People have been very kind and responsive to my two earlier posts addressing my mental health and given I have had one of those weeks where not much gets done in the world of Jeff, it seems timely to write some more about my head. I’m even struggling to write this because of where my head currently is and so is the theme when my head is full, it is all I can think about, it is also all I can write about.
It is however, a bit difficult to write about how I’m feeling, without giving background and context, but background and context are really what my therapy is going through and as that is still an ongoing process I’m reluctant to bring it out of the safe four walls of the therapists room. I know we need to talk about things more and be more open about mental illness, and is very much the reason I’ve written what I have so far, so of the deeply personal things that are coming out I’d struggle to share, even on here under a pseudonym.
I wrote in some detail of the Hyper- states I go into. The past week has very much been a Hypo- state, the one that is, for all intents and purposes, depression.
My therapist and I and treading down a very careful road, he keeps telling me ‘we need to go at a pace’. He says it all the time and it gets annoying, but he doesn’t say it without good reason. We need to work at a pace that doesn’t overwhelm me and push my brain further than it can cope which would send me to a very bad place. He often says my brain is a cold piece of blu-tak. You cannot get straight to the centre of it. The way we are working and the things we are talking about are making the blu-tak just a bit warmer and pliable enough so that we can slowly (at pace) get to the centre.
That being said I am often impatient, so I go about doing some reading around the jargon that gets talked about, so recently I have been reading more about the Hypo- state. It still sounds like a relatively new term given the differing opinions and definitions of it, though I’ve seen some articles go back to the 60’s when it was linked to autism. Then I came across a string of definitions that really summed up this past week:
- Losses in memory
- Loss in motor function/motor weakness
- Confused
- Sense of separation from the body
- Interfere with the ability to think clearly
- Hinders appropriate evaluation of dangerous situations
- Low energy
The above are the words taken from the definitions, let me sum up my week:
I’ve become very aware that I am quite forgetful at the moment, asking people about things that they have already told me. In some cases, not only forgetting what was said, but also recollecting the complete opposite of what was said. I know we all do this from time to time, but it has been highly frequent and therefore quite noticeable (though more noticeable to me than others). I have forgotten log-ins and pin numbers. The pin number incident was very strange as not only had I forgot my current pin number, I was actually trying to enter a pin number I hadn’t use for over a decade. There is also the sense that I am running on auto-pilot, a robot going through the motions of the day as a means to carry my head/brain when its not in a fit state to function. I’ve struggled with focus at work and made quite a few mistakes, which is very much unlike me at all. I’ve had very little energy and it has been a struggle to even get out of bed. Then there is crossing the road, which doesn’t feel too safe at the moment. It’s not that I’m about to throw myself under a bus, it is more than I have such little focus/awareness and that my autopilot isn’t that great. This is something that has my therapist worried to the point he thinks it is time I take some time off work. I don’t think I am quite there yet. My sleep has been off, which is very annoying as that had been one of the benefits of the tablets I am currently on and I have also developed stress induced tinnitus. I know most of those can be associated with just getting older (I’m 37 FYI), but they are all out of character for me, and have been far too frequent, overlapping and in too short a space of time for it to possibly be classed as ‘normal’.
I’m back at the Doctors on Tuesday where all this will be discussed and I need to check with my therapist as he has said before that anti-depressants don’t necessarily help those who suffer from Hypo-/Hyper arousal states as they widen the window of tolerance, but also make the states more pronounced when they occur – I just don’t know what, if any, what the alternative is.
I am now able to tackle the Hyper- states, I can’t fully get rid of them but I know how to lessen one if I feel one coming on. I don’t know how to do the same for the Hypo- states.
I would just like some sleep, the ringing in my ears to stop, the energy to go to the gym and a hug from Jeff. At least I know I will be getting at least one of those later.
W.G. Clark
Jeffrey Elefanté 