Still haven't figured out what's wrong
For the last few months, I’ve been going through large mood swings. I always feel like I’m on the edge of feeling the most depressed in my life, or like I can take on the world and emotions mean nothing.
These shifts don’t seem to be affected by events, though they’ll be triggered. I.e. I’ll wake up knowing at some point in the day I’m going to have a depressive break, I just need a little shove. The triggers are social queues, or how I interpret them, which I already have huge difficulties in understanding how others feel towards me.
When I start to feel the risk coming, I start reaching out to people, usually by text, and see who can hang out with me soon or give me attention and validation right that moment. There’s no right way for anyone to respond. I asked one person to hang out after work, which they were already at work, and in one sentence said they had plans but how about tomorrow? And I crumbed into a ball on my floor because obviously no one cares ever and it’s not their fault because I’m not worth it.
It’s on the bad days that last sentence is pretty much yelled in my head. In many ways. These thoughts are intrusive and I can’t fight them. I’ve had a couple people present during these breakdowns (in person or text) who I care deeply about and trust, and they could not rip my head out of this bad spot. One was able to reduce the impact, and I only had slow tears.
On the up days, I am still not me. I am aggressive, combative, cruel, and cocky. I make brash, large decisions I would normally contemplate. I don’t consider others’ feelings. To those who wouldn’t name me, they’d think I was a very effective and extroverted person. But I can’t keep it up, I become exhausted after I’ve spent a day attempting to hurt everyone I know for entertainment.
Most recently, I had a snap at work. At two levels of management. The first level backed off, and is now almost timid of me. The next level has decided to set high expectations for me and try to let me focus on those.
My days off work have been my hardest. The silence allows intrusive negative thoughts, and I can’t focus on any task and actually get anything done. I try to reach out, but with no distractions like at work, I recognize how long it takes anyone to respond to my texts and spin that to mean I am unimportant to that person.
We got cable tv yesterday. I’m not a huge fan, but I get a really good deal from work and there’s a show I have been paying for by episode and I will pay less just having the service. For my two days off I’ve had the tv on, and I have to say the anxiety that builds towards my breakdowns has diminished. I even woke up this morning feeling an oncoming break, but having something else here as even helped me be able to do something around the house without feeling the hopelessness I tend to drift to.
I understand it’s just making me complacent, but being able to function and follow through on tasks is such a luxury I haven’t had for a long time.
(I say I haven’t figured out what’s wrong because I know I should go actually get professional help. I’ve even called my provider and they confirmed my work covers 5 free counseling visits. On a day near Christmas I felt a break coming, I called around and none of the counsellors near me were taking new patients and it expedited my freak out of the day. I haven’t tried calling since.)
Tl;dr the idiot box is working for a temporary anti-anxiety fix
