My journey through pain - 25. Chapter 25 - Climbing a mountain

Hi guys. Another week has gone by, with its ups and downs. I’m very thankful for the ups and trying to learn from the downs.

Something odd happened on Monday evening – I received some rather unpleasant news and, for that entire night, I was a nervous wreck. I didn’t even sleep from how awfully anxious and panicky I was. It had been a long time since I have felt so bad during the night time, and it was definitely not fun at all. However, the next day I decided to fight the negative emotions despite the thing that had triggered them. I tried to reframe events so as to see them in a better light, and… I was successful. Despite the fact that I had had such a horrible crisis the night before, by the time Tuesday evening came around, I was approaching acceptable levels of anxiety and I was so very thankful. It was sobering to have gone back down to the deepest, darkest panic-laced depths of the mind as I had experienced them right at the beginning of my crisis, several months ago now. However, it was also helpful, in a weird way. It got so bad that it helped me realize that, now, I am doing better. After Monday’s crisis was over and for the rest of the week, I still felt anxiety rise and fall as it normally does, but I had now gained some perspective. I think the improvements in my anxiety levels have been so gradual that I have not really noticed them, and it took a major crisis to show me that I am, in fact, much better right now than I was at the beginning.

I don’t have panic attacks as much anymore. And, when I do, they are short-lived and nowhere near as devastating as the panic I felt Monday night. As a quick example, on Saturday I had a nightmare which prevented me from sleeping as much as I thought I needed, and when I woke up in the morning I was scared because I had a busy day ahead of me and I thought that not having slept well would prevent me from doing the things I needed to do. However, with some effort and determination, I was able to overcome the bubbling panic and just get started with the day. That day turned out to be quite good, and my energy levels were okay in fact, so, in general, I dealt with that little bump on the road quite well I think. I can contrast the way I felt on Saturday to the way I felt Monday evening and there is a vast difference in the severity of how I feel. This perspective is helping me because it gives me definite proof that I am getting better all the time. Sure, I had a really bad crisis on Monday – but I bounced back. I’m still a little shaky emotionally, I won’t lie, but overall I am discovering that all my hard work over the last several weeks is beginning to pay off greatly in the form of that emotional resilience which I so desperately need.

I am also beginning to see my days as steps along the way to recovery as opposed to threatening adversaries that rise up, larger-than-life, in the morning. Mornings are still tough for me and I think they will continue to be so for some time still, but even then there has been some improvement. Some mornings, I wake up with relatively low levels of anxiety and I get started with my morning routine without thinking about it too much. Some other mornings are much tougher, but then I hunker down and still do my routine activities, which help me ground myself and slowly drive my anxiety levels down. I have continued to keep a detailed record of the numerical values I assign to the way I feel in the morning and the way I feel in the evening, along with how I would classify my energy levels for the day. The results are very interesting, especially now that I have more data points. Not only is there a very definite trend towards much lower anxiety levels in the afternoons and evenings, but there is also an overall trend of gently diminishing anxiety levels overall. There are some blips in the data when extraordinary things happen, such as the bad crisis of Monday, but overall I do see the improvement in the numbers as well.

I think it is so important to keep this perspective, because, like I mentioned before, the improvements are sometimes so small that it is hard to really notice them until something forces you to shift perspective in a major way. I am also beginning to internalize the fact that some of the things which generate the most anxiety and discomfort to me are really not that big of a deal and I should probably start working on diminishing the importance I give them. Specifically, I’m talking about sleep. Over the last couple months, it has become clear that I do need much less sleep than I think I do. Part of the reason why I get the crises in the morning sometimes is because I may not have slept as long as I had planned, and that generates feelings of guilt and hopelessness for the day ahead because I fear not being able to have enough energy. However, the column in the data sheet I keep where I record my energy levels is consistently showing that, by the time the day is over, I generally classify the energy I had throughout the day as either satisfactory or good – sometimes even very good. It is hard to understand that sleeping for six hours is enough for me where before I needed twelve hours. For anyone else out there who has had depression for a very long time, and who maybe has experienced that almost pathological need for sleep and more sleep, I guess it may be easier to understand the way I feel regarding sleep. It is such a big change, and I know I have spoken about this before, but it is important for me to tell myself, by writing about it, that I need less sleep than I think I do. It is a major shift in the way I look at things, because for the longest time I was always obsessed with sleeping enough, as I thought I termed it, and anything less than that I considered a complete catastrophe. Things are not so anymore. The sooner I internalize this, the sooner I can get rid of one more thing dragging me down in the morning time.

