Today the heaviness is setting in. It's a familiar state, a familiar cycle. Through my attentiveness to my moods and health in the last year or so I am recognizing the patterns that reoccur within myself and my relationship with the world outside of me, to a point of predicting what comes next.
When I am up I feel I have so much more to offer, and the ambitions kick in. I have expressive energy to spread to those around me, smiles, confidence, compassion. Euphoria waves through me randomly, sometimes untriggered and I decide to relish in it. After all if I have to deal with the ultimate lows, why not embellish the highs. It's a bit unfamiliar and uncertain and sometimes I will battle an anxiety that accompanies this feeling as it feels somewhat out of control. I am suspicious of it and cautiously hang onto it, trying not to take it for granted in fear that it may be stripped from my hands if I get too arrogant. The longer it stays the more comfortable with it I become and even briefly consider that I am 'better,' I am winning this battle with depression. I consider maybe the energy I have put into bettering myself is paying off and my life will get easier from here. Ideas freely flow in, I try to take advantage of this creative surge. Lists of all the things I would like to accomplish form in my head, new items building upon the previously unfinished list.
But before I have the opportunity to put a dent in that list, it begins to slip away. The slide down typically starts sporadically, with no apparent trigger, and it isn't until I notice the familiar signs that I am spiralling down that I realize it. Overwhelmed, I grasp desperately to the ambitions I had dreamt up, yet my motivation waivers. My head spins. I become irritable with myself for not being able to keep up with my previous self. An inner battle begins between perfectionism and compassion. At first I am unwilling. When you have lived the last while in a state where you are filled with purpose, productivity, and even an unstoppable confidence at times, accepting this change in ability is a reluctant surrender. You don't want to become someone who needs to function on a level so far beneath your potential.
The self criticism sets in next. Irritability with the self and others. Sense of failure, fraud, deceit. Feeling foolish for believing the high was a measure of success, more than just a symptom of my biochemical makeup.
Along the way a sense of sadness fogs over, and colours around me dull. My life has not changed since yesterday, I cannot find an obvious reason for this sadness, but it blankets me anyway. Anxiety accompanies. My lens shifts to any problems I may be experiencing at this time in my life. Regardless of how trivial, it zooms in so that the problem is all that fills the frame. Sometimes jumping from one to another to another. Insecurity about myself as a mom. Conflict with a friend. Imperfections in my art. Doubts about my offerings to the world. Inability to function like the regular people. Stories start to build up and manifest to support all the negative aspects of my life. I lose sight of any successes, struggle to embody the gratitude I wore so well yesterday, and lose hope for myself.
It takes about 3 days to fall from my high cloud to the swamp. This is where the work begins. The normal and high states have become the easy part of life. When I am happy, things come naturally. Although I do believe this is when much of the work I've done shows up, it comes easy and therefor can be difficult to feel responsible for it. But when I am down, and know I am down, the hard work is in preventing from sinking, wading patiently and working my way out. In keeping sight of the little hope, gratitude and compassion that exists, while dismissing power of the lurking stories, fears and lies, I keep my head above water and persist. This is what takes the most effort and when I can turn a difficult morning into an 'good' afternoon, where I didn't lose my cool on anyone, accomplished something around the house and spent some time on self-care to alleviate some of the anxiety or sadness, that is successful for me. It doesn't show up the same as on my really good days. With much deliberation I must celebrate - regardless of how I think the rest of the world functions - the changes that have occurred, which are indicative of the work I've been doing over the last few years.
The more I am able to understand my cycles, triggers and indicators, the more I am able to accept my whole self. In accepting my emotional cycles as part of my chemical makeup, I am able to let go of the responsibility of needing to control it, and move to a mindset of managing it. Changing my level of functioning, much like you would if you developed a flu. When it is mental, for some reason convincing yourself to take it easy is much more difficult (although I have never been great at slowing down even when I was hit with a physical illness). But I have lived through enough of these cycles to know what happens when I don't pay attention to what's happening within me so I start to give myself the necessary compassion to prevent the spiral downward. I am learning that these lows are much shorter lived and more bearable when I modify my expectations of myself and what I am able to accomplish in this state. With this compassion I am able to keep my stress at a manageable level so that I can be who I need to be for the people in my life that need me most - namely my husband and children.
Stress levels play a major role in how these cycles go. The more I'm dealing with in my life, the more extreme these cycles become. It has recently become very apparent to me that I need to manage the stress in my life within my control in order to appropriately manage that that is inevitable. Removing myself from situations or commitments that are potentially triggering. Maintaining good physical health through exercise, nutrition, sleep. Taking time to slow down and be present. Asking for what I need and practicing self care when I need it most, but also regularly as a preventative measure. Prioritizing my health when I hit survival mode, so that I can get back to a state where I can offer more to others. When I do these things I am at both my best best and best worse.
The more I understand my triggers, indicators and what keeps me down the more sense of control I have in my life, which brings a new hope to my well-being. I have spent the last three and a half years in a transition of unbecoming and becoming, breaking and healing. Finally, it feels that, somewhat for the first time, I have reached a place I have been trying to get. I realize there is so much more work to do, and I have come to understand that this journey has no finish line, but there is a certainty in my current understanding of myself that I have only just recently achieved that gives me a new sense of acceptance for my journey. One that confirms the path, which I have doubted so harshly so often, has been the right one for me. Another may have taken a different, less difficult route to get to this checkpoint, but this is the way I needed to go to get here. A greater confidence in my ability to know what's right for me and to continue following the lead of my intuition. A greater acceptance of myself, my challenges, my strengths and all that is in-between. The fact that I am able to withhold this vantage, this acceptance, even as I navigate downward into a depressive cycle is perhaps the greatest indicator how far I have come.
