The Serotonin Shuffle

When anxiety and depression battle for dominance, the only loser is the host. They both win. They trade off minute by minute and at the end of the day I can declare if it was depression or anxiety that was at the helm most of the time. I am getting better at looking functional, I think. Taking a half dose of anxiety medication in the morning and another at night is keeping the debilitating attacks at bay. I finally got more CBD oil and it has helped, minimally, with anxiety, depressive episode duration and function during both.

Its harder to write during depression days, and I feel like the words don't flow as easily, they aren't as pretty. It doesn't feel like art, it doesn't feel helpful, but it feels more necessary than ever to do. 

I always wish to trade whichever type of day it is for the other, but it is so wearing. Anxiety used to be mania and I was hyper functional and I didn't sleep and I got every little chore done- and I had something to show for my brain malfunction. It has been about seven years since it worked that way. Now I am trading debilitating depression for debilitating panic. Is depression better? It can be full body, it often is, it is sometimes impossible to get moving. Panic attacks are half physical every time so I go down trying to control the physical symptoms. I guess using probability that depression will let me keep moving, it is possibly better than panic. 

I haven't wanted to eat lately. It makes cooking for others harder. It feels like my anxiety is laying dormant in my stomach, taking up all the space, generating extra bile, waiting for its turn.

I think my brain is extra broken right now. The depression is felt full time but if I get completely distracted, I can forget how bad it is. Unfortunate that there is not a lot of distraction from depression. Just more depressing things, to read, to hear, to take up space in my head.  

My favorite thing that my brain does is that sometimes it uses its intrusive thought function typically reserved for making me feel suddenly frightened, and it'll insert a song or idea that makes me ridiculously happy for -uh- minute. I think those are my last molecules of serotonin unchained and deregulated flopping aimlessly through my brain.

I cannot connect.

Anxious days make me feel like I'm connected to everyone else's pain in a visceral way. I'm so empathetically sorry for everything going on in the world that I can feel events in my bones.

Depression days I cannot feel things, I cannot emotionally connect to the world around me, and then I feel like a monster. There's a lot of shame in depression for me.

Its furiously loud and quiet at the same time. Too many ideas, no processing power left. Too many thoughts to identify, too abstract to find a way to talk about, even if I felt connected to the world around me. Too much. I hope that talking to myself, to you, and to the void, will somehow help.

So on days like this, if I can do basic things I've won. If I can make myself type out a poorly worded blog for the sake of self-care and cook something for the other people in the house, I'm a fucking gold medalist. 

Severance

For as radical as I would appear, I cannot seem to master radical acceptance. 

I'm afraid that I will not be able to accept the things I cannot change. I will certainly not be living life among people during a pandemic. At a time where scientists, doctors, researchers, epidemiologists generally agree that we are rushing to open and congregate; I'd imagine hearing that my therapist agrees does very little to sway your opinion either way.

I've been seeing her for anxiety related problems for two years. She always listens diligently and thoughtfully and then works out measured reasons that I don't need to worry about the specific intrusive and catastrophic thoughts we discussed.

I rambled my ramble about all the reasons that I became panicked again. I told her how I was in stasis with my anxiety until the state opened back up. I was as close to peace as I'd known in 2 years because it seemed like people were doing the right thing. That there was unity in a fight against an unseen enemy, and that people were willing to protect each other by staying home. We finally found a united cause.

And then everything crumbled somehow.

The news became less about front line providers who were getting applauded and people singing from their balconies and more people protesting that their rights were being stolen by closing the state. Less about visible pollution reduction, and more about people attacking other people for not wanting to expose their immune compromised selves or loved ones to the virus by staying home. I am not talking about the argument that "we need to work to provide, so the state needs to open" but "we need to cull the herd- tough shit if you can't be outside; that's not our problem. We refuse to wear a mask to protect you. We will not stand 6 feet away from you. MY freedom. MY choice. YOUR choice is to stay in."

Divided we fall.

I explained how I'd felt that petulant quality in the world at large for so long, and that when we all went inside to save each other, that feeling went away for two weeks. When it came back seemingly stronger and more outspoken than ever my panic went through the roof. My anxiety said: I told you people generally don't care about others. I told you they were self serving, not to be trusted. I told you being among them was dangerous. And just like you cannot tell who has the virus by looking at them in a grocery store, you cannot tell which ones are infected with anger and apathy. And which of them are armed misanthropes. Which ones would be willing to shoot you if you worked at a store where you were paid to tell people to put on a mask before entering. How long until people wearing the masks are in danger as well because we are perceived as weaker, or supportive of mask wearing in general?

I'm not just afraid of the virus, I'm afraid of so many people. Not only are they spreading the virus willingly (or ignorantly), they are angry at people who are afraid of the virus (instead of being angry at the virus), and many are unpredictably violent.

I rambled and my therapist listened. At the end of the session, she still had good recommendations to help me navigate my anxiety, but for the first time she couldn't negate the legitimacy of my fears. 

Now other people can see them too.

(Artist is Radici Studios)