Something important which has also happened is that I have started to, voluntarily, step out of my comfort zone by doing things that panic would have prevented me from doing a few weeks ago. For example, having fun in the evening. It is still challenging, but less so than it was in December or January, when I did have a couple of days when I would for example go to the movies, but it was nerve-racking. It is far less disturbing now to simply go out for coffee or, I don’t know, go shopping in the evening. Little by little, I am reclaiming normalcy in my life. I am, slowly, able to look at the future more and more often without feeling terrified of what I see or think I see. I am rebuilding my life in a different place and in a different way, and although it’s very hard, I keep doing it every single day and my small efforts add up over time. A couple of times last week, in fact, I found myself actually looking forward to this or that moment in the day – it’s such a wonderful sensation, such a precious gift, the ability to look forward to something. I thought I had lost it. It is with wonder that I sometimes take stock of how I feel and discover that I am okay.

That’s not to say that it’s not tough most of the time, of course. I have to keep reminding myself constantly to reframe things in my mind, or to push past the fear or panic when they come. It is not easy. I keep having to remind myself not to give too much of an emotional dimension to everything that happens during the day, just like I discussed in my previous post, but it is a mental effort that has to be kept up all the time and sometimes I simply forget and fall back into the trap of feeling bad, and feeling bad about feeling bad, which just sends me spinning into a negative spiral. Other times, external things destabilize me a lot and I get scared because I still need to learn how to deal with the little vicissitudes of life without catastrophizing them and blowing them completely out of proportion. For example, yesterday I was pouring myself some water but my grip slipped and the glass smashed into a million pieces on the floor. It’s really no big deal – it’s just a glass. But my gut reaction was to feel terrible about it, and it very nearly sent me spinning down in to hopelessness for the rest of the day… And it was just a stupid glass! However, my mind jumps to negative stuff so fast that it’s hard to control it. The thought process was something like, oh no, I dropped the glass. I was careless. I’m always careless. I can’t be trusted with anything. I’m a failure. My life is going to be horrible from now on… Horrible things, escalating so fast. I needed to stop, breathe deeply, and remind myself to put things into perspective. Everybody makes mistakes. This is something very small and inconsequential. I should simply let go. It worked, but it was hard – and, just like that incident, there are hundreds of them throughout the day, little things or bigger things which threaten to take away whatever measure of inner peace I have built painstakingly over the hours. It’s hard work, trying not to fall apart.

But that’s where all my hard work comes in. By developing good routines throughout the day which give me structure, I can rely on them when I don’t know what to do next. By changing my habits to be healthier, for example, I can rely on feeling better physically, which will in turn improve my emotional state. By eating better, by exercising, by caring for my emotional well-being as much as I am able to, I set myself up for success. By keeping a clear view of my goals and working towards them, at least a little bit at a time whenever I can spare the energy, I give myself reassurance that I am living life as well as I am able to. Little by little, I may find that the faint flashes of inner peace that I sometimes get will become more commonplace. Anxiety will slowly recede. Hope will replace it. I just need to hang in there. I just need to keep being strong. There will be times when I might feel shaky, or weak, but they will pass. I must remember that they will pass. Little by little, my life is improving and the fear and the emotional pain are not as overpowering.

I can do this. Step by step, even a mountain can be climbed.