Doctor says I am a complex case, probably because of many traumatic (small 't') incidents in my past, including during infancy, which has shaped my emotional and physiological responses. Because talking is not helping - I am too emotionally clammed up, too repressive, and the probably traumatic memories are so far behind in my childhood (all conclusions mine) - we are launching me into EMDR. I bought a book and read about it. It simulates REM - rapid eye-movements - that occur during sleep, during which we retrieve and process information (hence dreams). During REM simulation, historical information that is wrongly processed causing my off-balance neurologic and thus my depression and panic disorder, can be re-engineered so that I can coax my brain into performing correctly. Sounds like psycho-babble, but those of you who read enough into psychological disorders will probably know what I mean.
Because of the skin rash I got from my mood-stabiliser I had been taken off from it, and went back in time. Depression is painful again and more so, sleep disturbed, appetite lost, energy even more far-gone, sadness a daily affair, and I hardly talk. I am now on an NaSSA alongside the 3-a-day SSRI I have been taking for more than a year now. I sleep better now. Hopefully my meds kick in soonish and I can progress in my EMDR therapy.
My dad wishes he has the money to send me for the magnetic version of ECT (article outdated) which currently is only approved in the US and some parts of Europe. It sounds less scary than therapy that would induce painful memories. But avoidance is part of the problem I guess, so I am bravely going into my second year of psychotherapy with hope that I will get better. Borrowed hope, in any case - from God himself, from J, from my mom and dad. It is far better for me to die, but for them, far better that I live and recover. So I am going on.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
gibberish
I am in an extremely warped plane of reality, as if I have phased out of this plane yet I am still here, a stone marker to the location of me. Reality is gibberish to me, and I zone out and distance myself from everything just so the gibberish quietens. I lose myself through living vicariously in-game, or else I lay back in silence, reading. In any way, I tune out from this world.
The world has let me down, of course. I have no energy, am often frozen in fear, each task a weight. I have no desires save lately for a cup of coffee affogato. I have no feelings, else I feel so immensely pained and saddened. My daily objective is to try and get better. It has been a long time, and I am still trying, trying to allay my symptoms, think introspectively, allow my feelings blah blah blah I am tired of trying not to be tired and depressed. I am toeing the line the tide makes that threatens to sweep me away.
Everything just converts to gibberish because everything is meaningless. The Bell Jar. Hshouyre wyouhnpods tyounlsoptn yuo wyour opf suihrh xxxxxxxxxxxx.
Is life so bad that I have to feel this sad, this scared? No, my brain is just malfunctioned. If I lived in the seventies, I would be given ECT straightaway, no questions asked. Instead, now I have to figure out the gibberish while tuning it out, the touchy-feely way. Go through it, get through it.
It has been a long time, I am tired.
The world has let me down, of course. I have no energy, am often frozen in fear, each task a weight. I have no desires save lately for a cup of coffee affogato. I have no feelings, else I feel so immensely pained and saddened. My daily objective is to try and get better. It has been a long time, and I am still trying, trying to allay my symptoms, think introspectively, allow my feelings blah blah blah I am tired of trying not to be tired and depressed. I am toeing the line the tide makes that threatens to sweep me away.
Everything just converts to gibberish because everything is meaningless. The Bell Jar. Hshouyre wyouhnpods tyounlsoptn yuo wyour opf suihrh xxxxxxxxxxxx.
Is life so bad that I have to feel this sad, this scared? No, my brain is just malfunctioned. If I lived in the seventies, I would be given ECT straightaway, no questions asked. Instead, now I have to figure out the gibberish while tuning it out, the touchy-feely way. Go through it, get through it.
It has been a long time, I am tired.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
(meanwhile)
My voice has gone.
The sky is total-black,
Starless, without hope.
Dreams are illusory
landmarks of a flat earth.
Everyday is a stride into
normalcy, for me an
endless recovery process.
Getting out of this paralysing
crevice of pain, pain, pain
Meanwhile gnawed away by
My Enemy, pain in its darkest
Ensuing pain. Pockets of light
Slightly but thankfully
alleviate. Hallelujah!
I subsist today and a
tomorrow (maybe).
Will you understand this
pain's grasp on me?
Or do you live idyllic
On a round earth
with mundane ambition.
My eyes are too dry
For welchschmertz,
My dreams I have left
(for now, save faith)
Meanwhile I just want
Release from this gripping pain.
The sky is total-black,
Starless, without hope.
Dreams are illusory
landmarks of a flat earth.
Everyday is a stride into
normalcy, for me an
endless recovery process.
Getting out of this paralysing
crevice of pain, pain, pain
Meanwhile gnawed away by
My Enemy, pain in its darkest
Ensuing pain. Pockets of light
Slightly but thankfully
alleviate. Hallelujah!
I subsist today and a
tomorrow (maybe).
