Mild

There are thoughts. Lots of thoughts. Lots of words. Lots of feelings. But not much sense. Perhaps I’ve been holding onto them for too long. I gave up even trying to make sense of them, I just decided to wait it out, wait for time to heal or the medications to do their job.

I find myself trapped in a circle that I found myself trapped in a few months ago. Thinking the same thoughts. I find myself staring at the screen, unable to type. I can still function, I can still work, I can still pretend that nothing is wrong. I can even pretend to myself that nothing is wrong. Don’t really believe myself though.

What to type? What to type? I have the urge to spit out some of my thoughts. But I warn you, they may not make much sense.

In a homegroup meeting as we were studying the Bible I was my usual self and blurted out some thoughts, seeming to make others uncomfortable. Wishing I could pull my words back, why did you say that? Then the tears started falling and I couldn’t hold them back. I had to leave the room. I was reassured that they love me, that they know me, that I don’t scare them. But I think I do, even if it’s just a little bit. What will Karita say next?

I go to church and I panic. I go to work and I panic. I study and I panic. I talk to people, email people and I panic. So I hide from the world. I don’t panic when I’m hiding so I must be OK, right? I’m fine. Fine fine OK fine. Really I am.

But then, listening to yesterday’s sermon at church, I realised that I am back where I was six months ago. This was the pattern: Karita goes mad, mood up, mood down, mood up, mood down. Karita decides that God does not exist, because she can’t see him or feel him when she’s depressed, she can only see him or feel him when she’s hypomanic. Therefore, God is clearly a figment of Karita’s hypomanic brain. Karita then decides that God does exist but that she is very angry with him so decides not to speak to him for a while. Karita then decides that she should be speaking to God, but can’t, therefore she is a really rubbish Christian who should go and live under a rock.

This time around I have skipped the God does not exist phase. And I didn’t really get angry with him. I just stopped talking to him. Depression always pulls me away from God. But you see, when I achieved stability in the summer I thought to myself that I had learned so much in the year of crappy mental loopiness. I learned more about myself and God. And I decided that while I was stable I would reflect on this and make my faith stronger so that the next time depression hit, I would not be pulled away from God. And here I am, pulled away from God, sitting in church thinking about how rubbish I am and how I should go and live under a rock.

I have learned nothing. I’m slipping, I know I’m slipping, and I can’t seem to gather up the courage to do anything about it. Or even to face it. I talked to hubby a bit yesterday and even then I was full of the usual drivel, Oh don’t worry about me, I’m sure it will pass soon… and I mean, it might, you know? Maybe I’m getting my head all twisted up over nothing. It’s only Cyclothymia, it’s mild.

Letting it Wash Over

Rambling post with not much in the way of structure coming up…

I was up in Newcastle this weekend for my Grandma’s 80th birthday party. I love being with my family, I don’t see them that often. They’re all mad (or rather, eccentric) and I fit in very well. We went to a restaurant on Saturday night, there were a lot of us, it was very loud and chaotic. I got overwhelmed when the waiters were calling out the names of what people had ordered, and my Dad noticed. He also struggles with that sort of situation.

However, he laughed at me and said that it was odd that that sort of chaos overwhelms me, but the chaos that the family generates doesn’t. In fact, I am often the instigator of that particular brand of chaos. I told him, “but you see, I understand Smith (not our real name) chaos”. I fit with them.

Hubby and I stayed with my Grandma over the weekend and she talked. A lot. She didn’t actually stop! We were looking at the family tree and she was describing how bonkers the family has always been. That’s how my Dad describes me: “Karita, you’re plain old, stark, raving bonkers! That’s why we love you.”

I’ll stick the rest behind the wall.

To Trust or not to Trust?

I had a chat with my Dad this week, about recent events. My Dad is very good at giving it to me straight, not beating around the bush, etc. The subject of our conversation meandered around the difficulties of trust. My natural instinct is to trust people. I almost always believe that their intentions are good. Why would they hurt me if I haven’t hurt them? Life has taught me otherwise every now and then, but I am usually nauseatingly optimistic about these things.

Hence me getting into a snotty, sobbing mess when my trust is broken. Then I get angry and say I will never trust again. This stage lasts approximately five minutes. Give or take a sobbing rant or two. But then… ah, well, then I start to trust again. Against my better judgement. They will have learnt this time! All my instincts scream at me to trust.

So. So… About a year ago I put some safety measures into place. To remind myself why I cannot always trust, why sometimes it is better to protect myself. But as time went on, I slipped. I trusted. And then I got hurt again.

So we’re back at the beginning once more. My instincts are screaming out at me to trust, regardless of the way I’ve been hurt. Groan. Some people never learn, you know?

My Dad later sent me a text saying this:

‘Not wanting to trust’ is a survival instinct but ‘wanting to trust’ is not an instinct but instead a learned, socialised behaviour. Instinct is to protect. Trust is a learned, social expectation… which is, in some cases, best overruled by instinct.

