[brains]

[wispfox]

I very much dislike that many (all?) of my self-awareness routines require energy, because energy requires cope, and it's rather likely that if I'm out of cope (or at negative cope), then there's lots going on for which my self-awareness routines would be necessary. Such as, say, realizing that I'm completely out of cope.

If nothing else, recovering from negative cope and the lack of awareness combined with that, and the likely emotional numbness that can happen if I'm not aware of my emotional state and therefore not dealing with it, is _really_ difficult.

*blink* Huh. Ok, so it's really not far off from what I'm having to do to recover from tendonitis, other than that at least with tendonitis there's pain to give me warning that I'm way over extended, instead of being emotionally numb as apparently goes on with lack of cope (at least until not dealing with things builds up enough for an emotional meltdown).

I also dislike that much/most of my ability to figure out what's going on in my head works much better when I can type things out, instead of talking them out. 'Cause, well, typing as much out as I tend to need to when figuring things out is only tentatively ok at this point, and hasn't been at all ok for a month, and the frustration because of the reason for not being able to type has been one of the major stressors.

Comments

[randysmith]

Sigh. Understood. Catch-22's suck :-}.

*hugs*

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Do you know what things you can do to do recover cope? It does seem to be very hard to figure out, and very individual...

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

Well, much of what I do in mid-winter entails methods to handle little to no cope (sometimes negative, but less often now that I'm better at knowing how to avoid getting to that state in winter).

So, little to no mental energy put into trying to plan things, no time spent in large groups, as little planned each day as possible, as much low effort cuddling/being held as possible, as little mental energy expanded as possible, as little opportunity for making me overwhelmed as possible. And - once it was apparent what was going on - adding SAM-e back into my daily pills.

Problem is, though, that I'm much less good at handling it if I don't expect it and/or if it gets negative. It _is_ negative, which affects sleep, and sleep and minimal mental effort are a large part of how I get cope back. Additionally, having been emotionally numb for two weeks means I have two weeks of mental cleanup to do, I'm _really_ emotionally fragile, and I'm still not all that far away from the emotional meltdown at the beginning of this week which made me realize that I was emotionally numb for two weeks.

_And_ there are things that I would really like to be able to do in the near future which will almost certainly require large groups and more mental energy than I have right now. This is problematic.

On the plus side, I do at least have the two people I tend to go toward for comfort/low effort interaction _here_ right now. On the minus side, having a (very quiet) meltdown (as I tend, apparently, to have cat-like instincts when emotionally distressed, and want to hide it. Until I realize that I'm doing that and do something to stop hiding it, but that requires self-awareness) the third night of australian_joe's visit rather severely annoys me. Even if I think him holding me for a long time is _why_ I stopped being emotionally numb, which is good, if seriously unpleasant, simply because it means there won't be even more stuff building up.

(aren't you glad you asked? :/)

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

(aren't you glad you asked? :/)

Yes?

Seriously, it's good to hear you work things out. From my perspective you've been (a) absent (due to injury mostly) and (b) upset lately, and neither is happy.

...But as you say, the things you list are ways to get through the day when you have little cope, not to recover cope. That path leads to the comfort-junkie, unwilling to get off the couch because it's the place of least miserableness. (I should talk.) I can't speak for what restores your willpower, but for me it turns out to be completely orthagonal things like taking a walk in the quiet woods. I'm sorry -- that might have come off a bit preachy, which I don't intend. My trying-to-help reflexes are kicking in. I guess I'm wondering whether you've found things that help restore cope like that.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

Ah. Well, SAM-e helps give me cope back; being held does, too (thus the meltdown earlier in the week - cope was needed to stop being numb) if I'm not so bad that being around anyone else is awful; going outside and being alone outside for a while helps, especially if I can lay down on some grass (at least, it helps make things clearer in my head); sleep gives me a fair amount back, assuming sleep is cooperating; as does sufficiently reduced amounts of mental activity.

Most of those things I listed are _both_ for low cope and negative cope situations, it's just that they work much better when I'm low as vs negative. I initially developed them when I was regularly going into negative cope every winter, so they kinda _have_ to handle both. Some work no matter how low cope I am, since they require no interaction with other people, some depend on how overwhelmed I am (it seems that low/negative cope make me more prone to being overwhelmed, but that it does not necessarily mean I _am_ overwhelmed already).

And... it's not... willpower, really. Not for me. Sure, being depressed makes me far more prone to not wanting to do things, but that's as much about not having the energy to spare as anything else. For things that I know will help, I can generally get the willpower to do it, although it may take a bit. If I'm in a sufficiently bad state, I have no _choice_ about the most probable method of reducing my state of overwhelmedness; I will go outside no matter what the weather, for as long as I can cope, just so that I have any hope of sleeping. I am unfortunately the most likely to be severely overwhelmed in the evening, which is the time when I most need to be calm enough to sleep.

This may just be because I have far too much experience with depression in myself, and _know_ that I have to do things. I have to be _REALLY_ bad off to not be able to get myself to do things (does happen, if it's both midwinter and I have external reasons to be depressed) that are known to help, although I can be bad about my light box, sometimes. Largely because it's boring, I think.

I'm just really glad it's _NOT_ winter right now.

[drwex]

When I developed RSIs I had to train myself to feel (?hear?) the signals that my body was sending prior to the stabbing pains. I found that I could similarly detect signals when "out of cope" was impending before I got to the total lack of cope stage.

