is delicious and I want to continue hashing out some background for my NFE fic while I'm drifting off, since the idea I want to write is inherently weird and complicated and I do a lot of my best worldbuilding brainstorming when my conscious mind isn't always jamming the "hey wait, wtf!" editorial button. *wry*
The problem is that what I reflexively grab hold of tends to be reading. Which is... not really that great in terms of counteracting depressive symptoms, to be honest. I do a lot better with stuff like going for a long walk or being at work with clear tasks to accomplish. (This is one reason I am never ever going to try college as a full-time student ever again. It is very bad for my mental health because it makes drifting off and basically shipwrecking my life terrifyingly easy. Doing part-time school while also working full-time does eat my life, but in a manageable way, you know? Because I use the job to keep myself tethered.) But anyway, reading is what the back of my brain latches onto, probably because in good times reading is one of my biggest sources of pleasure and I can still read even when depression has temporarily made it punishingly difficult and unrewarding to create stuff (aka write).
So I get into these obsessive fanfic spirals, generally either with a fandom that is new to me or an old one I haven't touched in years so there's lots of new material I'm unfamiliar with. And this obsessive reading plays utter havoc with my sleeping schedule, which of course worsens the depression, and it's just a grubby little positive feedback spiral down into ugh, until I find some way to hit the circuit breaker.
What this means in practical terms is that I've been caught in one of those spirals this past week, with a temporary break for my trip to NJ, but I think I may finally have found the short-circuit last night when I ate a BLT for dinner and let the accompanying Benadryl crash shove me into bed around 8pm. I did not get up until 10am this morning (with a brief interlude of puttering around at midnight when the Benadryl wore off), and then I took a two-hour nap from 6-8pm this evening because I still felt utterly drained and full of glurge.
I mean, it's annoying that I finally started feeling awake at about 9:30pm and am still feeling more or less coherent at 11:30pm, because I need to go to bed soon to continue forcing myself back onto a helpful sleep schedule (and also I have work tomorrow), but still. Sometimes a hard reset is the only way to go. *sigh*
Celexa doesn't do a whole lot about my blue funks -- I mean, I think it softens them a little? -- but that's not why I take it. I can handle blue funks. Obviously I'd be happier without them! But on their own, they're just annoying. They pass. The Celexa is to fight off the chronic depression, because if I can't recalibrate back to level ground after falling down the well, I am in no shape to deal with much of anything. Celexa lets me find that level ground instead of getting stuck permanently halfway down the well.
And now I am going to bed. Because sleep is delicious and I want to continue hashing out some background for my NFE fic while I'm drifting off, since the idea I want to write is inherently weird and complicated and I do a lot of my best worldbuilding brainstorming when my conscious mind isn't always jamming the "hey wait, wtf!" editorial button. *wry*