Interesting. My response was this:

I would have said that it was the opposite. It is a natural instinct to trust. Look at babies – they trust instantly. Our experiences teach us not to trust so that we can protect ourselves.

So there we have it. Two opposing arguments. Both resulting in the same thing, essentially – we have to protect ourselves by not trusting everyone. But I do not think that that is a natural state of being. Coming from my own particular brand of Christian worldview, I believe that God created us to live in harmony with each other, in the perfect world that he originally created we would have had no need to protect ourselves by withholding trust. But now, in our fallen, broken, often cruel world, we need to protect ourselves. If we trusted absolutely everyone, with no misgivings, we would be hurt time and time again. We must protect ourselves. But I do not think that this is what God intended, I think that this state of affairs leaves God broken-hearted.

What do you think? Is the desire to trust a natural instinct or a learned, socialised behaviour?

Progress

OK, so I’m eating yesterday’s words about my counsellor. I was being incredibly negative. I would delete that post, but I did feel that way yesterday, so it is a legitimate record of my feelings. Here’s how the session went last night, and what I have learned from it:

I was prepared to tell him about the cutting on Friday but as I went in I changed my mind and decided to keep it from him. I very carefully didn’t mention it. But then, after he asked me how I am, how it went with the psychiatrist, etc, he said he wanted to talk about the self destructive fantasies I’ve been having. I stared at the wall and knew that my face was giving me away so I came clean and told him.

He was cool and calm about it, and then we had a fantastic discussion. He helped me to realise that I have been spending so much energy in recent weeks just trying to remain in control and not let my moods spill out into my life, that I have neglected myself. I can’t let myself break down at work or in front of my friends or at church or even at home, because it is inappropriate and would worry and confuse people.

If my behaviour was always in congruence with my moods then my behaviour would be constantly in flux because my moods are constantly in flux. People wouldn’t be able to cope with that, so I have to manage my behaviour very carefully.

A few years ago, when I was depressed, I seriously thought that it was wrong to be depressed, because Christians are supposed to be joyful all the time. I no longer think that way, in fact, I think it is perfectly fine to doubt and ask hard questions, but I don’t think I have fully acknowledged my feelings of depression, I have just tried to bury them and wait for them to go away.

So it would appear that my emotions are fighting to get out of me, and if I don’t let them out then they will come out on their own, in ways I can’t control. Hence the cut on my finger and scratches on my shoulders, and the bitten nails and bloody fingertips. And random outbursts of tears and sobbing in front of people.

My counsellor asked me what the result was when I lost control of my emotions in front of people. The result was comfort, empathy and understanding. So it was good. Each and every time there has been a good outcome. So he asked me, why am I so afraid of losing control?

I’m still not entirely sure of the answer. I know that I have always been afraid of my emotions, good and bad. Or at least, afraid of how others will react to them. I can’t show strong affection too openly because it tends to freak people out. Same goes for anger, despair, guilt…

But I have gone further than just masking my emotions from other people, I have been attempting to mask them from myself. So much so that I often have difficulties articulating how I’m feeling. No wonder I have been so on edge. I hate not being able to communicate with myself, being unable to analyse and think things over in my head. Hubby often tells me that I think too much and I need to sometimes stop thinking – maybe I took his advice too much to heart! That may be good for him, but it doesn’t work for me. I always feel better when I can work things out internally and find some sort of resolution, some way of moving forward. And I haven’t done that for so long.

I also realised that this may be why I like alcohol so much. It lowers my inhibitions, so that I do behave in congruence with my moods, regardless of how I may come across to other people. Some of the most freeing times of my life have been when I was drunk. I’m not willing to give that up just yet.

Anyway, I’m rambling. The point was that if I don’t let my emotions out in a healthy way then they will let themselves out in an unhealthy way, like cutting.

Typically, just as I have been given licence to feel depressed and miserable, I am all smiles!

The Monster

I spoke to the minister of my church last night and asked for some help because I feel like I’m losing my faith in God. The thought of that terrifies me. So I’ve finally admitted to being unable to do everything by myself. And I’ve started to be a lot more honest. I’m tired of playing the same role I have always played. It’s time to change the rules a bit.

He was very kind and not judgemental and is having a think about how best to help me. He pointed out to me that I seem angry. I couldn’t really deny that. I seem to be angry a lot these days. It bubbles out of me at very inconvenient times, and is always followed by me apologising for myself a lot. Because being angry doesn’t fit the role I have always played.

It feels good to have been honest. There is a dark side to my nature that I have always held inside, in chains. Now it fights to get out. Whatever mood I’m in, up or down, it wants to come out. This dark monster inside me that wants to destroy everything, and will take me with it. Sometimes, I want to welcome it with a smile.

Trying to fight back

I’m just going to waffle for a while. Talk amongst yourselves.

