Okay, time to sit down. No excuses. Been feeling a bit better physically today, although when I go through a tough patch like that there’s a clinically recognized sag in my spirits. And in my case the body rebounds faster than the spirit. Which means I often find myself feeling a bit better physically but mentally whacking myself hard with any stick I can find. I don’t know whether I’ve ever told you this–and it’s really no big deal, I never forget that there are lots of people way worse off than me, that’s part of what stopped me looking for help for so long, I didn’t want to take up resources someone harder up than me could use, how silly is that–but sometimes two or three hours in a day is spent hauling myself off of myself, or out of the holy cow this is hard gutter which isn’t near so tough but it does take doing. Because as you know my own particular version of depression is about withdrawal, which means the alternative is to spend my day walking through jello, where every small task takes superhuman strength and determination. And those are parts I apparently just don’t have. Although I keep chipping away at it. The jello. Perhaps I should refer to it as jello mining. Or maybe jello-man walking. Happily I’m solid in my position above the drop zone, so my friends understand that their checking in on me as friends do isn’t a matter of life and death, although that they do is both supremely welcome and really good for my health. No, the truth of it is I’m far more likely to go from my own simple stupidity than I am from any intent on my part. Which will be some kind of karma no doubt. And I figure which also means that the limited resources available to help so many, many people shouldn’t necessarily be directed at me if I can manage another way. So I’ve had some strategic help from professionals along the way, which is one reason I speak up a bit when I hear people casually putting down folks in the caring trades. Yes there are goofballs everywhere, but my experience in our extraordinarily limited social net for mental health has included people that are decent, thoughtful, knowledgeable and helpful. But it’s true, mostly I try not to put more of a burden than I really have to on those limited resources.
Which is easier for me than for some others because in terms of my disability I’m what some call ‘high functioning’. I don’t know that anybody’s ever said that about me before. It means a bunch of things. One of them is that I must never, ever represent my situation or my symptoms as being more positive than they really are to someone doing a case assessment. Which becomes a challenge given my tendency to focus on the positive. And because my situation is mostly what they call stable, and because I can have days where hey y’know I don’t feel so bad, I’ve learned that it’s pretty easy for both under-informed officialdom and plain folks with opinions to decide I’m doing just fine. And boy do I ever have a hard time not believing them myself. What’s with that? You see at that point I overextend myself physically and end up horizontal for days. Or I think I’m doing okay and cheerfully get myself involved with musicians who turn out to have significant, obvious, undiagnosed emotional challenges themselves and when they screw up and immediately blame me I discover that I’m nowhere near as well as I thought and find myself stripped of the mental chops and social skills to either help them modify their understanding or to withdraw myself gracefully. And that’s no fun for anybody. So it’s essential that I remember that my safety zones are of critical importance to me maintaining any kind of quality of life. And if someone firm of opinion tells me I’m doing fine… well, I mustn’t then give myself permission to behave like I’m doing fine. Because it turns out I’m only fine at a moderate pace, and only fine around people who are well-adjusted. What a strange thing to have to know about oneself. Pace and safety. Pity I don’t have a coat of arms, that’d be a good place to put those two words.
But yeah, I am actually feeling a bit better physically today. So I decided to tackle the snow. Got the worst of it done, but after a bit of work on some of the icier bits I had to admit I didn’t have a lot left in the tank. Somebody smart suggested one could think of my situation as being like getting over a prolonged illness–you’re feeling better but it takes a while to get your conditioning back. And if you try and do a normal level of work before you’re really in normal shape again you can hurt yourself in all kinds of ways. It’s funny, when we were having that discussion we spoke of it being like getting over the flu. Which is really what it’s like for the first couple of days after I’ve had a tough spell, and that’s what we were talking about. But several days later I realised ‘getting over a prolonged illness’ is exactly what this is in the larger sense. That sound you hear is the sound of my hand slapping my forehead. Now I’m going to do it again only harder. Can you hear me now? Okay, why hadn’t that occurred to me before? I guess that’s another one of those weird blind spots that develop when a health situation builds around you over time. Like how you can forget what normal feels like. There are all kinds of those blind spots. I guess that’s another one. I am so glad there are smart people around me. By myself I’m pretty dense, no question. But me and a few of my friends, sometimes we do okay.
Yay team.