Misabel

Forgot this morning. Woke up with a headache again, went straight for the black coffee, which helps, and then online to check if the latest job has come in. I’m so focussed on stress and work – how can I ‘forget’ to do yoga? But… there is always this afternoon! In fact, I’m going to set a special yoga alarm for 5pm. That way I won’t conveniently forget to do something that’s good for me so that I can stress out about work/money/relationships/life instead.

I’m going to experiement by trying to take one step towards each thing on my list every day, no matter how small. This idea comes partly from Getting Things Done; a fantastic book… if only I could apply what is in it consistently.

Anyway, I have managed to aquire that habit of having my dishes done and my sink shiny after an entire lifetime of being a dish-slob, a ‘Withnail’ (which only Brits of my age will know, probably). Therefore, I know it is possible to change, add routines and aquire new habits. I now know I can do it!

Have more fun… mmmm. Well, since I’m putting off some work and watching a movie I huess you could say I’m having fun now. But desperate escapism isn’t necessarily fun. I will try doing to the dishes with music. And tomorrow, on to the next thing!

This should be number 1 in this list, right? I mean, if I don’t achieve this it’s going to be damned hard to do the other things. And wow, it’s hit me pretty hard the last few days. I think because X, Y, Z….Actually, it’s because (new theory) I’m addicted to feeling depressed. It’s a really good thing. It protects me, shields me like a thick cloak from the world. It stops me from feeling angry, because anger is like a massive white shark that smells blood and can’t help itself, the instinct is unstoppable and deadly. It means I risk very little and so never fail. It means I don’t have to take responsibility. Depression tries to protect me like a second skin.

And the chemicals involved in my brain are addictive. I need to generate more. Objectively, things are good. I just got a commission for two short stories from the publisher! More money for writing! Did I celebrate, cheer, open a bottle of cave/sekt/champagne? Tell everyone? Go downstairs for a cocktail? No, I got depressed. Or rather (as I am always somewhere on the depression scale) I really gave in to depression. When good things happen I can’t bear it. My brain doesn’t want to accept this new feeling. It doesn’t want to create new neural networks – positive ones. It likes the old ones – and the chemicals that are released. I read yesterday something about the hypocampus function and depressed people. The hypocampus produces … peptides? Hormones? My memory is so bad (isn’t that the hypocampus too?)

Anyway, I see my depression as an extremely complicated combination and co-dependency of neural connections, ineffective coping strategies developed in childhood and adolescence, and a way my inner self tries to protect me. The analogy that seems to fit best, that makes most sense to me is that of a river in my mind/brain/whatever. When something happens to me it’s like a raindrop in a large river. It gets carried along with it. And the river (that is essentially a flood of damaging, negative thinking) with each drop, is simply reinforced. Changing my way of thinking requires a three-fold approach. I need to go back to the source of the river and try to divert it (but this is hard, perhaps impossible, and involves therapy). Secondly, I need to try to stop feeding the river (by being aware of the quality of my thoughts and my interpretations of events, which are very often negative and self-destructive) and by trying to create new floods, new rivers and courses (by trying alternative thoughts and new ways of seeing the world and myself). This all sounds very esoteric, but it’s something I’ve been working on since I was a small and depressed Misabel.

So this is the biggest challenge. It’s the challenge of my life. Worth doing? Some days I think so. Other days, not. Today I’m in the middle.