Just wondered if anyone else felt life is mixed up.
It seems when things are going ok I get tge feeling of being out of sorts with life and even dont seem to see the point anymore. Strange?
Yet when things are not going well I seem to be more in "the real world".
Surely that is the wrong way round.
I know my emotions are all mixed up but this dissasotiation just seems the wrong way round. I know also my depression works this way and was wonderung if anybody else had these feelings.
Thanks for reading Pax
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paxo05
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hi their my friend done worry your not going mad or anything else the world in which we live in is the problem, when you look at what is happening around us it makes you think why why why, but the answer are there you just need to know where to look take care my friend kind regards bigalan
Maybe when your mind isn't clogged with 'to do' issues it can wander to some dark places where overthinking can lead you into unhealthy areas...............................like the meaning of life and/or 'What's the point ?'.
After 30+years of avoiding peace & quiet for fear of being hijacked by depression, and the only solution being to stay on the 'distraction' treadmill, I decided to take the antidepressant route to try for a better quality of life.
That's not the answer for everyone obviously, but it works for me ; consequently staring into the abyss no longer phases me.
Learning to be relaxed without getting intrusive thoughts is a bit of an art when it doesn't come naturally, but we can't be constantly on he move to keep the bogey-man away can we.
Do you think you need some intervention Pax..................counselling or meds ?
Hold that thought 'til tomorrow ; off to bed now it's 2am. xx
Had counselling and worked great. Just an observation as lfe at moment is a mess ( social services being a pain). So expected to be heading for depression again, having just had a bout.
Was suprised that my mood isnt lower....thought that strange?
Trying to stay away from meds as can make me worse. Had a bad time when last on them.
Seem to be able to manage these bouts ok using techniques learned in counselling.
Yes Pax I did have a good sleep ; hope you did too.
It's good hearing that you've got your own coping strategies, and it's not that surprising that we have to call on them on a regular basis considering what we've lost.
Hope your day is an ok one..............................Love Cat xx
As cat3 says I think your natural survival instinct kicks in when things are tough and that helps focus your mind. When your mind isn't focused then maybe it's drifting onto negative thoughts.
Have you looked into Mindfulness yet? It's a technique that lets you acknowledge those thoughts but not hold on to them. If you've got a smartphone then get the app called "Headspace" or go to headspace.com
Practising mindfulness is what got me out of my self destructive phase.
Seem to be simular to what I use along with my "safe place" that I can imagine I am in when things get to much.
Having just recovered from a low bout I was ready to dip again but havent. It could be I have cured my depression ......although I doubt it. It has even become a sort of friend sat there waiting for me. It comes and goes but I doubt I would miss it to much.
I know what you mean with this I think, although I haven't felt so down with it as you describe. But certainly when things are going rear end up I find that something of the 'old me' surfaces, and (I guess it is adrenaline kicking in) suddenly I seem to be much more alert, focussed andable to respond rationally and logically.
Unfortunately, because I no longer tolerate adrenaline well, with my HPA axis now shot to pieces because of the ME, this buzzy feeling is these days very short livedand once the crisis is over, or if I am unlicky, halfway through it, I run our of steam and crash! That is when the feelings of being all mixed up and out of sorts surface, as I chide myself for yet again disobeying the good advice I am so fond of giving to others and trying to run when I know full well that I can not even walk properly....literally as well as metaphorically.
So yes, I would put it down to the body's amazing 'fight or flight response', which is like a shot in the arm and gets us up and running. Trouble is for us it is a bit like the potion Dick Turpin allegedly gave Black Bess...it may have us on full throttle for a wee while but burnout is very very close indeed.
Take care thouh Pax, and as a work colleague used to say, 'chin up'. I find even when sent back to bed by my own bloodymindedly stupid overenthusiasm, I can usually muster the energy to keep the chin high enough to be thinking about when I get my legs back again...hope you can keep chipper too x
You're far from alone. Over recent months I've become more and more reclusive having had an absence. I'd been to docs and was halfway home when I realised the last thing I remembered before arriving at check in at doctors was thinking I had to get ready for docs.
There was NOTHING from that thought till checkin at docs and then the sudden realisation on way home caused massive panic attack!
The more reclusive I've become the less self confidence I've got and the inrusive thoughts with no foundation crack in accompanied with total paranio and then think I'm so tired of this, is it worth the effort anymore.
