It's a baby!
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Dec 23, 2007
- Messages
- 652
I'm definitely no longer anywhere close to mania or psychosis, but I seem to have fallen into a mood that could be characterized as Unipolar Depression. If I were 14 or 15, this would be a dangerous mood, but now at 20 it doesn't bother me so much because I have been through it so many times before, and I know it'll resolve itself in a matter of weeks. I just feel mopey, empty, irritable, like my internal monologue isn't saying as much (which makes it nice and easy to meditate). I hate being in this mood because it makes me snappy with people I love, and I get a little wrapped up in myself (the atypical antipsychotic certainly doesn't help with that, they make me feel very autistic because they suppress frontal lobe activity).
One thing I've noticed is that when I have these episodes I seem unable to sleep longer than about 5 or maybe 6 hours a night. I'm starting to think this sleep deprivation is a sort of natural defense against depressions. Sleep deprivation actually mimics the effects of SSRIs in some ways, a side-effect or poor sleep is increased serotonin. I remember when my depressive episodes were really bad and they bothered me more, I would stay up all night on purpose just to induce that calm out-of-it state. I'm fortunate enough to not have a lot of trouble falling asleep, I just wake up a little earlier than would be ideal. I go to bed at 11 PM and wake up at 4:30 AM, that's the general pattern.
I don't know I'm just kind of musing. If I wasn't able to step back from myself and look at the entirety of my life and see that I've gotten like this many times, I would actually be a little suicidal. But I no longer allow myself to even think those thoughts, as much as possible.
Anybody have any magic bullets for this stuff? hah! Getting outside and exercising helps a LOT I think I will go on a hike today. Also just being honest with my parents and being like "hey guys sorry if I've been being kind of rude, I'm feeling depressed but I'll get over it". And to a certain extent I need to identify what things are happening in my life that can trigger this. Living with my parents is definitely a big trigger, it feels like a step backwards, but it is necessary for the time being. I just get so frustrated, especially with my father. He does not take depression very seriously because he hasn't experienced it since his early high school days, so he tends to look at it as something "immature" and "adolescent". But I can't think my way out of the feelings of emptiness, I just have to relentlessly engage with the world despite the depression. I may be depressed, but if I act like I am not, I will get better that much sooner.
And the abilify I'm on causes disturbed sleep and an empty feeling all on its ownsome 8) This could all just be abilify, the fact that I'm taking it when I objectively don't need it, but I won't be able to start tapering until July 18, my next appointment with my psychiatrist. I'd love to cut these 10mg pills into even smaller fragments but it just won't work, I need a bottle of 1mg pills to do a safe taper.
I am beginning to suspect that the mere pathologization of a low mood perpetuates the low mood, because you start thinking it is out of your control. But it really isn't I can do all sorts of things to distract myself or cheer myself up in minor ways. Depression is genetic; I can safely say that my ancestors in Ireland or whatever experienced similar states of mind. But they wouldn't wake up saying "oh now I'm Depressed!", they'd wake up saying "jesus mary and joseph I didn't sleep too well and I'm pissed off, time to go work on my farm!" Maybe I'll try running today, some real aerobic exercise. I think hiking isn't quite strenuous enough for me, and I've never really tried running before. I'm also an on-and-off cigarette smoker so I'll have to expect to have trouble with it. But it will make me feel so much better
I just wish I owned a pair of shorts, it is VERY hot where I live. I'm also kind of scared to run because the benzatropine I take to manage the side effects of the aripiprazole causes tachycardia. So I probably won't run, but maybe I'll walk downtown and surf the library for a little bit, I absolutely love just wandering around a library and reading bits and pieces from whatever books strike my eye.
Hot-cold showers are the shit! I get all relaxed in there and then BLAST the cold water and it totally gives me a rush of dizziness and a notable improvement in mood.
I'm also working really hard on my Latin and getting a lot better with it. I'm almost back to being able to read it near-fluently without parsing the sentences.
Hi coetus igitur hac de qua exposui causa instituti sedem primum certo loco domiciliorum causa constituerunt; quam cum locis manuque saepsissent, eius modi coniunctionem tectorum oppidum vel urbem appelaverunt delubris distinctam spatiisque communibus. Omnis ergo populus qui est talis coetus multitudinis qualis exposui, omnis civitas quae est constitutio populi, omnis res publica quae, ut dixi, populi res est consilio quodam regenda est, ut diuturna sit. Id autem consilium primum semper ad eam causam referendum est quae causa genuit civitatem. Deinde aut uni tribuendum est aut delectis quibusdam aut suscipiendum est multitudini atque omnibus. Quare cum penes unum est omnium summa rerum, regem illum unum vocamus et regnum eius rei publicae statum. Cum autem est penes delectos, tum illa civitas optimatium arbitrio regi dicitur. Illa autem est civitas popularis (sic enim appellant) in qua in populo sunt omnia. Atque horum trium generum quodvis, si teneat illud vinculum quod primum homines inter se rei publicae societate devinxit, non perfectum illud quidem neque mea sententia optimum, sed tolerabile tamen, ut aliud alio possit esse praestantius. Nam vel rex aequus ac sapiens vel delecti ac principes cives vel ipse populus, quamquam id est minime probandum, tamen nullis interiectis iniquitatibus aut cupiditatibus posset videtur aliquo esse non incerto statu.
