bewilderbrain

A call to arms, a battle cry of solidarity, a play on the weaknesses of a fiendish ghoul…

People call it the black dog.

I think this paints it with a beast-like intrigue and gravitas it doesn’t deserve.

That black feeling around the edges that comes when one of the ugly sisters of anxiety or depression is standing outside your window.

Depression has a sallow and flabby face I think, with wet, dead eyes. She is dressed in all over drab colours, (nothing so cool or dramatic as black) with a tightly tied utilitarian headscarf.

She resembles a haunted Victorian governess who has been repeatedly washed on an old sock cycle.

She is a washed out, clapped out, charisma vacuum.

And let us say she also has an enormous bottom and a flatulence problem.

Depression is not feeling down…

Anyone who has ever been depressed knows this.

And is unlikely to say “I’m a bit depressed today”

Everyone gets down, due to circumstances or problems in life, sometimes due to poor sleep or diet, sometimes for no real explicable reason. Just…down in the dumps.

An occasional natural occurence in the normal fluctuations of the human mood.

Depression is a different ghoul. ( Remember – nothing so exciting as a beast).

Her effect runs much deeper, gets under your skin, and tends to last for a much longer period of time.

She is insidious – creeping up on you – and staring wanly in through the window. Her absolute stillness is stultifying, immobilising – the black-hole like abyss of her eyes gently suctioning your very soul towards her.

Bloody well bugger off already. Mrs smacked flabby arse face.

What causes depression?

Opinons have changed over the causes and factors involved in depression over recent years, with more recent research suggesting that the theory of a chemical imbalance in the brain is overly simplistic.

The condition appears to be multi-factorial, with aspects of both genetics, and life experiences capable of influence, and whilst malfunctioning neurotransmitters or deficits in brain chemicals can play a role in certain types of depression, they are only part of a bigger overall story.

Those who have suffered trauma, or who have neurodiverse brains, can be more susceptible to her clutches. (see Fantastic beasts post – in celebration of neurodiverse brains – for all the positive things to remember…)

Overall though, as far as this particular ghoul is concerned, anyone can be potentially vulnerable, and anyone might have different experiences or triggers…

The reality is that the dough- faced demon doesn’t discriminate.

How does depression feel?

Is kind of asking how long is a piece of string.

Wildly different for everyone

Some people describe a constant black cloud over their heads. For me, I have always felt as though a sheet of opaque perspex has come down between me and the rest of the world.

The world has become muffled, and I am distant from it, I don’t want to be, but I don’t know how to get back. I am stuck in this strange no-mans land with the life and sounds of the world echoing distantly around me.

For me, depression is a withdrawal, an unwilling state of being suctioned away from the world.

It is characterised by an inability to be in oneself, to inhabit reality, or feelings. And anhedonia. Your brain suddenly stops remembering how to enjoy anything.

Darkness creeps around the edges of your being, a consciousness that there is something bad, but inexplicable out there – that the world outside isn’t safe, but neither is it safe here…in your own brain.

Sometimes emotions are magnified beyond recognition. Sometimes they are absent completely.

The blues can creep up insidiously, or arrive from nowhere…

A few days ago I had the kind of day that no-one wants to write about.

Which is precisely why I will, in brief.

Despite apparently sleeping well, eating well, doing most of the things that I was supposed to have done (a rarity for an ADHD brain) and having no obvious immediate stressors, something was wrong.

I could feel it swimming around me as soon as I got up. Fragility, darkness, a feeling of otherness. I was lost and low, and I recognised this feeling, and I didn’t know what to do.

The school run was hard because I felt self-conscious of seeing people, like the overwhelming feeling was becoming a tangible force, and would be creeping its way visibly up my face like spidery tendrils of ivy.

I hoped no-one would accidently say something kind to me, or do something sweet or touching in my presence, lest I start crying, as I could feel the emotions bubbling under the surface.

Deciding that maybe tiredness was triggering the feeling, I tried to cocoon myself in the living room and nap. Often with ADHD though, the brain resists stillness, becomes restless, and my attempts to shut down only provoked a huge surge in anxiety.

I knew I should go for a walk, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave the house. I put the TV on.

Another one of depression’s supposedly clever tricks is to make you feel acutely lonely, but at the same time like it would be physically impossible for you to see or talk to people.

