Falling down (Metaphorically!)

Hullo.

My plans for this afternoon went a little pear-shaped - I was meant to be giving an assignment in tomorrow for my law course, but as I received an extension until next week, instead of spending a good solid 4 hours this afternoon writing up an essay on whether 'Alpha Ltd and Beta Ltd had a successful case of Judicial Review against Gamma Ltd', I spent those four hours under my covers sleeping. Yes, FOUR hours!

Nice and refreshed from my well-earned sleep, I have decided that without the immediate pressures of my assignment on my shoulders, I would come on here, and as a friend so kindly hinted to me today, I needed to put a new post up - the old one was kind a getting rather boring (and maybe a little depressing?!).

As my life seems to go, there have been some ups and downs (the latter seeming to be a more common theme).  I have been wondering over and over how many times a person can fall down and then pick themselves up again? It does seem that although the depression seems to get a little worse each time I go down, I also seem to bounce back a lot quicker than I used to. I assume that this is because I am learning each time I fall into a depression that things have got better in the past and therefore this feeling won't last forever. I'll still admit that my biggest fear is that maybe one day I won't have the strength to get back up again. But I need to remember that each time I overcome those thoughts I am getting stronger.

When we are hit by something, whatever it may be, we often catastrophise and we feel that this bad situation will last forever. But as we grow up we learn that something bad is not necessarily going to be be a part of our life forever.  We fall, and innately pick ourselves back up again.

A therapist once taught me that when a person is battling depression they look at the world in a different way to others; in a way known as the 'three P's'. When a situation knocks us down, we see it to be Personal, Permanent and Pervasive. So we see the bad as something Personal; that there is something inherently wrong with ourselves, or that we are always the cause of the problems. We see it as a Permanent part of our lives and so instantly we make ourselves feel worse as we think will never escape this bad, and lastly as Pervasive in the sense that this bad thing takes over EVERYthing that is going on around us.

In order to overcome these particular 'negative automatic thoughts (NATs)', we need to learn to make them 'un-automatic (or dis-automatic, or manual - whatever, you get what I'm saying). But how can one do this - they are automatic?! The solution is not a quick-fix, it is something that will most likely take a life-time of work. But as with everything else, it is one step at a time. In order to replace the NATs we must recognise them even if  this is only in hindsight.  The more we recognise NATs once the situation has passed, the more we recognise them when they are actually happening. It is that process that takes us onto changing them.

So for a silly little example of a NAT is the reaction to someone saying to me "Rivkah, your label is sticking out". My first feeling is embarrassment - that someone has seen my ineptness. The next feeling is that of anger at myself for not realising, closely followed by distress and a catastrophic thought that the other person now views me as a crazy person, 'unable to get herself dressed'. This in turn leads to anger at the other person, making me want to go hide in a corner and isolate. Isolation leads me to think that I am going to be a mess all my life, that everyone thinks I am a mess and that I will never cope with life again... I am sure you can see where this is going. And all of this is because of a LABEL STICKING OUT!

Now I know this is a silly little example, and I don't think that this particular scenario has actually ever happened (well, I'd like to think not), however it is similar to many other comments or actions made by others. Many times the above thought process takes just seconds before I throw myself into a corner. The isolation is therefore inevitable when I am with someone; ironically, I therefore keep away from people so that I don't have to be isolated!

I am not sure if you are still following this thread of thoughts, but what I have now done by writing this on here, I have recognised where I am going wrong and where my NATs come around. I am therefore in a better position the next time I am with another person. I have my guard up to tell myself that the thoughts and feelings I have from what is being said are MY OWN innate ones, and not actually real ones. Once I have that in my mind, I can concentrate on the relationship rather than thinking about my dark corner.

I have lived too long in a corner. I have spent almost a decade in one. I don't want it, but it takes all the energy within me to keep myself out of there - leaving me in a place unable to concentrate on 'Alpha Ltd and Beta Ltd's problems concerning Judicial Review'!

I will get there, I keep saying to those around me that I need to use the times I feel good to work on when I am feeling bad. and although it is hard to bring myself down when I am feeling good to work out contingency plans, it is a way of changing what happens when I feel bad. It is a mistake to pretend there is nothing going on when I am feeling ok. That is black and white thinking and inevitably leads me unable to cope when things are bad.

So I accept that I will fall again. As the statistics show, depression is highly recurrent - with at least 50% who recover from a first episode having one more more additional episodes in their lifetime, and approximately 80% of those with a history of two episodes having another recurrence. This does not make my life one doomed to depressions, but it is a reality I have to face and deal with - in the same way someone with diabetes knows they will have to.  Although this is a [different type of] label, I am going to be in a better position each time I feel I am falling, to get myself back up again:

Anyhooo, I hope you all have a good rest of week and don't walk into too many doors - That is my goal for this week.

R xxxx