I'm smack in the middle of one hell of a dark period. This one rolled in over the weekend unannounced, triggered by the stupidest little thing, but then these episodes are rarely triggered by anything of substance. (I remember one day several years back when, out with a group of friends, someone commented that I seemed like I was in a particularly good mood. The woman I was with at the time warned, only half-facetiously, "Don't worry, his mood will change. Suddenly, and without warning, but it WILL change. Enjoy it while you can.")
It's funny how I can always recognize when my OCD or anxiety demons are up to their tricks, but the depression demon can be so slick as to set up shop and get to work well in advance of my internal alarm system notifying me. It's like a smoke detector that is extremely poorly placed, so that by the time it goes off half the house is engulfed in flame already. Still haven't figured out where to put that damn detector.
This is a particularly rough one. I got up yesterday morning in a fairly decent frame of mind, but somewhere along about lunchtime, I realized things weren't right. I didn't recognize what was happening yet, but something was off. And I was suddenly damn tired - not just sleepy, but the kind of tired where moving your limbs is a chore, and where sitting up straight seems like far more effort than it's worth. I napped. Most of the afternoon and evening. Ate some dinner, but more because I knew I should eat something than because I was hungry. "Dinner" was really a bologna and cheese sandwich. Rarely left the couch. At no point during the day did I open the blinds, much less leave the house. Just sat there, lumplike, alternately sleeping and staring at the TV. Today has been more of the same. Honestly, I couldn't tell you where today went. I was "up" around 7:00-ish, but again the day has been spent napping on and off. No appetite. No motivation.
My head is uncomfortable. It's not a headache in the traditional sense - it's not pain. I feel as though I cannot unfurrow my brow, and my own voice is screaming in my brain as if it were trying desperately to jump out of my head, flinging itself like a tantrum-throwing child against the inside of my skull in vain efforts to crash through that wall of bone to freedom. I want to cry, but there are no tears to cry. Resultantly, my eyes burn and feel heavy in their sockets. My teeth are gritted and my neck is tense. Hell, every muscle in my body is tensed as if I were preparing to have to physically defend myself from something. My stomach feels strange - not nauseous, not nervous, but somewhere in between, similar to the way it feels when experiencing a surge of adrenalin, but not exactly the same. The adrenalin surge fades with time; this has been a day and a half now.
Does any of that make sense? I know these sensations very well. They are not symptoms of illness - well, at least not of physical illness like a flu bug or having eaten something that might have been a few days past its use-by date. The thoughts that accompany them, fueled undoubtedly by my ever-present Internal Greek Chorus of OCD and SA, are both sad and angry, usually. This time, they are more angry than sad. It's a loud, visceral anger, overpowering at times yet unfocused. I couldn't tell you who or what I am angry with, I am just angry. Feel like I could lash out like a cornered animal at anyone who came too close.
And therein lies another great conundrum: I wish I had someone I could tell all this to, someone who would listen and understand and tell me its OK and help me get through this. At the same time, I don't want anyone around me when I'm like this, because I know I will be nasty towards them - a cutting, sarcastic, verbal nastiness. It is, I think, a large part of the reason I remain single: it takes a very strong, thick-skinned woman to be with me during these times. Believe me, I have scared off more than a few over the years when things got "too intense," to use the phrase I have heard more than a few times.
And before you suggest, yes, I do have a therapist - have had for years. But that's a very different type of interaction. An important one, one I value immensely, and one that I recommend highly to anyone who fights demons similar to mine. I would never have come as far as I have without my therapist's help. As I say, though, that's a different interaction.
I'm going to stop here. I may not be making a whole hell of a lot of sense, but blogging these things helps me to sort out the jumble of thoughts that clog my beautifully broken brain. I don't write these types of posts looking for sympathy or to cry "oh woe is me," nor do I write them really for anyone's benefit but my own. Maybe there are some of you out there reading who get it, maybe there aren't. Hell, maybe no one reads this. But it helps me, and that what matters. At the moment, anyway.