There was nothing I felt I could watch on the tv, and nothing would still the sense of how useless I was for not doing anything, how guilty I felt, how I was completely unable to find anything positive to cling onto.

My phone rang, I didn’t answer it (obviously) but I could feel the instant rise in cortisol.

Then my phone rang again, and my body responded with, quite simply, fear and panic. I didn’t cancel the call, or turn my phone off. I was scared to touch it.

Instead, I ran away from the phone.

Ridiculous? well yes, objectively. ADHD brains aren’t good at objectivity, and I suspect that depressed brains aren’t either.

I ran away upstairs so that I couldn’t see or hear my phone, and it couldn’t shout at me or panic me.

I didn’t know what to do once I was up there. So I made a deal with myself. Do one useful thing up here, for 15 mins, and you can go downstairs again and put the tv back on and have a cup of tea.

I put away one pile of clothes.

Then I congratulated myself.

Sounds silly. Yes of course. But it isn’t.

Preparing your battleground…means giving yourself a break…

When we are depressed our self-worth and self-esteem is at rock bottom. There is almost nothing we can do that we won’t beat ourselves around the head with a flaccid kipper about, no matter how hard we have been trying.

Our brains are screaming at us that we are as useful to our friends and families as the aforementioned flaccid kipper, and that never before has anyone been quite so shit at dealing with literally everything as we are right now.

But none of this is true.

Because Depression, bless her paste-hearted, turbo-farted little socks…

Has shit for brains.

If we are depressed, overwhelmed, we are, how can I put this…

…not in the best mental state to be the judge of our mental state.

We are dealing here, with a creeping ghoulish vacant presence, that could nevertheless fell a woolly mammoth by one foul gust of air from her protuberant rear end.

So relinquish your mental walloping stick, Put the kipper down a moment. STEP AWAY FROM THE KIPPER…

Before I continue I will say this. No, I did not magically and completely cure myself of depressive feelings by the end of day. But what I did do, by increments, is leverage every weaponry at my disposal to chip away at it, to raise my mood a couple of tiny notches…to make it to the end of the day in one piece.

Which is something anyone who is feeling depressed should be proud of.

Putting a more serious hat on for a moment…

FIRST AND FOREMOST – If depression or distress is serious and intense, obviously, and please:

Seek Help.

Advice from a GP, or contact with a mental health support service, for emergency or escalating situations.

Please also be aware also that no part of this article is intended or should be taken as medical advice

I am aiming for more deliberately irreverent (to depression) but hopefully fortifying ideas and musings…

Sometimes medical support, intervention and medications are required to manage depression, and that can be a lifeline, or a valuable crutch to move on and up.

Whether further support is needed or not however, we need to be kind to ourselves, and deploy whatever small arsenal of weaponry we might have at our own disposal to keep the po-faced poo queen down…

10 Everyday micro weapons against depression…

When depression stands at your window, you use whatever means you can, big or small, to hold her flabby features at bay.

Now – she is a being that dwells in some intangible middle space – temperate, drifting, colourless. She doesn’t like hard or soft edges.

Your first 5 weapons therefore, are passive ones, to be used as a first line of defence, and a battleground preparation. These are those that gently suffocate her – immobilising her by their softness and engagement.

Weapon 1 -Recognition – that she has crept up on us, that this feeling has arrived, despite whatever efforts we may have made to prevent it. She has entered the room, and we have to recognise this. We have to face her square on.

Depression does not like to be recognised, she prefers to take people unawares, skulking in a grey nether realm on the very outskirts of your vision, in hopes that she will creep further and further in before you realise what’s going on.

Being looked directly in the face startles her out of creeping for a minute, and she remains in the corner, passing for the worlds ugliest umbrella stand.

Weapon 2 – Respect – Not for the depression ghoul herself, but for the enormity of the battle against the relentless and inexplicably dull creature. She might be insipid, but fighting her is exhausting, you need to respect this, you need to take stock, re-fuel, request re-enforcements when needed.

Weapon 3 – Kindness – To yourself. And I know, this is incredibly hard to do when you feel depressed.

You wouldn’t point at a person who had just fallen over and twisted their ankle, laugh, and get angry at them for not getting up more quickly. You would hopefully help them up, make them a cup of tea, and find out what other help they needed.

