So things change and things stay the same. Less drama, more laundry. I can be sad about things and not let them derail me. I can be angry without being outraged. Strong feelings are something that I recognize in myself as an important part of my personality, but when they swallow me up they are no good. This is something that my friends and family realized about me um... thirty years ago? Sooner? I used to cry in kindergarten when other kids got in trouble. Also, I was more of a mess in junior high than your garden variety teenager. (Unaided by alcohol or drugs, I might add.) I was a good kid who managed to get messed up all by myself. My own chemistry then worked against me. So much so, that my friends got scared and reported me to the school counselor. I was having anxiety attacks, writing horribly depressing stories, and contemplating the emptiness of being alone in a godless universe forever. I can't imagine why they were worried (sarcastic). I don't feel intensely about everything. And I am nowhere near as intense as I was during those hormonal teenage years (or the hormonal pregnancy years). But I can have somewhat raw emotions. Even if I don't show them, at least as an adult. It takes work, though, sometimes. Emotional honesty and emotional intensity are not the same. But when you are accustomed to feeling things strongly, the absence of that overwhelming emotional reaction can feel... empty. Or like giving up. Or being somehow untrue to myself and betraying the core of who I am. But I am more than a passenger on an emotional roller coaster. And I will still be me if the highs aren't so high and the lows aren't so low. I had several moments of clay-face today. That flat affect feeling where nothing registers in my expression. I wasn't particularly sad or upset about anything. I just felt distant and floaty. And clay-faced. And hot. Maybe clay-face is just part of the normal spectrum of emotion and it shouldn't be of concern so long as it is fleeting. On the depression scales, they look for the symptoms to continue without relief for many days. So a few moments on one day is hardly cause for alarm. It is just scary because it reminds me of what it felt like every day for almost a year before I sought treatment for my Depression. But that was last century. Grateful Crap: snuggling with a two-year-old for an afternoon nap. Waking with her head nestled under my chin. Happy. Daily Convexions: took meds (but not until afternoon) 150mg sertraline, 300mg bupropion played my French horn (band practice started up again) Notes:
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K. BuchananQuaker, teacher, parent, |