Will you understand this
pain's grasp on me?
Or do you live idyllic
On a round earth
with mundane ambition.
My eyes are too dry
For welchschmertz,
My dreams I have left
(for now, save faith)
Meanwhile I just want
Release from this gripping pain.
reappearing
Ardent apologies for having dropped off the map of the blogosphere for a moment.
I have been immersed in a few things, mainly, the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Gaming takes up most of our evenings now, although now that we are max-level and pretty decently-geared with items from end-game content, we are slowing down just a little bit.
I am currently reading the beautifully-written "The Years With Laura Diaz" by Carlos Fuentes. Its language is musical, beautiful, evocative; the story captivates. Before this I was reading Orhan Pamuk's Snow, which while cleverly written, is darkly lit with shootings and an ongoing battle between secularism and fundamentalist religion. A bit heavy, a bit too academic. Both books are in the strain of my style of reading, that is of stories of different cultures in different times.
My depression symptoms have become worse lately. Hard to believe it is so because I am here writing, talking about gaming and books. But in little pockets of time I become once again gripped by the pain and physical grief almost close to what I felt the beginning of this year. I have lost my appetite. It takes me excessive amounts of energy to do anything. My sleep had deteriorated. All these are possibly for a number of reasons: Firstly, I am no longer on mood-stabilisers - they started to give me rashes. Secondly, I am no longer employed by PLM in Batam for the moment because they are having financial difficulties: yet another career movement failure for me. Also, talk-therapy has reached a dead-end with me, because I am so unable to feel, so overly academic about my emotions, that talking is not working. I am starting a new type of therapy next month, and am now on an additional antidepressant at night to treat my sleeplessness and the works. In the meantime I am distant, unenergetic, hardly hungry, sleeping away my pain.
As I write this I feel a physical pain in my chest again, like that of my recurring panic attacks. Lately these pains in the chest come alone with shivering and unstoppable tears, and an intense, heartbreaking sadness. The moment I start to feel at all, as I now write this, the pain that I push away daily with sleep and recreation resurges. Some say, don't brood, don't think of depressing things. I do precisely that, and it becomes my downfall. My indifference like a breaking dam to a river overflooding in the rain, I unknowingly take the advice of ignorant people of the 'Don't think sad things' breed, ignoring the water that is pushing against me, until I have no choice but to flood in pain every so often.
Now I need to do something about this pain in my chest that writing these words have caused me. But I will write, still write. To quote Fuentes in Laura: "Look, Laura, you write alone, but you use something that belongs to everyone, language. The world lends you language, and you return it to the world."
I have been immersed in a few things, mainly, the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. Gaming takes up most of our evenings now, although now that we are max-level and pretty decently-geared with items from end-game content, we are slowing down just a little bit.
I am currently reading the beautifully-written "The Years With Laura Diaz" by Carlos Fuentes. Its language is musical, beautiful, evocative; the story captivates. Before this I was reading Orhan Pamuk's Snow, which while cleverly written, is darkly lit with shootings and an ongoing battle between secularism and fundamentalist religion. A bit heavy, a bit too academic. Both books are in the strain of my style of reading, that is of stories of different cultures in different times.
My depression symptoms have become worse lately. Hard to believe it is so because I am here writing, talking about gaming and books. But in little pockets of time I become once again gripped by the pain and physical grief almost close to what I felt the beginning of this year. I have lost my appetite. It takes me excessive amounts of energy to do anything. My sleep had deteriorated. All these are possibly for a number of reasons: Firstly, I am no longer on mood-stabilisers - they started to give me rashes. Secondly, I am no longer employed by PLM in Batam for the moment because they are having financial difficulties: yet another career movement failure for me. Also, talk-therapy has reached a dead-end with me, because I am so unable to feel, so overly academic about my emotions, that talking is not working. I am starting a new type of therapy next month, and am now on an additional antidepressant at night to treat my sleeplessness and the works. In the meantime I am distant, unenergetic, hardly hungry, sleeping away my pain.
As I write this I feel a physical pain in my chest again, like that of my recurring panic attacks. Lately these pains in the chest come alone with shivering and unstoppable tears, and an intense, heartbreaking sadness. The moment I start to feel at all, as I now write this, the pain that I push away daily with sleep and recreation resurges. Some say, don't brood, don't think of depressing things. I do precisely that, and it becomes my downfall. My indifference like a breaking dam to a river overflooding in the rain, I unknowingly take the advice of ignorant people of the 'Don't think sad things' breed, ignoring the water that is pushing against me, until I have no choice but to flood in pain every so often.
Now I need to do something about this pain in my chest that writing these words have caused me. But I will write, still write. To quote Fuentes in Laura: "Look, Laura, you write alone, but you use something that belongs to everyone, language. The world lends you language, and you return it to the world."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)