Up till this issue started 3 years ago I'd had a really busy active life, since leaving school at 16 I've always worked work 50-60hrs week over 5 days, playing and rehearsing with different bands (3 different bands at same time for a while) then the family, visting son on family days on ship (he's in royal navy) taking wife to visit relatives and days out. I'd drive all week as a lorry driver then more than happily drive 200mile on day trips with wife and family. As well as spending time with daughter and granddaughter.
Now I'm not allowed to drive, co-ordination, poor grip and absences means no more drumming or bands, no work, getting massive attacks of fatigue at slightest effort and if I 'push through it' then the pay back is total oblivion. The seizures come with no warning and at time I have no knowledge of them other than sudden onset of total wipe out. Luckily I don't have tonic clonic but partial complex and partial simple, these are cause by stable but in-operable temporal lobe tumour which, although not showing changes on scan, is generating more difficulties as time passes. Although having said the absences mean that walking into a head hight open kitchen cupboard the 'I'd shut?' doesn't help.
Given the losses to my life style and knowing I've had a full and active life up to now (60) it becomes hard to see the way forward or even if it's worth the effort, especially given the fact the propaganda from government make me feel like a scrounging wasteral that we'd all be better off with out. Todays news hasn't helped.
Sorry for dismal reply, just feeling more than little low at moment.
I know how you feel about the absenses. Can be frightening at times. Thankfully mine are controlled with meds once the found it was epilepsy causing it. Able to drive again which gives me a sort of achievement and purpose again.
I do get fed up with feeling a scurge on society as though I should be constantly cap in hand for any benefits. Even though prior my bi I worked 6 days a week doing 10 +hour shifts.
I dont think people understand its not just tge money I miss from not working its the self worth that I fond hard to substitute.
Best stop now as I feel I am in danger of slipping into the woe is me mode.
(just with myself, when things arent going well, i try to set about putting things straight. so its like consciously , actively working towards making things better, and i guess sometimes i feel better for it)
if i were to be honest, i read somewhere that life can sometimes seem kafkaesque, but i should not have latched onto this notion, underline that. and now i think if life is turned upside down, i will bloody well turn back again, because life can be the reverse of kafkaesque, and i either try to where possible in a positive, happy or determined, or arduous way try to turn life or m y thoughts back again.)
i am not sure how to answer the other part of your post Pax, and i guess that your counsellor has all the background, and i hope that she is indeed helping. i hope you can figure this out, either work it out by yourself or with all the help that you could do with, or a combination of both.
The counselling did help and left me with coping strategies although this was some time ago. But as I am still here they must be working.
The real irony is that at the time of my bi I was training to become a counseller myself. ......oh it would be so funny if it wasnt true..dont you love lifes humour.
Maybe this as also helped me deal with my depressions and accept them.
If I ever find a cure I will let you know.......or naybe write a book and retire on the profits....
it is good to know that the counselling gave you coping strategies.
life (and in my case thoughts) can be quite strange. (strange thinking would only apply to me tho Pax, joke)
but also it is remarkable how we do find ways of coping that are ok and even good, with all that potentially comes our way.
(sometimes with years and years of hindsight i do kind of wonder what was i thinking? to look back on my anxieties etc although perhaps thats just me)
sometimes life and thoughts can get turned from being upside down to the right way again when it is seemingly most impossible, and when people have been it for a very long haul. that is the really good strange thing.
(sorry if this reads as perhaps rather silly. i am on fairly new ground) i am coming from a similar mental health place with certain pressures, (tho it waxes and wanes, so i consider myself lucky) i do send you good wishes. x
I sometimes look back(just to see how far I have come) and cringe at how I wss and how I treat loved ones.
I was NOT a nice person at one point. Yes I could eccuse it by saying I was confused, frightened even. I had trouble comunicating even but I was definatley not nice. Altough I am not sweetness and light now I fel I am a better person than I was.
It would be easy to con myself into believing I am more the pre bi me, but hey we are honest here so I will admit I am not.
I even believe I am no longer COPING....no I think I have ADAPTED now to the NEW AND MAYBE UNIMPROVED ME.
They say you have to like yourself first before anyone else can like you.. ....this I fear I have to disagree. I have accepted things I do not like about myself and thats fine. I have tried to change and even ignore these things, but alas it makes no difference.
I hope this makes some sort of sense and that even if there are parts of you that you no longer like that it is not the end of the world.