Be kind to your brain.

It fell over.

It can’t help it.

It needs you to be kind, to ask for help if you need it, to be HONEST, about the sheer weight and effort of fighting Lady Drabulot so that others can support you. So that they can be patient while you fight yourself….

You deserve kindness.

Depression cannot stand acts of kindness. She relies upon being the intangible force that propels your own brain to do the bashing, the thwacking of motivation and self-esteem.

Kindness immobilises her, it takes the edge from her passively malicious intent. It’s like stuffing cream cakes into a gremlins face and watching it turn back into an impotent fluffy mogwai.

Weapon 4 – Reward – One of the ways you show your kindness is by rewarding every last tiny effort you make to keep going. Congratulating yourself for your 15 minutes of tidying for instance.

When depression is bad, getting through the day can be a gruelling emotional marathon. Your brain is struggling. Accept this. Don’t try and do things you can’t, but instead do anything you can. Any little normal everyday job. Any tiny act of looking after yourself

I don’t care if its fetching an extra jumper, making a cup of tea, or putting a few things in the dishwasher. ANY LITTLE THING YOU DO, can be hard, with depression.

And ANY LITTLE THING YOU DO, therefore, needs a massive pat on the back.

Reward, congratulate, every step…the effort you are putting in to keep going is insane.

When you offer yourself a kind word, reward yourself for one thing accomplished, despite the obstacle that has appeared in your world, it is like you are pouring water into a parched plant.

Weapon 5 – Comfort – Comfort is of course another form of kindness, and nurturing ourselves with simple and familiar things is fortifying.

Basic comforts like good food, soft warm clothing, favourite jumpers, blankets and cups of tea, simple everyday things, partaken of thoughtfully and knowingly, all add to making subtle differences in state of mind.

But comfort goes beyond physical items – it also looks like familiarity, watching comforting or familiar tv shows, reading favourite books.

and routine… a familiar routine can be comforting and grounding when your brain feels blue and untethered. It provides you with stability, reassurance, continuity – an easier way to step forward and complete one more bit of your day. And then of course, reward yourself.

Comfort also includes recognising your comfort zones, and allowing yourself to dwell in them more than usual. Shunning the obligations or jobs that make you uncomfortable – you don’t need them right now.

You cocoon yourself in your safe space doing only the essentials required for nurture of yourself and those around you, at least until the worst of the storm has passed.

I should also add in chocolate, to part of the weapon package of comfort.

Chocolate? that’s not a particularly healthy solution.

No, no it isn’t, and your chocolate, or comfort food, might be crisps or pizza. Should we do it all the time? No. Do we let ourselves off the hook occasionally because we’re struggling. Yes we bloody do, without guilt.

And my God does depression hate comfort, of any kind. Her knickers are so starched that they would stand up on their own, and being that she exists in a perpetually upright state of procrastinating around the place like a stale fart, any kind of cosiness, or predictable routine, is anathema to her.

Moving on to weapons 6-10…

Active weapons (or pointy sticks) in the duel against depression…

As well as smothering her with our soft weapons, if you have the strength, you can surprise Depression and poke holes in her billowing insubstantive grey presence.

You see, her neatly encapsulated mourning dress of fetid air relies on a flimsy corset of vulture feather and apathy to keep it in place.

You puncture her apathy with the sharpness of anything resembling an emotion or experience, and she will start slow-puncturing, and gradually losing force with repeated doses….

So….

Weapon 6 – People – Friends, family, colleagues, sometimes it’s not the most obvious people that its easier to speak to.

Seeking people isn’t easy when you are depressed. Many of us feel like a burden, and don’t want to infect others with our misery. If you have the strength, this is something to fight past.

The thing is, if you turn to them with the way you are feeling – it isn’t about them providing you with an answer – it’s about someone understanding where your head is at –that you are struggling – and just being able to offer their presence.

Their reassurance that they are still here – that if they could, they would line up battalion style next to you in the fight, and stoke a volcano under depression’s continental plate of an arse.

And…seeking out people doesn’t have to mean talking about the state of your brain. Sometimes, it’s precisely the distraction from it that helps.