Thus these agglomerations of men, the cause of which I have already explained, first decide on a seat for their new state, a seat in which they can build their little huts. And when they have fenced it in by natural and man-made barriers, they call that collection of buildings a town or city, with certain places set aside as sacred to the gods and others common to all. Therefore every People which is an agglomeration of a multitude in such a manner as I have described, every State which is the regulation of the People, and ever Republic which, as I've said, is the People's Thing, ought to be ruled by some sort of bureau so that it will last a long time. But this bureau must always be confined by the Cause which gave rise to the State in the first place. Now then, either the State is to be put in the hands of one man, or to certain special men, or it is to be taken up by the the whole multitude. Therefor when all the power is in the hands of one man, we call that one man a King and we call the state of that republic a Kingdom. But when it is in the hands of the few, then that state is named after the authority of the few in opposition to the king; it is an aristocracy. But that state is called "democratic" (as the Greeks say) in which all things are in the hands of the People. And whichever of these three classes you choose, even if it is held together by that rule which the men bound among themselves in the first place through the allied nature of the Republic [a Constitution], it is not complete nor, in my opinion, particularly good, but only tolerable, because one of these three will tend to overshadow the rest. For whether you think of an equitable and wise king, or special and principal citizens, or the people itself (though this last is the worst), never the less it seems even without iniquity or greed it can nevertheless become, by one or the other of these classes, a stable state, but this is an illusion.
This stuff is fascinating, Cicero is impossible to translate literally, but I can read him pretty fluently, the difficulty becomes expressing his ideas in a language as fundamentally Different as English. It is this very difficulty that inspired the American constitution. The Founding Fathers were reading about the corrupted, aristocratic ancient Roman Republic, and interpreting those ideas in a way that was useful to them. Everything in Western society is built on the Classics, but the society that spawned those Classics is fundamentally not understandable. It's the quest to interpret those texts in a meaningful way that inspires the greatest philosophers and statesmen. I love how the American constitution is fundamentally Republican, but we trick ourselves into thinking it is a Democracy (as if a true Democracy would be better than what we have now!) I also love how Republic is Roman and Democracy is Greek. Cicero didn't even have the word "aristocracy", I threw that word in to clarify what he meant by "the authority of the few in opposition to the king".
One thing I've noticed is that when I have these episodes I seem unable to sleep longer than about 5 or maybe 6 hours a night. I'm starting to think this sleep deprivation is a sort of natural defense against depressions. Sleep deprivation actually mimics the effects of SSRIs in some ways, a side-effect or poor sleep is increased serotonin. I remember when my depressive episodes were really bad and they bothered me more, I would stay up all night on purpose just to induce that calm out-of-it state. I'm fortunate enough to not have a lot of trouble falling asleep, I just wake up a little earlier than would be ideal. I go to bed at 11 PM and wake up at 4:30 AM, that's the general pattern.
I don't know I'm just kind of musing. If I wasn't able to step back from myself and look at the entirety of my life and see that I've gotten like this many times, I would actually be a little suicidal. But I no longer allow myself to even think those thoughts, as much as possible.
Anybody have any magic bullets for this stuff? hah! Getting outside and exercising helps a LOT I think I will go on a hike today. Also just being honest with my parents and being like "hey guys sorry if I've been being kind of rude, I'm feeling depressed but I'll get over it". And to a certain extent I need to identify what things are happening in my life that can trigger this. Living with my parents is definitely a big trigger, it feels like a step backwards, but it is necessary for the time being. I just get so frustrated, especially with my father. He does not take depression very seriously because he hasn't experienced it since his early high school days, so he tends to look at it as something "immature" and "adolescent". But I can't think my way out of the feelings of emptiness, I just have to relentlessly engage with the world despite the depression. I may be depressed, but if I act like I am not, I will get better that much sooner.
And the abilify I'm on causes disturbed sleep and an empty feeling all on its ownsome 8) This could all just be abilify, the fact that I'm taking it when I objectively don't need it, but I won't be able to start tapering until July 18, my next appointment with my psychiatrist. I'd love to cut these 10mg pills into even smaller fragments but it just won't work, I need a bottle of 1mg pills to do a safe taper.
