overwhelmed

[dragonlady7]

I'm just feeling really overwhelmed by all of life. Z has been being nice... er... to me of late, and I was at least feeling that maybe he understood how bad things are with me at the moment. But now I'm not feeling that anymore, so, boo.

I keep forgetting what I'm doing. I feel like I'm in a fog most of the time. I can't process things; everything pricks painfully at my brain and makes me feel like shit in new and different ways. I forget things, then get anxious that I'm missing something; I can't leave the house without absentmindedly patting at my bag and mentally running down a list of what's supposed to be in said bag. Said list usually has about ten spaces for items, and the first three or so are filled out-- wallet, keys, phone-- and then the rest of the spaces are just blanks, which I stumble through by rote without actually figuring out what they ought to be. Um, thing, stuff, other thing, small square thing, needle or something, blank blank thing. Much of my life is like that-- there are blanks, and I miss what's supposed to be in them but don't have time to stop and consider what those blanks might be standing for. I do stop, sometimes, and consider, but never make any headway.
So anything I can do on autopilot, I do-- laundry, dishes, skating, work, and little dribs and drabs of grocery shopping whilst on my lunch break at work-- just so I'm at least being useful. And everything else?
I worry about. I just sit and worry, or stand and worry, or pace and worry. And what am I worrying about? Blanks. I keep drawing blanks. I'm so worried-- I don't remember why. There's something missing and I should stand and think what it is. I can't remember and now there's something else I have to do. I'd better go and do it. But I'm too anxious to concentrate on-- wait, what was I doing?
And when I do something bad, something stupid or socially awkward or incorrect-- my mind seizes upon it, as something real to worry about, and I will spend between twelve and thirty-six hours nonstop beating myself up over whatever it was. Unless I can find something else to occupy myself with, which I do as much as I can, but it's only the things I can do on autopilot, and while those are more or less endless, I am also consumed with worry about all the more complicated things I'm supposed to be working on. Which I can't quite remember. Or, I can, but I know there's no way in hell I'll have the mental fortitude to work them out just now. I have to sit and design a dress, I have to make several shopping-type decisions, I have to do other complicated things I know I'm not capable of right now, but I can't stop worrying about them.
Z doesn't really get it, and I don't know how to explain it. On Sunday I had a rare moment of inspiration and enthusiastically outlined an idea I'd had for a really neat thing to make, and he said, in that flat cold way he does when he's annoyed with me, "Well, you have an awful lot of things already to make," which deflated me entirely, and sent me back into my ugly default blank worried state. I guess I complain too much, I feel shitty about how much I complain, I'm such a jerk, I never follow through on my promises, god I just break promise after promise after promise, I'm utterly worthless, etc.
Normally I don't have much patience for that sort of thinking but lately it's pretty much all I do. Annoying as fuck, isn't it?
The thing that scared me rather badly today was as I was driving home from work I was thinking and forgetting what I was thinking about and wondering what was wrong with my feelings-- I'm just not feeling things the way I normally do, especially not good things-- and I remembered a friend in college who told a terrifying account of when she had a psychotic break and had to be hospitalized because she couldn't figure out what was real and what wasn't, and she just couldn't feel anything, and I wondered if this was like that. And that scared me because I knew she'd sort of never been right again. And oh god.

Today I realized it's my last night at home before the bout on Saturday, and so I really needed to clean the house-- kkatowll is coming to the bout, how exciting, and that's great but the bed she's got to sleep in is covered with laundry I haven't put away which is getting wrinkled because I didn't fold it either, and I really should. And while I'm at it I really should go through some of the living room clutter and at least locate several important missing items which I'll remember what they are in a minute if I think. I mean, I'd like to have a super-clean house, like some magazine or something, and I have a party in a couple of weeks I'd better start cleaning well for just cuz if it's cluttered all the people who've got to fit won't. But mainly I just need some basic tidying done, and tonight's the last chance to do it.

So I wandered into the living room, where Z had just awoken from a couch-nap, and said that I supposed I'd better get to cleaning the house. But I came and sat beside him first, and told him I needed a hug, as things were rather trying just now. He hugged me a bit woodenly, and said something to the effect of There there, once the house is clean you'll feel much better, I hear it's really nice to live in a clean house.
Which infuriated me, because I'd just been telling him in the car ride home how fucking horrible this late winter has been, how worried I am that there's something really wrong with my brain, how unhappy I am with everything.
Of all things to worry about, the state of my housekeeping was one thing I hadn't felt like shit about.
Well, I hadn't. I do now though. Thanks. It's my shit that's all over the house, except for the Christmas presents Z hasn't moved from the living room, and the stack of stuff over there and this and that other thing, and all his clothes I've washed that I haven't put away for him, and the shower and the toilet and the sink and the kitchen and the floors...

Well, it set me off into a feminist rage, which is just what I needed. Because, of course, the housekeeping is my problem; sure, 70% of the clutter is mine, but he has never cleaned the toilet once since we moved out of Jersey City in January of '03. It's pretty much textbook privilege-- sure, he thinks about it sometimes, but if he doesn't want to think about it, he doesn't have to, not the way I do. Because it's my job. Apparently. Or maybe it just bothers me more and I worry about it more for no reason and it's not because I was raised female in this society. Or maybe I really am crazy, which is what I've been worrying about all winter.

Grah. Wave arms in air, hulk smash, sulk, etc. It's not constructive and it's not useful but I don't actually have a functioning brain at this point. I've spent the entire day chewing incessantly in a crippling-social-anxieties way about something that happened yesterday, and it just won't fucking let go, and now Z's aggressively cleaned the kitchen and made silent-judgy* piles of my clutter (*He probably is not judging me but I am taking it as such because have we mentioned yet this entry that I am probably mentally ill) and I've spent the entire time feeling like shit for saying anything, and I'm still furious, but mostly just guilty and sad and brain-poking-me-and-reminding-me-I'm-shitty-y). And now I'm wound up and feeling like utter shit, and feel obligated to stay awake and listen for the dishwasher to finish so I can shut off the water, even though this is my last chance to get a reasonable night's sleep for this whole week.

