advice perhaps ?

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lately i've been feeling really horribly depressed - and then alternately really happy (but this sort of fragile happiness) for a couple days - and then depressed again. and i've nothing concrete to be depressed about except that i don't really like school & i am so bored with myself and everyone around me. and i feel very isolated. i get very lethargic and quiet and mopey and i feel like it's unfair to my friends & i want to talk to them about it, but then i don't think that's fair either. i don't want to be a drag. i've seen a school psychologist a couple times but it doesn't seem to help at all and i feel like seeing her makes me concentrate on my unhappiness more, thus exacerbating it somehow. i don't know, i feel like i am somehow tricking myself mentally into feeling this way, some sort of brainfuck. & yeah, what would you do in my position?

― j c (j c), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 19:40 (twenty-one years ago)

1) stop seeing the shrink. you're right, she's just making it worse.
2) get used to these feelings. they don't go away.

― jody b. kerosene (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 19:48 (twenty-one years ago)

you may be BIPOLAR and just don't know it. Wasn't Billy Banks Bipolar and was able to deal with it?

― tomato soup, Tuesday, 16 November 2004 19:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Opposite advice alert: see a better shrink.
Feelings are real and they have real effects on your life.

― Orbit (Orbit), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 19:57 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't think i'm bipolar... i mean, i don't think my bad moods are so much different from anyone else's except in that i can't seem to get out of them for days and i'm so fiercely disinterested in everything when i'm in them. & i can't afford a better/different shrink! this one is for free through the university. oh i dunno. i feel like i am somehow making this happen to myself, like the key to ending it all is somewhere within my willpower but i just can't quite grasp it. something like, "think positively" but accompanied with a feeling and not just empty words... if that makes any sense.

― j c (j c), Tuesday, 16 November 2004 23:21 (twenty-one years ago)

All of that does sound like bipolar disorder or cyclothymia (the mildest form, sort of), though -- neither bad moods nor good ones need to be different from other peoples' for you to be bipolar. It's more about the cyclical pattern, the swinging back and forth, and especially the tendency to get into one mood or the other without any apparent reason.

Universities often have more than one shrink or counselor on staff, does yours not?

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 17 November 2004 00:11 (twenty-one years ago)

This may not be the answer, but I personally find I am most depressed when I'm not mentally busy enough. In fact I was admitted to a psychiatric ward on two occassions in my life and both times it was during a period when I had menial repetitive jobs and was doing nothing creative with my time.

As I said, this may not be your experience, but getting some kind of distraction in your life might help.

― king of the eyesores (papa november), Wednesday, 17 November 2004 00:18 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm sort of going through the same thing, but not to as great an extent, it sounds like. My advice: Talk to your friends. Not wanting to burden them just makes it a lot lonelier, and that makes it a vicious cycle, and they probably love you and won't mind reassuring you once in awhile. Also, try not to overburden yourself; I didn't realize just how drab my life has become until I was reading through my Girl Scout troop's badge book and feeling sooo jealous of the fifth graders for having time to do stuff like draw or write poetry. (And yet I'm on ILX. Go figure.)

― Maria (Maria), Wednesday, 17 November 2004 02:13 (twenty-one years ago)

the mentally busy thing sounds like good advice. i've been very bored with everything i've been doing lately, but i don't know if that's because i truly find it boring or because in this mood i find everything boring. i ought to look for some new interests either way, though.

tep, i absolutely refuse to have bipolar disorder or cyclothymia!! i'm not going to take drugs for it anyway, so i don't suppose a diagnosis is important. but the thing is, i feel like these moods are so close to being something i can control, but i just haven't quite hit on how yet. it doesn't *feel* like some crazy chemical force descending upon me, it feels like an endless pileup of shitty thoughts that need somehow to be redirected so i can be myself again. & sometimes, for days, i can! but then it all reverts back again.

as for friends, i don't feel like i'm close enough to any of them to burden them with something like this. it's enough that i'm so pathetically mopey half the time & they have to endure my deadweight presence sitting around, silent and judgmental. & what would they say anyway? i guess there's nothing much to say besides "you should get help" or "i hope you feel better."

i don't know! i'm sorry to whine like this to all of you too. it's really kind that you would all give advice to a random stranger, and thank you, and i'm sorry. i wish i could just hibernate somewhere until i feel better and wasn't such a bummer for everyone all the time.

― j c (j c), Wednesday, 17 November 2004 02:56 (twenty-one years ago)

I think you're kind of making a bipolar strawman just so you can be sure you're not him, there. I'm not saying you're bipolar, or even that I suspect you are, or anything -- just that the reasons you cite for being sure you aren't don't work. It wouldn't have to be medicated, though, especially if you were only cyclothymic (which often isn't medicated anyway, even if you go to the extent of seeing a psychiatrist). I was bipolar for about fifteen years before going on medication, and at that point it was only because I was in danger if I didn't; with some people, it gets worse with age, with others it doesn't.

But coping techniques are the best thing anyway, and if you can figure out which of them work for you, it wouldn't matter what label fits. Being aware, if there's a cycle, can be good because you can prepare ahead of time -- a minor thing, in comparison, is the fact that I get deeply depressed and low-energy and mopey for about a week after I finish a major project. It goes away after that week, and I know that now, and it's easier to tell yourself, "fuck it, so I have a bad day today," then it is to wonder what the hell's wrong and how long it'll last.

Talking to your friends is pretty much always a good idea, especially if they're in a different headspace than you -- you don't want to wind up in misery poker, or be told off for being down when you've "got no reason to" because your friends are all divorcing their kittens or something. But aside from that, the venting can help and they may have good suggestions for distracting things to do. It's a shame it's not the best time of year for going out and being active outdoors, depending on where you live.

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 17 November 2004 03:14 (twenty-one years ago)

one of the good things about knowing the intricacies of your own moods is that you learn how to organize your life around them. you give yourself a set number of days to wallow/angst based on how much you think you'll need (realistically), and you snap back to reality when you're ready. sometimes you have to make sacrifices to allow yourself to do this (e.g. temping instead of working full-time), but it's good for your mental health.

― hockey family (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 17 November 2004 03:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Exactly. The good thing about depressive bits instead of manic bits is that you can still pretty much be rational about it.

― Tep (ktepi), Wednesday, 17 November 2004 03:26 (twenty-one years ago)

for example, i'm in a super-weird headspace this week (funeral, jet lag, still fuming over the election), and i've decided i'd give myself until thursday morning to be a crazy person, and then it's back to being responsible, no excuses. i know most of it will have blown over by then, because i know how i get.

― hockey family (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 17 November 2004 03:32 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't want it to be that serious. i don't want to have to revolve my life and my interests (whatever they are) around some unstable mental space! i feel like there is just this paper-thin wall between how i am now and how i would be OK, & i just need to burst through it, but i just don't know how...

you're both giving good advice. i guess it's unfair and unrealistic of me to want/expect someone else to tell me how to get past this. but i don't want to learn to deal with it & anticipate senselessly bad weeks i want to CONTROL it and not HAVE bad weeks. because other people control their moods! & sometimes i can too, i think...

as for friends, the person i feel closest to is a very happy person and i would feel far too guilty getting her to discuss something like this with me. she has plenty of other people to deal with, plenty of more enjoyable things to do than listen to me incoherently try to describe why i feel so shitty when i don't even really know. i feel like i don't know how to use words anymore. and my other friends -- we just don't talk about things like this, i guess. we never have.

― j c (j c), Wednesday, 17 November 2004 03:43 (twenty-one years ago)

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