Although I don’t post on here very often I do read what people write some new to the site with some of the same problems we all face. Also the people who have been around a while who are well versed in TRYING maybe that word sums it up. Trying to feel a bit better, trying to not feel tired, maybe trying something new that helps or just trying to just get through another day? I do feel sometimes a bit of a fake was my injury that bad on good days but on the bad days when I’m tired out fatigued depressed on the settee that’s the reminder. It definitely did happen and still remains.
I don’t like change but have had a lot all at the same time business closing and divorce the main two but unfortunately that’s life. The aftermath sorting out my life again. I think I posted when feeling a little crazy a month or 2 ago up dated my profile to “paint a different picture” you could say. I would say I had a breakdown which is not nice at all. I have had this happen to some extent before and know what it felt like. But not like this time too much all at once for me to cope. Crazy for days brain whirring round all day and night no off switch no tiredness at all for weeks. Hating bed time same routine each night a little sleep then awake. The days then wanting to sleep. Just emptiness left like a bad dream my brain trying to figure out what’s happening. Sole mate gone 17 years together then just over 6 months slow motion car crash knowing it’s happening but the end not quick enough probably due to me prolonging the inevitable.
I have struggled with crazy before when under stress i think that’s what brings it on. I was given cipramil for depression years ago and hated it on and off it never told that something else could be better. I hated it due to having no feelings at all when taking it. Then I started to pass blood so threw them in the bin and refused to take anything. I started to run at this point and it worked for half a day after the exercise I felt great normal. If I could just be like that all the time life would be fantastic. Just a mile on my local park lake Rother Vally to start until after a while got round it without stopping 3 miles. Then I ran the Sheffield half which is on today not running unfortunately. Then ran the London marathon twice 2014/2015 both times for Headway. I’m running London again next weekend for Headway number 44106. Better than the Halifax number. Well that’s the running back to what where I left off.
After all the changes I went back to the doctor literally begged for anything but not the SSRI they gave me previously. I just couldn’t cope at all. I was given amatriptaline this helped but wasn’t quite right. I phoned and told them it wasn’t right so I’m now on Mirtazapine this seems good no flat mood normal felling most of the time. Seems ok. A backwards step i thought taking tablets which I said I would never do but being that out of control that much was horrible. I’m starting to have a lot more better days now time the healer.
I now find that writing helps also just put down what i think or feel sort of channel to get it out. As above still don’t sleep great so that’s this mornings rambling.
I would like to say I read the barons sunscream and that’s what gave me inspiration I do love what he wrote. Matt’s pictures also fantastic.
I have put what I wrote on my giving page if you would like to read it great also any donations are more than welcome.
I think the writing process is very effective in dealing with 'things going round in the mind.' There is a recognised system called 'automatic writing' you just write down what comes to mind as the thought machine begins to turn. No editing, no stopping to think about what you are writing, just get those thoughts into words. The process is called 'experience, objectify, rationalise and neutralise. It's like CBT and mindfulness in experiencing, identifying and rationalising your repetitive thought processes. Once you realise they are just thoughts going round and round in your head, what's known as a feedback loop, the link begins to break down. If this process of automatic writing is used each time the negative thought processes return the link between them and depression keeps getting broken. As you have noticed with running you have replaced these feedback loops with 'something else' to think about.
Sometimes though as you have experienced life gets a little too much and medication is required. I wish you well, keep writing and running, good luck.
The running blanks the mind especially when you first start as, breathing a problem or muscles in legs hurt but keep on going push though it. That’s when the thoughts change and mind becomes blank when you stop, your not thinking anymore. The writing seems to come like that also it just comes out but try to just do it and I can be stumped. It was when I wasn’t on tablets and up all night the brain running faster.
It’s strange still not sure on mindfulness and cbt I get it I think Echart Tolle talks ect been listening for a few years. Helps me sleep usually fall a sleep with my ear phones in. Maybe it’s just replacement of problems and being in the complaining mind. The I and the mind be in the now no past no future just now is all we have. All great but how to keep on that thought process? I have a good life don’t struggle for money great family. So why be depressed? Why not feel right? I would like to know your thoughts on this?
Sounds like you got the sleeping cracked, just listen to Echart Tolle.
On a serious note, mindfulness and CBT has been developed for psychological stress specifically, depression and anxiety. There are variations for addictions and other conditions. There are no recognised variations for neuropsychological conditions, the functional mechanisms of the brain.
Some people with BI's do find mindfulness and CBT helpful for the psychological effects of their conditions but most find the process a nightmare. It depends to some extent on the brain injury. Also many people get diagnosed with depression and anxiety following a brain injury but they don't have either, it's mistaken for the effects of the injury.
