The dark side of my mind

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TL:DR There is a 5 minute video of me talking about this topic.

Depression. I have it. I don’t like to say I suffer from it because it is a core element of who I am. If I had never experienced depression, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. However, it’s not healthy for me to indulge it. I like to personify my depression, maybe I’ll call it Fred? For me it’s not really a person though, it’s more of a dark cloud that sits on the fringes of my conscience and my conscience is in a castle trying to defend against the dark cloud. The darkness is always there, waiting for the moment that I let my guard down so it can come in. It also has a tendancy to overstay it’s visit (not like it was welcome in the first place). Once it’s in, it sucks all of the joy out of life, makes me feel like a failure and constantly reminds me of stressful thoughts. This is all bull though, the only thing in my mind is me but this mental model helps me to try and make sense of it. Depression is not rational.

Right now I’m experience a relapse of depression. I had a bad episode around 2011-2012, I’m not as bad now as I was then. I’m now able to recgonise the warning signs and I’ve seeked help before it has become disabling. I don’t think it’s something I will be completely cured from. Maybe it’s like a cancer in that way?

Part of my treatment is mindfullness, this time around I’m also trying it with some self compassion. I’m trying to remind myself that some thoughts aren’t very helpful and I’m trying to be kinder to myself. It’s easier said than done.

I had a break down last weekend. I went into a swanky delictessant and asked for some sliced bacon. There was a bit of a mis communication with the order that left me confused and with more stuff than what I needed. I felt overwhelmed and the confusion had gotten to me. Maybe I had experienced choice fatique where I had already made so many other choices that day that I had just had enough. Any way after I leave the deli, I start to tear up. When I get out of the supermarket I can’t hold it back anymore and i’m bawling my eyes out. This episode lasts for about an hour on the way home, there are some moments where I feel like I’m over it only for the sense of failure to come back. Basically, I felt like I couldn’t even handle a poor experience. I was disappointed in myself and I just got stuck on those thoughts. It was exhausting and for the rest of the day I didn’t want to do anything. I was grateful that I was able to get out of that mindset after an hour. When my depression was really bad, that type of episode would last all day where the smallest things would return me to tears. My menstrual cycle had just started that day and I think this also had an impact.

Today I experienced a trigger, it only lasted 5 minutes. I’m in Melbourne for a Yow Connected conference and there was this talk about banks, wearable tech and customer engagement. They were using a user profile of a 31 year old blonde female investor who was looking to buy property. I think she had a net worth of over 2 million dollars. I felt overwhelmed, I know I can’t manage my own finances and this reminded me of how I feel like a failure. There’s only 5 years different between me and this character. My thought was, “F*ck, is it normal to have that much invested? Why am I not on track to achieve that?”. I started tearing up but I reminded myself that it wasn’t helpful to think about it, I tried to rationalize it with the thought, “they don’t come from your upbringing, they probably came from a privelaged background where their parents were probably able to provide a lot of financial literacy, support and help with a starting investment”. It could be that today I was a little tired after a full on day yesterday and that I’m experiencing conference bowels. TMI, I know but when my bowels don’t feel healthy, I’m usually not a happy camper. I experience the same thing at hackathons. I love the mental stimulation but it can also be exhausting. Today’s episode was a minor incident in the grand scheme of things.

I don’t know what I want to achieve with this post. Blogging about it is it’s own kind of therapy. I don’t need your sympathy but I would like to make conversations around mental health normal.

Note: Just because I have depression, doesn’t mean I experience it all of the time. Most of time I’m a normally functioning human (whatever that means). Sometimes the world can be overwhelming. I think most people are a little bit dysfunctional but that’s where our beauty is.