And, when all else fails, make yourself some toast, or tea. The simple routines are do-able for me even when cope = 0 and the slow familiar pace often gives me a toe-hold to get back onto a positive track. YMMV, of course.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

Well, the detecting pending 'out of cope' stuff is something normally covered by some of my self-awareness routines. I'm not completely sure why they were failing, except possibly that I _expected_ to be having trouble coping (due to rsi and not being able to do much of anything), and was perhaps failing to pay sufficient attention to determine that I was having far more trouble than I thought I was (probably at least partly because I was being distracted by Ash's failing health, as well as having additional stressors because of that). Perhaps also because I was basically doing no typing, and that is much of how I figure out what's going on in my head.

I don't tend to find simple routines do much to help me deal with lack of cope. Indeed, my routines start falling apart badly in such a state, which almost certainly makes things even worse.

[madbodger.livejournal.com]

I'll offer the same advice I have to two other people in the last day or so. You sound like
you need a trusted friend to curl up with.

[psongster.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry. I've been there, and I know it sucks.

But it sounds like your hands are at least somewhat better? I suspect that, if/as they improve, you'll find your ability to deal with everything else improving too. Pain and isolation really deplete cope. So being in less pain, and being able to write again, and being able to resume your normal life, really will help.

Good luck to you...

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

hands improvement: Yeah, they're nearly to the point of no pain, which is almost harder, because I need to be similarly careful for a while after the pain isn't around, so as to let them not be so close to a point of being problematic again.

On the plus side, though, I'm working part time from home this week, which is an improvement, in that it seriously reduces my boredom.

And... while yes, there was a fair amount of pain, I think the constant pain was the least of the problems. It was never really _that_ bad; it's just that I know that this is a kind of pain you _HAVE_ to pay close attention to and allow to improve, in order to prevent making yourself really really bad off.

The major trouble I was having is that everything I do involves my hands and wrists. It's kinda terrifying just how much I was not able to do if I wanted to let them continue to improve. So I was unable to do any of the things I am accustomed to doing, and was horribly bored. There were a couple of times I wished I would get a cold or something, so that my body would let me sleep more and I could spend less time being bored.

I think a large part of the problem is that I was ignoring my 'low cope' warnings because I _knew_ this was going to be difficult to cope with, and then Ash started having troubles which was both a distraction from my internal mental state and an additional stressor. I'm pretty convinced that that is when my self-awareness routines broke down and I went negative cope.

[psongster.livejournal.com]

The major trouble I was having is that everything I do involves my hands and wrists. It's kinda terrifying just how much I was not able to do if I wanted to let them continue to improve. So I was unable to do any of the things I am accustomed to doing, and was horribly bored.

Yes, I know that pattern. It drives me especially bonkers when my knees and ankles are hurting too, and need to be protected in a similar way. It can be really difficult to think of anything I can do!

Yay for being back to work, from home ... and good luck on extending without over-extending.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can definitely see that having additional points which are having trouble and need major caution would be even worse. Not that I couldn't understand it before, but now I understand it _better_, I guess.

Thanks for the luck on extending w/o over-extending... it's tricky, for sure!

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

*nods* One of the things that drives me craziest about my particular disability is its extremely variable nature. I can have a day when I'm functioning almost as well as I did before the diagnosis, and then have a day where doing a load of laundry wipes me out to the point of tremors and utter exhaustion. I have no way to tell how much cope I'll have on any given day until I've gone into negative cope, as you say... there are some days that I see I'm on my last few spoons and can do something about it in time, but there are some days that I just have a sudden hard systems crash it takes days to recover from.

So. Yes. I hear you. *fierce hugs*

And also I hear you about the typing thing, as I know you know!

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Hm. Would dictation software help? I like ViaVoice, but I know that sometimes I can't talk out what's bugging me, even if it is putting words on a ocmputer screen.

But depending on your self-awareness methods, that's one thing I'm working on myself during this particular spate of not-being-depressed. If I practice all of my revitalization techniques now, when I don't need them, they'll be more accessible when I do.

And... well, damn, I'm sorry if advice isn't what you wanted... I just understand where you're coming from and wish I could offer *real* help.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, having to say things outloud is _MUCH_ less useful than being able to type them. Lots more effort has to go into speaking than into typing. Additionally, I'm not sure how good the dictation software support is under Linux.

The interesting thing is that I practice my techniques for dealing with depression every winter, but that is a situation which is predictable and expected. This was neither, at least based on a thing like light levels (which is what determines my winter things), so was quite a bit harder to realize was happening.

And no worries about advice. I get the desire to suggest things when you can't do anything else. :) Besides, it's entirely possible that other people will have different, but also useful, ideas, so why not?

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

> I very much dislike that many (all?) of my self-awareness routines require energy, because energy requires cope, and it's rather likely that if I'm out of cope (or at negative cope), then there's lots going on for which my self-awareness routines would be necessary. Such as, say, realizing that I'm completely out of cope.

Is it that all of your routines require energy or is it that once you've checked and discovered where you are at that it takes energy to rebalance from there?

In reading other comments it sounds like not-doing things helps you re-gain cope. They all seem passive things rather than active things that can also help maintain stability. Yes, active things take energy but as you said that after hybernating you have to cope with the backlog of stuff. Do you have a therapist that you can talk to about adding tools to your coping bag?

His comment about developing an early warning system is good because it takes far less cope to climb out of a small hole than a big one where you've run out of cope already. What is it that keeps ou from having the stability to handle surprises?

Is handwriting things as painful as typing? Does it help as much as typing?

Do you have a mental expectation for getting past depression?