What I want right now is to go out and get smashed. I get this urge every now and then. Usually when I’m feeling down. I think, “Ooh, I know what will make me feel better and really cheer me up – lots and lots of alcohol!” It never works out that way though. Even if I do get really really drunk, all that usually happens is I feel even more miserable. And anyway, my sensible side kicks in a bit too much these days. A little voice in my head reminds me how terrified I am of throwing up (a few years back this was the main thing that prevented me from leaping headlong into bulimia), how this will make my IBS flare up again, how nobody likes me anyway when all my inhibitions are lowered and I become loud and highly opinionated, etc.

When I say I want to go out and get smashed what I mean is I vacillate between wanting that and just wanting to do nothing. Because I feel so lethargic right now that I just want to stay inside and put old episodes of Star Trek on. Seriously. That’s all I want to do. I would be happy as a clam if I could just stay there. Maybe read a few blogs every now and then to stop things getting too monotonous, and then back to Star Trek.

But would that be a good thing? Is giving in to the lethargy going to help me to throw it off? When I start thinking along those lines that’s when I want to go out and drink. But you see, I did that last weekend. Met up with a couple of friends, went to our favourite cocktail bar and started the drinking. And we did have fun. I started to feel more lighthearted. But before I could go down the drinking-too-much route, one of my friends had a meltdown and it was up to me to mop up. Always the responsible one. Always the one who helps. Always the one who looks after others when really I would like it if they would look after me for a change.

When I suffered from depression a couple of years ago I noticed that I developed self-destructive tendencies. That’s when I started smoking. Although, when I say tendencies, what I really mean is desires. I wanted to cut myself, drink myself into a stupor… just so that i would be able to feel something. Because the world had gone numb. I also worried endlessly about what others thought of me. I desperately sought people’s approval and affection, but was so introverted that I never spoke and therefore not many people knew how I felt. So I retreated to my imaginary world and created conversations in my head where I told someone how I felt inside and they totally understood and hugged me and I felt immediately better and the world became bright and rosy again. Of course, it didn’t work out that way, because I just stayed inside my head and pretended to the world that everything was fine.

Now, I’m not saying that that is how I feel now. I remember what it felt like to be depressed. Although many of the details are vague, the memories of how I felt are very strong. I am determined never to go back there again. Right now I am still capable of having a laugh and enjoying myself. However, I recognise certain thought processes. I recognise the dwelling on negative scenarios in my head, I recognise the stifled imagination, the inability to force myself to think clearly about things. I recognise the disproportionate anger and intolerance. And it worries me.

Therefore, I want to go out and get shit-faced. To dance to loud music and to not have to worry about anyone else, just for a few hours. To make myself feel something other than lethargy, worry and anger. But I won’t, people. Good little Razzler is far too sensible to do anything like that. Good little Razzler knows that God loves her and that the best way to get through this is to rest on His mercy and grace. Even if she’s not entirely sure how to do that. So maybe good little Razzler will do her job, be compassionate and kind towards other people, eat her dinner and watch some Star Trek.

Please don’t feel you have to comment on this one. I was going to close comments, but then I thought what if I’m stifling someone who really wants to comment? Anyway, you don’t have to comment. I just have to try to get this stuff out of my system. I’ll think really hard and post something light and bouncy soon, I promise.

Anger

Right now I’m pretty angry. So angry, in fact, that my hands are shaking.

What are the things that make me angry? Not just irritated, but actually angry. Usually it is when something happens that contradicts my own internal values. What does that mean? To explain that I’d have to go into what my values are, and that may be a bit complicated. Obviously, there’s my faith, and the people I care about, but internal values are actually more subjective than those things. They are what I have deemed important to me; how I view the world is seen through these values.

My values are unique to me, and I have spent my entire life so far forming them. I do not tend to react very well when one of these values is violated. Sometimes the violation is extreme, ie. being confronted with actions that are directly opposed to what I have deemed ‘acceptable behaviour’. Sometimes the violation is not so extreme.

My blog has been made available to people who know me so I won’t go into details. Suffice it to say: I’m angry. Although, writing this is starting to have a calming effect on me.

How much anger is acceptable? And what actions resulting from anger are acceptable? For example, I do not believe that my anger excuses me to start yelling and hurling abuse at people. But do I instead keep my feelings completely to myself? Am I supposed to be a doormat? I don’t think so.

The Bible points at righteous anger. God’s righteous anger at the idolatry of His people. But is my anger righteous? How do I tell that? What if my anger is actually rooted in selfishness? Just because someone has acted in a way that does not match up to my values, does that make me right and the other person wrong?

The thing I am most wary of is that if we do not deal with anger effectively it can morph into resentment, and that is never good.

Not entirely related except inside my own head note: You know something? I hate making new friends. All the anxiety of not really knowing someone, not knowing how to behave, not knowing what people are thinking of me, and then it feels like the moment I put myself out there, the new friend does something that makes me want to run back inside my box and hide. Grrr. So, do I build a wall around myself, tell myself that I have enough friends and I do not need any more, or do I put my feelings to one side and carry on? The box is looking appealing from where I’m sitting now.

Completely unrelated note: I have a sore eye. It hurts to blink. Do you realise how frequently we blink? *drums fingers irritably on desk*