Brief update
I think it's going to be okay. Yes, I am still scared. I'm also glad I now know that being scared isn't necessarily reason enough to Not do something that might be good for me. A few years ago I didn't know that.
I've also noticed over the last couple of days that a big part of what was bothering me was the feeling that my fear seemed all out of proportion to what was actually happening ... a feeling that seemed eerily and unpleasantly familiar. Does a great big fear like that mean I'm overlooking something important? And that I should postpone taking any kind of action until I figure out what that "something" is? Could I possibly postpone my entire life that way – trying to figure out what I'm so scared of?
Yes, I think I definitely could.
What I realized in talking with Mr. A the other night was that the great big fear is actually about something else entirely – it's about the memory of how in the past, feeling that scared has always been an early warning sign that I was slipping into a major depression. It's been long enough now since I've been through an episode like that, that I had sort of forgotten that the way I usually live – as low stress as possible, minimizing change, taking plenty of time to make important decisions and not putting undue pressure on myself to meet other people's standards of "achievement" – that this way of living is not just something I thought would be cool to do, but a deliberate coping strategy, a way to keep my slightly broken brain from cracking again.
It's possible the doctors who told me I would always be at high risk for livelong recurrences of major clinical depression were wrong, and that I'll never have another one. That's what I hope, and I kind of think I'm right; I think a lot of what I went through in the past was at least in part a result of my bad decisions – choosing to stay in highly stressful situations (bad jobs, a bad marriage) for so long that finally my body's stress-mitigating machinery just couldn't handle it anymore. I like to think that if it's true that I had a hand in what happened – that it wasn't purely because of faulty brain chemistry – I might be able to take a hand in making sure it never happens again.
From that perspective, it makes sense that feeling pressure to make a big decision about not only how I make a living but how I spend the majority of my time and even (although I wish this were not the case) my identity as an artist or worker, how I see myself and value my own work – that that would stress me out a lot. And it has been. I've been waking up too early again, not being able to fall asleep, feeling highly adrenalized and scatter-brained, trembly and often on the verge of tears ... it's kind of awful.
Awful, but not necessarily anything to be afraid of. As a good friend who saw me through my last "episode" (almost ten years ago now) reminded me, yes it's not fun, but I got through it before, and if it happens again – not that it will, but if it does – I'll get through it again. I have friends, I have support, and this time it's actually happening for a happy and fulfilling reason – a positive change, an interesting opportunity ... Change all the same, and still stressful, but with the potential to put me in a better position than I've been in for years.
So it ain't over and decided yet. But I'm moving in a good direction.
I've also noticed over the last couple of days that a big part of what was bothering me was the feeling that my fear seemed all out of proportion to what was actually happening ... a feeling that seemed eerily and unpleasantly familiar. Does a great big fear like that mean I'm overlooking something important? And that I should postpone taking any kind of action until I figure out what that "something" is? Could I possibly postpone my entire life that way – trying to figure out what I'm so scared of?
Yes, I think I definitely could.
What I realized in talking with Mr. A the other night was that the great big fear is actually about something else entirely – it's about the memory of how in the past, feeling that scared has always been an early warning sign that I was slipping into a major depression. It's been long enough now since I've been through an episode like that, that I had sort of forgotten that the way I usually live – as low stress as possible, minimizing change, taking plenty of time to make important decisions and not putting undue pressure on myself to meet other people's standards of "achievement" – that this way of living is not just something I thought would be cool to do, but a deliberate coping strategy, a way to keep my slightly broken brain from cracking again.
It's possible the doctors who told me I would always be at high risk for livelong recurrences of major clinical depression were wrong, and that I'll never have another one. That's what I hope, and I kind of think I'm right; I think a lot of what I went through in the past was at least in part a result of my bad decisions – choosing to stay in highly stressful situations (bad jobs, a bad marriage) for so long that finally my body's stress-mitigating machinery just couldn't handle it anymore. I like to think that if it's true that I had a hand in what happened – that it wasn't purely because of faulty brain chemistry – I might be able to take a hand in making sure it never happens again.
From that perspective, it makes sense that feeling pressure to make a big decision about not only how I make a living but how I spend the majority of my time and even (although I wish this were not the case) my identity as an artist or worker, how I see myself and value my own work – that that would stress me out a lot. And it has been. I've been waking up too early again, not being able to fall asleep, feeling highly adrenalized and scatter-brained, trembly and often on the verge of tears ... it's kind of awful.
Awful, but not necessarily anything to be afraid of. As a good friend who saw me through my last "episode" (almost ten years ago now) reminded me, yes it's not fun, but I got through it before, and if it happens again – not that it will, but if it does – I'll get through it again. I have friends, I have support, and this time it's actually happening for a happy and fulfilling reason – a positive change, an interesting opportunity ... Change all the same, and still stressful, but with the potential to put me in a better position than I've been in for years.
So it ain't over and decided yet. But I'm moving in a good direction.
1 Comments:
We're all pulling for you Tina.
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