I Think I’m Feeling the Depression Creep In

Summary

The author is grappling with emerging feelings of depression, acknowledging personal patterns of self-criticism and the impact of trauma, while planning to prioritize self-care to manage these emotions.

Abstract

The author shares a personal struggle with the onset of depressive feelings during a challenging week, attributing these emotions to a combination of external events and internal self-criticism. They recognize a pattern of turning emotions inward, leading to a cycle of self-recrimination and worsening depression. Despite previous progress in healing, the author finds themselves dealing with attachment injuries and complex PTSD, which complicate emotional processing. To counteract these negative patterns, the author outlines a self-care plan that includes healthy eating, physical activity, meditation, emotional processing, and relaxation techniques like floating and massage. The author remains hopeful, affirming their resilience and the intention to nurture themselves back to a better emotional state.

Opinions

The author believes that their tendency to ridicule themselves when feeling hurt or complicated emotions is a maladaptive coping mechanism rooted in past trauma.
They express that their emotional response to feeling sad quickly escalates to self-directed anger and a sense of stupidity, indicating a complex relationship with their own emotions.
The author identifies a rapid progression from feeling slightly down to experiencing suicidal ideation, highlighting the severity of their emotional struggles.
They mention a sense of irony and stupidity in experiencing an attachment injury, suggesting a mix of self-deprecation and dark humor in coping with their situation.
The author values self-care as a crucial strategy for managing their mental health, emphasizing the importance of basic needs like nutrition and sleep, as well as therapeutic activities.
They acknowledge the difficulty of dealing with a dip in mental well-being after significant progress, comparing it to the difference between falling from a standing position versus from a higher place.
The author extends an invitation to readers to share their own strategies for coping with feeling down, indicating a desire for community and shared experiences.

Why it happens and how I help myself.

I’ve had a hard week, a sad, upsetting, and disappointing week — and we’re only two days in. This happens, it’s all part of my human experience. However, I learn something new about myself if I pay close enough attention, which is hard sometimes, as it seems to be true that I LOVE to dig myself in deeper by burying my head in the sand — or up my ass, take your pick. Choose wisely.

And what is it that I’m learning dear readers? I’m learning that when my feelings are hurt — or when I’m feeling complicated emotions, I ridicule myself and pick myself apart over it. I tell myself I’m being dumb and overreacting and then it devolves into a simple “you’re an idiot, what is wrong with you?” internal mantra. It’s quite obvious that it is easier for me to turn feelings inward than out. Trauma! Am I right? It sucks that I feel like I’ve gone backward by a few years in the last two days.

I could pretend and play dumb about the cause of this pervasive, sad annoyance I’m feeling but I know what caused it. And while some of this possibly IS the beginnings of seasonal depression, most of it is simple disappointment, aforementioned sadness, and some anger that I’m sorting out and through. I feel like I’m experiencing an attachment injury which is (for inside joke reasons) both ironic and stupid. Trust me it’s funny!

So as much as I feel like giving in to my worst instincts, which experience says will quickly bury me in self-recrimination and depression, I’m trying NOT to do that. I really am. This way of reacting is a well-worn and extremely self-destructive habit.

It is a known entity. I possess an insane ability to go from feeling a hard emotion to beating myself up over feeling some way about having that hard emotion. I can’t just feel it can I?

I have to feel it, try not to feel it, dig in, and eventually chastise myself for judging myself. It’s pretty circular and pretty much insane. Instead of feeling sad and processing that sadness by you know, actually feeling it, I feel sad and then immediately get mad about feeling sad and then feel like a dumbass for feeling mad while still feeling sad. Fuck me.

I just dig, dig, dig in and exacerbate the situation. I can go from feeling a little down to suicidal ideation in a matter of days. Yes days, not weeks or months, but days!

I have attachment injuries bound tightly with complex PTSD, as many trauma survivors do. Relational stuff trips me up, boundaries are hard, I get attached to people. I love easily and completely, especially for someone with my childhood abuse history and that makes it hard to keep my emotions surrounding other people in perfect balance.

To help myself stay out of this well-known trap and to focus my energies, I plan to make self-care the number one priority this week. I will try to:

eat well

move my body

meditate

process my emotions

float

stretch

get a massage

get enough sleep

try to cut myself some slack

I’ve been doing so well and feeling so good. I am leaps and bounds more healed than I have ever been which makes a dip like this that much harder to feel. Falling while you’re already on the ground doesn’t hurt nearly as much as falling out of a tree. I’m hurting right now and that’s okay, I will be okay. I will do things to nurture myself to make that so.

What do you do when you’re feeling down?

I Think I’m Feeling the Depression Creep In

Why it happens and how I help myself.

About Me

The human behind the words

My Childhood Abuser Died Recently

An unexpected sadness set in

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