'Why get depressed. Why not feel right?' you ask. I had a few bouts of depression for short periods before my brain injury. My experience found these are incomparable, there is nothing to link the two at all. I found after my injury I became very motivated and positive to basically get myself 'fixed.'
The depression I had before though was different, it was a bit like yours, insomnia because of looping thoughts. I went to the Dr etc and sent to a psychologist who said face up to your thoughts and don't drink alcohol. (I drank 3-4 pints and smoked pot to get some sleep during these periods). I stopped drinking and faced up to my thought processes by using the automatic writing technique described above. I found that if I was in bed and the thoughts started to unravel I just wrote them down as they came. I did this every time.
It's an interesting process because if you write the 'stuff' down it goes out of your head and you can sleep. I did this whenever the looping thoughts came, no matter where I was. It's important to read these notes but after a few days or when you feel ok. It's weird it's like reading someone else's ramblings. And ramblings they are when read in a good state of mind. It's quite shocking when you see where your mind has gone.
At this point you begin to realise that your mind is full of irrational junk that somehow gets triggered and it unwinds in a repetitive story. Same crap all tangled up. Your mind latches onto a thread and out it comes, same stuff from a different angle but all linked together, one load on top of another. When you begin to write this 'stuff' down on a regular basis you begin to see it as if it is another person, this is the point of recognition. These thought streams are a person to some extent that's generated by your own mind. All the 'stuff' that has happened in your lifetime that has never been faced up to. Layer upon layer of it, the effects accumulate throughout a life time.
When you begin to unravel this through the writing process you kind of relive it, experience the body sensations, smells, thoughts etc from that time. You begin to see it for what it is. You are objectifying it and rationalising it. After going through this for a number of times you see it as part of something else. It is not you in the here and now, it is a load of jumbled thoughts.
It worked for me and have not had a days depression since. We're talking a decade.
I should be able to recite it word for word by now as well as Alan Watts. Figs from thistle trees and so on great sleeping aid.
I know when this all started when I had the accident I left the job I was doing couldn’t keep awake was so fatigued. Couldn’t concentrate just wanted to be like I was pre accident just battled on for 6 months until I just broke. I seem to get really angry and withdrawn hated everyone at work. A stores guy especially. I went to my parents and said I couldn’t carry on. I felt like I just died then became someone else. I went and worked in the family shop and did building work so really it was good I got paid for doing 2 jobs. I left and only said bye to the owners not to the people I worked with also the office had changed to the bosses daughter and wife working which didn’t help. I saw some of the machinists after and one came over said to me your a Laborer now and grinned like I had been down graded and he was so pleased. It was a us and them they were shop floor machinist and I worked in the office. I had nightmares for years about working there always trying to put it all right in my head. Strange thing life my friend from school stayed working there and has his own business now has a large engineering business. Probably would have been me but I’m glad now it wasn’t my life stuck in a oily factory.
I used drink and drugs block out what I think was my fail in life continued for years. I think it’s just a cycle felt crap drink and it becomes regular just doing it for the sake of it. Just go out for a meal have a bottle of wine or 6 pints on a weekday. It’s Friday have a drink same Saturday and hungover Sunday have a hair of the dog. The running stopped it as couldn’t do both but when the running stopped the drinking started. My ex wife didn’t really ever say much left me too it most of the time. Not had a drink or illegal drug since June 2020 about 15 months been separated a just over a year still don’t feel right back to tablets what’s next?? The race to find someone else kids and what I missed in the last relationship. I can just do nothing now and it doesn’t bother me nothing seems to bother me only been a while on these tablets maybe they are a bit like pot without the high.
That was the problem for us non communication she said she didn’t want kids until after her being 30. We tried and nothing happened we did IVF and that messed her up me as well. I felt so bad when she said we were doing it like I had failed. 4 years of that went on dragged out by waiting for appointments did IUI and then 2 IVF she knew when it hadn’t worked and told me in floods of tears and still had to go to the hospital. She did all the injections at home hated needles and we were told each time we had an egg and sperm put it in and didn’t work. Unexplained we were told. She didn’t want to do it again. Then the business was closing she changed told me I was going to get depressed I had to get a job. I don’t think I can read people but I won’t forget how she look at me each time I tried to sort things out she just didn’t want it but couldn’t say so to my face made it all far worse.
Statistics 80% mire likely to separate after head injury 3 times more likely after ivf fail. Put both that together and not really surprised.
My loops are different to above though I remember the good times us traveling holidays meals out that’s why it was so hard she probably remembered all the above ivf her working me not only when Covid started. I said once I had the best 4 years and she said it was her worst 4 years.
Well that’s probably another chunk of it I don’t think it’s what keeps me a wake not now.
Sorry for my rambling but you seem to have got it sorted in your head I can say all this but my story still remains.
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Louis Theroux On Brain Injury
