Milestones and Making it Through

I had started September fairly flat emotionally but as the first few days passed I found my depression getting pretty heavy. It took a day or so for me to realize what was weighing on me. The tail end of the month would have marked our five year wedding anniversary.

This year it just represents a day on a calendar. It’s sobering as milestones come and go.  First birthday without the spouse, first Christmas, first Valentines. It puts things in perspective. For most folks holidays are a time to be around friends but as I am these days I feel too prickly and too sensitive to be around large groups of friends. Those circles I do still keep in touch with I’d rather just have a nice short conversation with on the day of. Eventually I’ll find ways to get myself to engage w/my friends more but for now there’s a lot of reworking of my own mental state first.

 

Of Weekends and Idle Hands

For most folks the weekend is that moment of happiness when the work stresses end and the freedom begins. For me it’s been the opposite. Weekends are what I actually dread slightly. No focal point, no direction. Those slow times are the worst for me as I am alone with my thoughts. Motivation to get out and socialize isn’t there for me.

For now at least I’ve focused on projects and things to keep me busy, keep my mind active but the rest of what I do is pretty empty. Truly wish I had better advise to give in this regard but in truth what helps each person is different. I’m hoping through September I’ll be able to form some project ideas that are less cerebral and more engaging but I know it’s going to be hard. Sept 25th would have been our five year wedding anniversary. Instead it’s just a day on a calendar that I’d rather not think about.

As the milestones go away I hope that the dull pain does too.

Divorce and Mental Health

I started to frequent reddit.com more as I looked for things to keep my mind occupied. It’s a fairly interesting way to stave off boredom but it has pitfalls too. One of them being the subreddits intended for discussions about divorce (/r/divorce) and depression (/r/depression). Both forums are not happy places to visit, let’s be honest.  Given the way reddit is by nature it can be a very wild and woolly place. One of the recent threads though hit home for me.

A wife mentioned her struggles in living with a spouse with mental health issues.  Now the specific issues weren’t brought up but anger management aspects and depression certainly would have been my first guesses.  She received a lot of positive urging to leave her situation. The irony for me is I can see things from the flip side of it.

It’s a weird double edged sword. You’re married, you start to suffer from depression/anxiety etc. Your relationship suffers, strains and in a lot of cases is destroyed. For the person who suffers from those issues though it’s just sort of one more thing on the haystack. The irony is family can be both a means to coping with depression and the best support base you can have or it can be trigger to episodes as well.  Caregiver fatigue might be one of the biggest (though more often for women) examples that comes to mind. I can understand making the choice to leave if the anger leads to violence and abuse, I can understand how much of a strain it is for the other spouse to have to be there and trying to support that person. None of that makes the choice to divorce any easier though and it’s usually painful for both parties.

There’s a lot of days I sort of wonder if people suffering from depression are outlying cases that aren’t optimally meant to be in relationships. At times I feel like maybe I’m supposed to do other things and I’m not meant to be someone’s other half, or father. It’s a painful thing to contemplate but it reminds me that if I am to have those things in my life I need to continue to work against depression and find ways to cope.

Distractions and the Negative Loop

As much as I love technology it has been both a blessing and a curse for me. Previously I rarely used my iPad unless I was on the road or traveling.  These days I use it almost every day as sort of “background tech”.

Following my divorce I found myself having the hardest time getting my mind to unhook from negativity and loneliness. In a cruel twist of irony though my anxiety made social interaction difficult at times in crowds and in public.  So I was left with a quandary. How do you feel less alone when alone? For me it became always having background noise or dialogue be it shows or movies in the background. Not directly in line of sight, just off to the side on my iPad.

This slippery slope however is something I’ve had to try to balance. It doesn’t interrupt my job it sort of becomes the din behind me. Replacing the normal banter heard in any office setting or workplace without the rise in anxiety. Slowly I’ve tried to ween myself off it, but it’s a gradual thing. Silence you see is something I fear.  Those gaps, that idle time when it’s just me and my thoughts is a dangerous place. There’s the phrase of idle hands are the devils workshop. When you suffer from depression and anxiety that statement becomes more true to me and really silence is your personal hell. Those moments where there’s no clear objective that I can keep engaged to often result in negative thoughts and dwelling on the past. It’s a horrible back-slide in my recovery. So every day I try to keep my mind running, never giving it time to think about the past, my marriage, the divorce. Eventually though there’s nothing but silence and in those moments, little by little I try to meditate and come to terms w/the pain and the guilt. I work at it every day to break out of the loop and it slowly gets easier, but it never quite goes away. Maybe some day when my head is full of other things or more positive elements I can push the negative aside.  For now though, it is a daily task.

Friends, Fading and Farewells

Divorce is about hard choices. The choice of what to say, what to fight for or against. One of the most awkward and painful is how it affects your circle of friends and family.

I made the choice to let go of a sizable number of friends, not because I disliked them but because I realized proximity to many of them would be a painful trigger for me given my divorce. A core of friends that I can still speak to is there and I lean on them heavily, probably more so than I should at times. I know some folks will view this as childish but to me those whom I call close friends are for the most part, still my friends. Acquaintances however, casual friends I accepted to let go of the lions share.

