(All photos by Aqua, November, 2008) These first two are the strangest mushrooms I have ever seen. At first glance I thought it was dog poop plopped on top of a stick, until I looked at it from ground level at the side (don't ask WHY I would do that if I thought it was poo!!!). When I looked at it from "mushroom level" it looked like something out of "Lord of the Rings"
I wanted to go into my appointment today and focus on all the things I DID do this week. I wanted to try to shift my appointments away from my morose and markedly anxious and depressed mood. Last week Dr. X. said we do not have to talk about my symptoms, or my depression in our sessions. We could have appointments where we just discuss other things and have a conversation about whatever I want.At first that seemed weird. Why would I see a psychiatrist and not talk about my psychiatric problems. As the week wore on I began to think maybe that would be a good idea. Maybe if I focus on the things I enjoy, rather than the thing I least enjoy I would eventually forget I'm depressed (hey....I seem to forget everything else!).
I tried really hard this week to find pleasure in simple things. The most enjoyable moments were spent with my puppy, in the forest taking pictures of mushrooms.
Mushrooms? You may be REALLY worried for my mental health now,.but I cannot get over the diversity of these little things. I also cannot believe I never noticed all this variety of fungi sitting right in front of me my whole life. It is strange how when you start to look for something it is as though a magician has placed it everywhere in front of you .
Perhaps I should begin looking for, and recording, enjoyable moments. Maybe they would become as prolific and diverse as all the mushrooms I have been finding. Maybe eventually the damp, dark forest that is my mind would eventually create joy as abundantly and easily as the real forest breeds mushrooms.
Maybe each enjoyable moment would create a path in my brain, and finally all those paths would become happiness, or at the very least, the absence of depression.
Probably not. More and more and more and more and more etc. I sense this depression is never going away. I sense my Mom was right: I need to accept my depression and move on WITH it. Maybe some of us just never get better. Maybe some of us are destined to be depressed with only fleeting moments of feeling okay, or experiencing joy, insight, or happiness. Can I accept that as a life worth living?
I don't feel that way. Those ethereal moments almost feed my depression. I say this because the joy makes the sadness even more evident and profound. Every time the joy, the laughter, or the connection I feel with someone, or something, ends I feel even more depressed. Those short experiences of a lift in mood seem to be there only to show me what I am missing. While photographing these mushrooms I felt a
sense that they had more of a meaningful and purposeful existence than me.I am sorry that some people have no moments of joy, but I am losing patience with having no mood stability. I want the old me back, the working me, the proud me, the ideas me, the fun loving me, the free me, the gregarious and mischevious and loveable me. That said, I am pretty certain the old me is gone and this is the new me. If that is the case, I really would like would like this life to end ASAP. I'm not cut out for this anymore.
6 comments:
"Some may say I should feel blessed that at least I have moments of levity"
Yes they would, and they'd be the same people who have never been in the same position as you. It IS cruel to have the constant flux of mood, to fall for the happiness everytime, believing that this is it! It is back! and then only to be disappointed again, and again. And then be left wanting, and feeling like a bit of an idiot, for falling for the same ploy yet again.
You have every right to feel jaded, you've been on a journey longer than most. The only thing is, no one knows what is at the end of that journey, or where the end is. We can't stop believing that "this is it" this time it will stay, because it just might. Try and hang on to the things which are good Aqua, and that today is a day for being tired. That the best thing is to put your head down, and make yourself as comfortable as possible for the duration.
I'm a fine one to talk, and I know they are just pretty but empty words when you feel so low that everything is meaningless. Hang in there, you WILL get better.
Lola x
there was a tv prog on recently about finding truffles in the woods, now I thought truffles were made in chocolate shops, but they too looked like dog poo! The show did a guess if it's a poo or a truffle, ,it was impossible to tell! Try google images & you'll see what I mean
mini uk
Yes, I understand what you mean when you say that those brief moments of fleeting joy make the depression even more profound. I know this not through experience, but I do remember reading about it somewhere once.
I don;t think I'm one of those people who have no moments of joy. It's just that I feel as though ever since I was born into this world, BPD has affected me in one way or another. So I don't really know what it's like to be funloving, or gregarious, or loveable. To illustrate, perhaps you could picture someone born with a stone tied around their necks. And all through life, they've carried this stone, and have never been without it, so how could they ever know any better?
Does that make sense?
I think it's great that Dr X made an open invitation to you to talk to him about anything you want to. I think that is important in building that therapeutic relationship.
Great mushroom photos! I love it. I think mushrooms are beautiful in their own weird way. I've seen some incredibly gorgeous ones - orange and brown, when I go running on the trails. Unfortunately I'm blind without my glasses (I always run without my glasses because I hate them slipping on my nose when I sweat), so I can only see blurred colours of orange and browns. And I THINK they're mushrooms. (could well be poo for all my short sightedness)
I love your mushroom pictures. I always think that in my next incarnation I want to be a tree. They seem to know a different kind of peace and acceptance than we do.
No, A, you don't have to adapt to this and live with it forever. It WILL change, eventually. You have had periods in the past without the MDD, and you will have again. It gets harder, I know, with every day that hurts, to believe that it might be different again, but it will.
I reckon the 'moments' are the rest of you reminding the depressed you that there is more to you than this, even if it's dormant for now.
Sooner or later one of the meds will react with you just the way it is supposed to, and then you'll be on the road back. For me, it was the Tofranil (tdoc swears I tried it before, although I can't remember - then again, she recalls far more of the last five years than I do...) and with a bit of that to get me going, loving the dude has helped a whole lot more.
For you, when your brain gets the med it needs, your art and nature and photography will then give you more of a boost.
Don't resign yourself to sadness, even if it doesn't seem like it's going to change at the moment. It will.
xxx
j
Thanks for the responses. I have to explain that I wrote the optomistic, uplifting part of this post earlier in the day, after my appt with Dr. X. As the day wore on, and wore on, and wore on, and my energy began to fade I became less optomistic, thus the negative ending. Actually the mushroom photography and the outdoors, and my puppy have all provided me with a sense of beauty in the simple things.
Anon and PB: I cracked up at the "poo" remarks...I swear I was shocked when I realized those were mushrooms. I will have to look up truffles.
...and PB...get some contacts (hee, hee). You'd hate to bend down and pick up a mushroom, only to discover it's not one at all!!
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