A final thought.....keep on smiling.........make people wonder what you are up to
Pax you know i have been searching for the words that could alleviate, i went for a walk, but i dont have them.
it seems like you might have beating yourself up for a long time. it seems like you might be very unnecessarily hard on yourself. if this is so, it shouldnt be this way and you need support.
i know it is a distressing subject, but your question in this initial post and your response were well worded and articulate, please dont scoff but i thought this this person although he is feeling sadness, and needs support has an amazing mind.
with BI i have no experience of not liking myself.
there is someone in my family who is autistic. he berates himself a lot just for having autism , autism is something he cant help! brain injury is something that you should not beat yourself up for... i try to tell him that he is just an extraordinary person in many ways. ithink that or i hope that i can get him to see his true colours, even more beautiful for his autism , how his brain is different, just like brain injured brains are different.
or to help him, i hope i can just get him to see that he is in the very least just a damn good person.
none of us are perfect. i hope that him having the ability to see that he is in the very least good, helps him.
if i am honest , i feel as though i am running close to not coping with anxieties and stress myself, bu t just for the moment.
If you feel you need support or your wife could do with talking to someone from headway, please contact headway
I do have a great support system it was just me getting ready for another dip in mood as life is a bit up and down at the moment, but the dip is not there....yet.
My support network works when I am down I was just wondering how others were effected by life or like me when things are going great may mean a dip in mood.
thankyou for taking the time to explain about your support network
and also to reiterate your original point to me, i understand what you 're saying.
i apologise my responses can sometimes be a bit off kilter sometimes.
not to say that a low will happen but if it does, i wish for you any chink of light that you can get and although it might not seem like it at the time know that you can come through it
'Twas ever the way with me, 'before', and I'm working on re-training my thought processes now. There are various brain theories about dopamine, and one of the other ones, for me, it's a combination of PTSD, and being raised Catholic, always expecting to be 'caught', and living on a precarious edge of expecting the next disaster, and being over-prepared for it.
'Before', I absolutely thrived in crisis, I see it with some of the kids I work with, that 'normal is not enough', because they've been emotionally damaged, and therefore seek to create situations where emotions run high, just so they feel something. Dealing with the crises they create, and training them not to, is what keeps me in a job.
My ability to stay calm, and know the right procedure or process, or very quickly make up one that works is another reason I still have a job. Yes, some of the situations are heart-wrenchingly awful, and colleagues often say "I don't know how you do it.", but, if I didn't do it, who would?
Since the BI, I'm a lot calmer, the calmness used to scare me 'before', because I'd look for something bad that probably-wasn't-going-to-happen, because it didn't feel natural to me to be calm, to be still, it felt more natural to be ninety-miles-an-hour hectic. I'm not saying I don't have anxieties, I certainly do, but I can't afford to let my brain stay in the what-if spiral.
I'm rambling, I often do. What helps me, when I get into a negative thought pattern is to 'step back', and try to eliminate the unlikely probabilities. It was very hard at first, because my mind automatically veered towards the catastrophic, and I do have wobbles, I had the closest thing to a panic attack I've had in years, last week, gripped with a sudden terror that I was going to drop cheese into my tea-mug. Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? I was rooted to the spot with the fear that I might drop grated cheese into my tea, though, I was over-tired, and my mind wouldn't let me boot 'cheesy tea' into the 'highly improbable' area.
Yes I no the feeling me love very well days when I just sit and cry to part of another day not to bad every thing that goes wrong it's my fault till I could scream I have been on antidepressants for years believe me I had a suberanoid hemorage five and a half years ago I go for rehabilitation twice a week I have me psychologist and after this long still the smallest thing seems like a mountain but each time you feel ok your glad that some one has calmed you down to breath think nice thoughts like a holiday you been on even if you can't get head straight keep trying never give up a nd you will be surprised good look and remember there is some one out there ready to help take care good luck be. strong 💪
Maybe when lifes not going so well it gives me plenty to think about and when life is good I have too much time to think.
I am at a stage when the depressions no longer worry me. Yes life would be easier without them but hey who wants an easy life.....ok I would.
I no longer take meds for depression as they sometimes made mine worse. Cbt worked better for me. Helping me to look out for the signs and deal with it when I was low. Also understanding it wss a temporary state and I WOULD get better.
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Life after traumatic brain injury
Rebuilding a new life 
adjusting to a new way of life
Hang on in there… life can get better… 
in reality,life is sh*t