Divorce and especially depression is about survival. Sometimes that means letting go or getting your distance from folks that are too much of a trigger point to you.  Don’t cut off everyone, keep those folks who you feel enough comfort with close at hand. It’s been difficult for me to let some friendships fade away, while saying blunt goodbyes to others. If you’re going through the same type of choices just remember there are subtle differences between having to let go of friends for your safety and giving in to depressive feelings of disconnect. It isn’t easy to maintain your objectivity but you have to make the effort.

When Weekends and Weekdays Become the Same

I won’t sugar coat the fact that for me work and home are sort of the same thing. I mostly work from home and as such am often connected into my clients’ networks several at a time. That lack of separation does create some problems.

Through the course of my therapy one of the things I had the hardest time reconciling was that after a while I felt like I couldn’t distinguish between the weekdays and weekends. My ex-wife’s schedule usually dictated what we did on the weekends and now post-divorce I find myself just focusing on chores. There’s not much in the way of ‘activity’ for me. Nothing that I look forward to or want to plan really.  Now and then I’ve tried to hit up the gun range, gone for walks or photo projects but it is not something that comes naturally to me. Instead, much like work, the only thing I have are goal/task oriented. Cleaning up, sorting, throwing things out.

For most folks I think the weekend is full of promise and opportunity.  In my case the weekend is just a time for me to figure out the things I have to do, rarely what I want to do. Can’t exactly plan for ‘wants’ when you feel like you want nothing. If you’re in the same sort of anhedonia induced ‘lull’ in feeling about the weekends, you may feel like you’re just running through the motions. I continue to do it because over time I hope that I can bring back my sense of joy and actual longing to do something. It isn’t an easy practice but it’s something that you have to put effort in.

Unsocial Media — Spoken Word “Look Up” by Gary Turk

Have a quick view of this YouTube spoken word piece by Gary Turk.
This actually came up during a session with my therapist but I think the message is a sobering one.  If you are sensitive to pieces about depression please take appropriate measures before viewing this clip.

I commented yesterday about social media being a double edged sword but I feel like this piece speaks well to the changes that ‘social’ media brought about to people actually being social. I am more guilty of this than I’d want to admit, it affected my family, my spouse and a good chunk of my friends. When I disconnected from the social media word I realize I’d be isolating myself but at the same time I made interaction more real when I did engage. As much as technology is a part of my life, do try to let go of it now and then.  Food for thought.

 

 

Depression and IT

Tackling Depression in IT

I usually don’t cross-share other blogs but I felt like this was a very well written piece regarding the efforts of Yana Petrova about the IT world and the prevalence of depression. I’m going to try the book recommendation she made as I can see a lot of the things discussed have at varying points affected me in my job and the obvious carry over with my personal life.

Pets as Therapy — Doge Therapy…

Before my divorce my spouse and I had a precocious female black and tan shiba inu.  If you’re familiar at all with the whole doge meme you’ll have seen the red colored shibas all over the net.

Mahina, our shiba, kept me company as I worked from home most days. She was pretty aloof but she’d check on me from time to time and that company was a big help when my stress from work would hit peak levels. Mahina stayed with my ex-wife. She was after all her dog and I couldn’t afford to keep a pet in my current living situation. Having had a pet and then going back to pet-less I can genuinely see how much of a benefit a therapy animal can be for someone. It’s something my therapist and I have also talked about but laws in our state are a little tricky. If you have the ability to care for a pet and are struggling with depression and anxiety I think it’s something you should consider.  Keep in mind laws regarding how to get a dog licensed as a therapy dog vary by where you live. As far as the US is concerned there’s a very distinct line drawn between therapy/companion dogs and service dogs (such as seeing eye dogs) who are allowed greater access.

Honestly this attached youtube clip is just to show what a black and tan shiba looks like.

Art Therapy, iPads and Pigment

One of the things that I began using as a coping tool which surprised even me, was art therapy. I’ll be the first to tell you that before really coming to grips with my depression I had written off ‘adult coloring books’ as a weird trending idea drummed up by someone who thought they could market something to the multitudes of people suffering from depression.

I can report however that art therapy does have a place in helping with depression, stress and anxiety. I am generally not a huge fan of iOS apps outside of those used for media consumption.  However, I took a chance on an app called Pigment after I saw the UI design. (Pigment — http://apple.co/2brP9MI) Handy for when I’m working or just having trouble sleeping, the application provides an easy to use interface, the option to backup your creations and reset them.  Recently (much to my surprise) they even added a feature to import photos you’ve taken and try to covert them into usable painting canvases.  I say ‘try’ because the system basically does a black and white conversion allowing you to color in the areas that are now white.

If you’re an iPad Pro user the Apple Pencil with it’s improved range of pressure and angle works especially well.  There’s no catch-all tool that fixes depression, but if you have the funds I do suggest at least trying out Pigment. It’s a nice alternative if you don’t want to maintain old fashioned color pencils and printed coloring books.