Mental health

[greg_r]

Frank discussion of mental ill-health and my experiences with it.


So, I was going to post this to Facebook, got half way through writing it and decided that it was going to be much too raw, too vulnerable to put up in such a public space. I'm always happy to talk with people one on one about my mental health and I'm happy to share it in a more limited setting, but I don't really want to open it up that much yet.

So mental health and me. Hi, my name's Greg and I have an Autistic Spectrum Disorder. Related to this I also have a General Anxiety disorder. I've always had these things and I always will, it's a part of who I am. This means that I don't get people so well and that I get really stressed out about it. A few times in my life this has become what hyperbole and a half call the sneaky hate spiral. You do something wrong and feel bad about it, so you don't feel like doing self-care things or fun things because you feel miserable so you feel worse because you're not doing things and so on. The worst of these hate spirals, for me, lead to depression. I've only experienced these a few times in my life and only once recently. It' not a lot of fun.

I think I best summed up how overwhelming and insurmountable this can seem when, in first year at uni, I asked a friend if it was possible to rage-quit life. the term comes from certain video games where, in a situation thats utterly unwinable it's no longer fun to keep playing and less frustrating to simply quit the game and cool off. My self-destructive thoughts on the occasions I had then were like that. I wasn't a long thought out process of securely exactly what would be best in the long run but a feeling of being overwhelmed and frustrate and unable to find a better escape becuae my brain is too full of thoughts.

The reality is that I need something to break the thought cycle or at least slow down the thoughts enough to work my way out. For a while my solution here was alcohol. This is not a good solution. Sure it slows down thoughts enough to break the spiral sometimes. Sometimes it can even turn off the parts of my brain flooding me with unhappy thoughts. However, it also turns a lot more of my brain unhappy, letting other thought spirals develop or strengthening them as often as not.

I now manage the thought spirals more effectively with Sertraline. It's not perfect and has a couple of side effects. It makes my sleep a bit worse and if I forget to take it or run out I get quite unwell with nausea and light headedness, but for the most part it stops thought spirals developing and keeps them fairly slow so I have time to break out before they get too deep or tight. It's not perfect, but it works well for me.

So yeah, lots of people expeinece mental health in different ways. That's my personal experience of it, I wanted to share to help remove some of the stigma associate with mental health (and failed a little bit). That's probably enough about that for now. I'm going to leave comments open so that if anyone wants to talk about mental health or ask questions about my experiences they can do.

Comments

[luthaiseakit]

-Hugs-

I don't know that I have anything especially pertinent to say, but this feels like the sort of post where it's worth saying, Hey, I'm glad we're friends and I'm always happy to listen if you wanna talk. Because I don't know that we as a species say this enough to our friends.

Am also happy to try and help provide a break on the spirals, but I admit not being geographically nearby might make it a bit tricky...

(Am going to shut up and go away now.)

-Moar Hugs-

[xanthipe]

You're doing good, and we should hit each other up for more awkward small talk devolving into stupidity more often :)

I'm pretty lucky; my depression and anxiety are low-level enough that since getting therapy and some closure what's left I can manage with exercise, meditation and gardening*. From that, I have a lot of sympathy for you for the more extreme versions, cos the 'lite' versions suck enough.

*Fun fact: there's at least one species of soil bacteria that gardeners have frequently infecting their systems that causes the body to produce extra serotonin. Playing in the dirt can be actively good for you!

[greg_r]

-Hugs- Thank you Weeza :) I do really appreciate having friends around me who, if I was having a serious spiral, I could reach out to. It helps a lot knowing that I have a support network and a large part of therapy for me was realising that it exists and I'm allowed to call on it, so thank you very much for the positive re-reinforcement :)

Thank you!

[greg_r]

Thank you, more small talk would be nice and I'll try to be better about it as well :) Also being more active here/posting life updates rather than just political stoof on facebook is a thing I could do.

I'm really glad that you've found a regime that works well for you without medication :) No amount of depression/anxiety is something that's fun to cope with.

That's really awesome about the garden dirt as well! I was aware that interaction with animals and the bacteria/dirt they carry can be beneficial, so I guess garden mud makes sense too :)

[xanthipe]

-grins- It's doubly lucky, really - I take pills about as well as your average moggy, and I doubt they do soluble versions of any of the brain-chem-regulators as yet ;)

Mycobacterium vaccae is the one under study, not only does it help with depression and anxiety in mice but it also acts as a partial vaccine against TB :) So yeah, playing in the dirt ftw!

[greg_r]

That is fortunate then as by experience of the withdrawal effects if I forget to take them or when I was still finding the correct dosage are a lot worse than the acclimatisation effects. I'm pretty sure that they don't regrettably.

That's some mighty dirt. I'll have to find more opportunities for playing in/with it :D