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Re: Where did this come from?

Posted by noa on July 5, 2000, at 12:54:35

In reply to Re: Where did this come from?, posted by stjames on July 5, 2000, at 12:20:28

>
> Even people like me who are well maintained on meds have off days. If it lasts one day then it is not a big deal but if it continues call your doc.
>
> james

Which makes me think: even people who never have clinical depression have off days, depressed days. But for me, with all of my depressive experience, an off day signals panic. Because I have "gone there", ie, gone past the average person's outer limit for transient depressive moods, into the more "taboo" territory of despair, when I have an off day, the route is paved to take me there from the simple, transient, depressed mood, to that awful desparate all encompassing black hole called depression. It is like a kindling experience. The pilot light is already lit.

Ok, forgive all the mixed metaphors. The point is, it is hard to distinguish an off day from the onslaught of another depressive episode, because the barriers have already been removed. Therefore, when an off day comes along, it immediately can feel like a sudden return of the depression. The trick, I think, is to relearn what it is like to have an off day and to reassure yourself, as much as possible, that you can have an off day without necessarily allowing yourself to slip into an episode.

Another way to look at it is to change one's metacognition about the mood. A non-depressed person has an off day and says to him or herself, "I feel like @#*% today. I'm having a lousy day. My thoughts today are depressed thoughts and don't reflect my real self." A depressed person might be more likely to say, "I feel like @#*% today, oh my god, I'm depressed again. The way I am thinking today is the real me. The way I was thinking when I was not depressed was a sham." Then, the person is likely to feel depressed about being depressed, and it feeds on itself further. The key, then is to recognize one's depressed thinking as mood-related and not permanent, and to recognize that any conclusions one draws about themselves being in a depressed mood, are not to be taken seriously.

When coming out of my really bad depression, I felt that if I had to go there again, I would not survive it. When I have a depressed mood, I have to work at not going into despair about it, because my first inclination is to feel I am headed for that horrible despair again, and the idea of going into that state might make me feel suicidal, because of how bad a state it was, how awful an experience it was. I panic that I won't be able to tolerate it again. And the thing is, these processes happen so automatically and swiftly.

But I am learning, slowly, to change my metacognition about depressive moods. They don't have to signal the worst.

I don't know if this helps, Greg.


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