Feeling helpful to others, empathising with their questions or problems, can sometimes lift us a little from our own clouds. People can be wonderfully distracting and accidentally uplifting.

Weapon 7 –Exercise – Look, it’s not a cool, deep, or funny answer. But it is an undeniably effective pointy stick. I’m not going to expound upon the benefits of exercise by now, we all know it, and it works.

Over time, it can positively alter the chemical balance in your brain. It can be inside, outside, loads, or a little, whatever your ability is, whatever you can manage.

No-one is going to pretend this one is easy. And you can sure as hell pat yourself on the back if you manage this when you feel bad. It’s massive. Do it if you possibly can.

Depression has the approximate fitness level of an 18th century chest of drawers, and thinks that a VO2 max is a type of support bra. She doesn’t appreciate extra oxygen being directed towards her either, breathing, as she does, a mixture of principally carbon monoxide and portaloo fumes.

Weapon 8 Nature – Now, if you have seen much else on my site, I don’t really need to expand upon this. I am like a stuck record when it comes to nature, but I’m happy to be stuck here, because I believe in it.

The benefits to the brain of being outside in nature are enormous, add in observations of wildlife, and they compound exponentially. Open the window. Have five minutes in the garden. Go for a short walk if you can.

The tiniest, most incremental efforts and changes make a difference. ( see also Birds Flying high- the mental benefits of bird watching or Two bats and a squirrel, about walking for mental health...)

Weapon 9 – Music – Are there many things honestly more capable of quickly invoking emotion? and therefore becoming pointy sticks?

Sometimes we cannot cope with music when we are depressed, it is too overwhelming, and we don’t feel we can cope with the sensations it produces. This weapon has to be used wisely, and with discretion.

If you can deploy it, know that music has the capacity to affect us at some instinctive primal level. Our capacity to love and respond to music has evolved with us, is built in to our body’s systems, almost becoming part of our autonomic nervous system.

Music is used as a therapy for conditions like Alzheimers precisely because it reaches depths in the human brain that other things cannot access. The feel of music is coded into our beings – remembered when all else fails – and it can lift us up despite ourselves when depression takes hold.

There is no right music. It pains me to say it. I might want to listen to Patti Smith and Jimi Hendrix, but if you want to listen to Taylor Swift, a male voice choir, Dolly Parton, Beethoven’s 5th, or the theme music to Star Wars, it’s all good. There is no wrong.

Whatever brings you joy. Whatever brings you feeling.

Weapon 10 – Comedy. This might not work for everyone, but I find it’s sometimes astonishing what something funny can do.

Particularly when it takes you unawares.

Funny things when you are depressed take on this unique piquancy. The sharpness of the contrast between the doldrums of your mental state and the heady highs of a silly moment can feel startling.

Sometimes they can even suddenly and unexpectedly jolt your mood up by a couple of notches.

It could be people that make you laugh, or it could be re-runs of much loved or obscure comedies…the ones that you love, and make you laugh time and again.

It could be you tube videos of ridiculous cats or people falling over on doorbell cams.

If it makes you laugh, seek it out, even when, or sometimes because it’s familiar.

Joyful laughter, even for a moment, is a sharp and pointy emotion.

Depression doesn’t have a sense of humour, due to having the personality of a folded dust sheet.

When we laugh, she is deeply unnerved – she starts getting blotchy faced and squirming like her massive bloomers are disappearing up her arse.

Comedy is a balm, a release valve to the senses so powerful that it can sweep her off her troll like trotters.

On a good day, I believe it may have the power to vanquish her completely.

Stop beating yourself up…and start loading the squashed fruit on the catapult…tiny little things can start taking depression down…

These things are all very simple.

Maybe. But sometimes simple things make a difference.

Are they cures? No. Are they potential catalysts for a gradual shifting of mood and brain…Micro weapons for change…

Again…Maybe

What I do know, is that we don’t have to give in without question to the presence of the dead-eyed Depression dullard.

Instead of fear and submission, let’s have fight and subversion.

Let’s replace her vapid vacancy with some good old fashioned vitriol at her incredible audacity for sneaking up on us.

Lets wallop her in the face with the flaccid kipper

…and fart in her general direction.

And never, ever, lose sight of how hard we are fighting, and how well we are actually doing…Every. Single. Day.