I am beginning to suspect that the mere pathologization of a low mood perpetuates the low mood, because you start thinking it is out of your control. But it really isn't I can do all sorts of things to distract myself or cheer myself up in minor ways. Depression is genetic; I can safely say that my ancestors in Ireland or whatever experienced similar states of mind. But they wouldn't wake up saying "oh now I'm Depressed!", they'd wake up saying "jesus mary and joseph I didn't sleep too well and I'm pissed off, time to go work on my farm!" Maybe I'll try running today, some real aerobic exercise. I think hiking isn't quite strenuous enough for me, and I've never really tried running before. I'm also an on-and-off cigarette smoker so I'll have to expect to have trouble with it. But it will make me feel so much better
I just wish I owned a pair of shorts, it is VERY hot where I live. I'm also kind of scared to run because the benzatropine I take to manage the side effects of the aripiprazole causes tachycardia. So I probably won't run, but maybe I'll walk downtown and surf the library for a little bit, I absolutely love just wandering around a library and reading bits and pieces from whatever books strike my eye.Hot-cold showers are the shit! I get all relaxed in there and then BLAST the cold water and it totally gives me a rush of dizziness and a notable improvement in mood.
I'm also working really hard on my Latin and getting a lot better with it. I'm almost back to being able to read it near-fluently without parsing the sentences.
Hi coetus igitur hac de qua exposui causa instituti sedem primum certo loco domiciliorum causa constituerunt; quam cum locis manuque saepsissent, eius modi coniunctionem tectorum oppidum vel urbem appelaverunt delubris distinctam spatiisque communibus. Omnis ergo populus qui est talis coetus multitudinis qualis exposui, omnis civitas quae est constitutio populi, omnis res publica quae, ut dixi, populi res est consilio quodam regenda est, ut diuturna sit. Id autem consilium primum semper ad eam causam referendum est quae causa genuit civitatem. Deinde aut uni tribuendum est aut delectis quibusdam aut suscipiendum est multitudini atque omnibus. Quare cum penes unum est omnium summa rerum, regem illum unum vocamus et regnum eius rei publicae statum. Cum autem est penes delectos, tum illa civitas optimatium arbitrio regi dicitur. Illa autem est civitas popularis (sic enim appellant) in qua in populo sunt omnia. Atque horum trium generum quodvis, si teneat illud vinculum quod primum homines inter se rei publicae societate devinxit, non perfectum illud quidem neque mea sententia optimum, sed tolerabile tamen, ut aliud alio possit esse praestantius. Nam vel rex aequus ac sapiens vel delecti ac principes cives vel ipse populus, quamquam id est minime probandum, tamen nullis interiectis iniquitatibus aut cupiditatibus posset videtur aliquo esse non incerto statu.
Thus these agglomerations of men, the cause of which I have already explained, first decide on a seat for their new state, a seat in which they can build their little huts. And when they have fenced it in by natural and man-made barriers, they call that collection of buildings a town or city, with certain places set aside as sacred to the gods and others common to all. Therefore every People which is an agglomeration of a multitude in such a manner as I have described, every State which is the regulation of the People, and ever Republic which, as I've said, is the People's Thing, ought to be ruled by some sort of bureau so that it will last a long time. But this bureau must always be confined by the Cause which gave rise to the State in the first place. Now then, either the State is to be put in the hands of one man, or to certain special men, or it is to be taken up by the the whole multitude. Therefor when all the power is in the hands of one man, we call that one man a King and we call the state of that republic a Kingdom. But when it is in the hands of the few, then that state is named after the authority of the few in opposition to the king; it is an aristocracy. But that state is called "democratic" (as the Greeks say) in which all things are in the hands of the People. And whichever of these three classes you choose, even if it is held together by that rule which the men bound among themselves in the first place through the allied nature of the Republic [a Constitution], it is not complete nor, in my opinion, particularly good, but only tolerable, because one of these three will tend to overshadow the rest. For whether you think of an equitable and wise king, or special and principal citizens, or the people itself (though this last is the worst), never the less it seems even without iniquity or greed it can nevertheless become, by one or the other of these classes, a stable state, but this is an illusion.
This stuff is fascinating, Cicero is impossible to translate literally, but I can read him pretty fluently, the difficulty becomes expressing his ideas in a language as fundamentally Different as English. It is this very difficulty that inspired the American constitution. The Founding Fathers were reading about the corrupted, aristocratic ancient Roman Republic, and interpreting those ideas in a way that was useful to them. Everything in Western society is built on the Classics, but the society that spawned those Classics is fundamentally not understandable. It's the quest to interpret those texts in a meaningful way that inspires the greatest philosophers and statesmen. I love how the American constitution is fundamentally Republican, but we trick ourselves into thinking it is a Democracy (as if a true Democracy would be better than what we have now!) I also love how Republic is Roman and Democracy is Greek. Cicero didn't even have the word "aristocracy", I threw that word in to clarify what he meant by "the authority of the few in opposition to the king".
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