Depression can be quite a seductive thing
It's been a bit moodswings and mope abouts in the last week.
Round about Tuesday I was randomly associating things (and my writing went all brackety (and sub-brackety) again). This usually means I'm on an upswing. With all the brackets, my emails look like I'm trying to calculate the probability of me achieving something highly unlikely, like managing to concentrate on my tea for long enough just once this week not to burn it, taking into account numerous factors including windspeed and the number of times Chantelle has been in the papers this week - minus the number of times the accompanying caption read "oh my god".
At times like this my conversational style gets very random as I assume that other people know what is going on in my head as I jump from one topic to another at will.
I'm not really concentrating on my work very well as I keep having much more amusing ideas for things to do with my time. I've been coming up with all sorts of grand plans for things to do: programmes I'm going to write, paintings I'm going to paint, DIY I'm going to do. Then I swing back into the low and whatever amusing idea I had seems utterly pointless along with just about everything else.
Depression can be quite a seductive thing. The first thing it does it to tell you to stop fighting it, it won't do you any good anyway. Then you become convinced that the negative way that you view the world is the only way to view it, that any other opinion is just foolish illusion, refusal to see the world as it truly is, only a delusional fool would be happy under these circumstances so you might as well sit back and not enjoy the ride.
Misery supposedly loves company but I'm not a big fan of being depressed around other people because I feel an obligation to at least try and hide it. Spending half the day mentally slapping yourself about the face until you have rearranged it into a brave one can become exhausting. It is often easier to be around people you barely know than the people to whom you are close. I think allowing myself some time alone to get some of it out of my system and to mentally regroup does me good as long as it doesn't turn into avoiding all social situations. It has always struck me as a bit perverse that, generally, in my lower phases, when I do socialise I find it easier to make people laugh, as it seems to bring out my gallows humour.
So, I've been a bit up and down a bit paranoid and a bit unenthused some of the time and I have had quite lot of thoughts about self harming. I'm not sleeping that well, I'm having some pretty weird dreams and I am waking up pretty anxious most mornings but I have been a lot, lot worse in the past. I'd still say that the times when I feel a bit off are less than half the week in total so it isn't taking over my life at the moment and apart from being a bit scatty I'm functioning ppretty much as normally as I ever do. And, on the positive side, I've not been stammering much at all lately.
Also this week: I accidentally got deoderant in my eye. It hurt quite a lot and took several attempts to sucessfully flush out. The daft thing was it was a roll-on deoderant!
Week commencing 20/02/06
Medication: A few cups of roman chamomile. Roll on deoderant applied to the eye!Exercise: 0.5 hrs
Alcohol: 12
Anxiety: Waking up very anxious but not too bad during the day.
Anxiety Level (0-10): 2.5
Number of Panic Attacks: 0
Severity of Panic Attack (0-5): 0
Depression: A bit preoccupied with that is wrong with my life and taking a bit of a negative view of the world some, but not all, of the time but still managing to function without significant problems.
Depression Level (0-5):3
Mania: Some days of feeling a bit hyper.
Mania Level (0-5): 2
Summary
Still in a mixed state. I tend to spend a lot of time at this time of year mulling over the past and worrying about the future.