Oh my fucking God what is wrong with my brain.
Also I can't remember what I came to the computer to look up. I just sat down to Google something. And I don't remember what. It was 45 minutes ago now. Gone, I tell you. Gone.
*sobs quietly*

Edited to add The fucking dishwasher's leaking. It's a good thing I stayed up.

Comments

[besina-sartor.livejournal.com]

Go see your doctor hon, it sounds like you've got a case of clinical depression (take it from me, I've got all sorts of depression; manic, SAD, clinical...) The doc can help, and no, you're not crazy, trouble remembering and fogged thinking, feeling lost or in a rut with no way out -- they're all symptoms of it.

[ktlovely.livejournal.com]

THIS. Yes, please. Doctor. Go.

I normally don't comment on strangers' posts, but I found you through a friend's friends-list and this post grabbed me by the throat and shook me. I've got clinical depression (thanks, genetics), and I spent anywhere between eight and twelve months in 2009-10 wandering around in the shrieking wilderness of my own brain before I finally got in to see a medical professional. I've been on medication for just over a year now and the recovery process was like coming out of the fog you're talking about. All of a sudden my brain just worked better...even stuff I didn't know I'd lost, like my ability to remember details or focus on tasks for any length of time.

It got really bad for me before I finally got scared enough to talk to a doctor. Looking back, that's the one thing I would change if I could--I would have gone in sooner, because it was such a dramatic-but-oh-so-simple fix.

*re-lurks*

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

I think we've spoken before-- I recognize the girls in white dresses! :)
I hope, I hope, I hope it's something that can be fixed, and not some deep inner failing. I was enjoying how my 30s were going because I was getting better and better insight into my unique and strange cognitive processes, and hopefully learning to be more efficient, but as the fog gets thicker even though I know the underlying processes more, I'm just getting less and less productive = getting less and less of what I want out of life. Argh. I hope I can come out of the fog, one way or another, because it's damned stressful to be forever missing something and worried about it.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

I suppose that's a relief. Well, I should get it checked out, I guess.

[jennnlee.livejournal.com]

Yup, I agree with the "see a doctor" comments. I've struggled with clinical depression since I was 19. General feeling of overwhelmed-ness and brain-fog is a big part of it. You need to take care of you, sweetie.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Thank you.
It certainly can't hurt to consult one, since this sort of thing runs in the family. I mean, I've always been easily confused about routine things, but it's just way worse lately and it's getting to me. Bleh.

[eveiya.livejournal.com]

You know, I've dumped and evicted people I lived with for never cleaning the toilet and never doing any housework except for leaping up with a bad grace AFTER I'd started doing it. Sure, there were probably other good reasons too, but those still played a significant part.

Your current state of mind sounds like boredom, stress and mild depression to me. I recognise it... I think it's kind of my normal state. I find February/March is commonly the worst time of year for me; just when the dismal Scottish winter seems to have been going on forever with no sign of ending.

Personally I don't favour the see your doctor/get medicated option. In my view, anti-depressants generally help people to carry on living an unsatisfactory or downright shitty life. I guess I also hold the currently eccentric belief that sometimes we just should be stressed, depressed, miserable, chaotic; that it's often not an illness that needs urgent treatment but rather a perfectly appropriate response to circumstances. So I tend to go for the take a break/change your life/job/lover/whatever method - if I can find the energy and if there's any possibility of doing any of that. But even if you just do nothing at all and continue as you are, I'm sure this state will pass eventually - in a month, or three months, or six months, or whatever.

I've had periods of, I guess, a kind of paralysing depression lasting various amounts of time from months to years since I was in my teens; I suppose over the decades they've cost me quite a lot financially and in terms of career, life status and possibly friendships and relationships, but over the years I've come to care less and worry less about these things than I used to initially, whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. *shrugs* The worst times for me were probably the earliest times, when I didn't know if I'd ever come out of that state and thought I was permanently completely dysfunctional. Not that you can ever be truly certain, and it's definitely very hard to remember or imagine being in any different state when you're actually in that state of mind, but so far I've always come out of it again sooner or later.

OK, so this is getting kind of rambling... It's not really possible to offer advice when people are so different. But I think you're nowhere near crazy, so you should at least stop stressing about that, and I think things will change again for you no matter what you choose to do.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

My boss has an anxiety disorder he refuses to medicate; my former store manager is on disability leave just now with a horrible case of bipolar disorder that's pretty much destroyed her life over the last five years. So I can see there's a spectrum; the boss just frets but is happier, long-term, doing it unmedicated than living his whole life doped up. (He tried it, and hated it; now he's fine except for occasional panics that he rides out.) The store manager, though, is dangerous and violent if not under medical care-- but the medical care isn't doing much and she nearly died of lithium poisoning shortly before she had to go on leave, because they weren't monitoring her dosages.

My first impulse was that I can't handle working full-time-- I need more time alone, at home to center myself, and then I feel like I'd be fine. But I've tried that and I don't know if it would really be a solution, or if it just looks like it would be because it's unattainable. (If I cut my hours, I lose health insurance, and then I can't skate, and then the only thing that consistently makes me happy in my life is gone.)
Bah. My just-younger sister lived with me for a year; she was on medication for depression, and it made her anxiety worse but if the depression was treated, then she had the strength to deal with the anxiety.

My total inability to focus and my utter lack of skill at math have already pretty much crippled my career-- I work retail.

I've been overall happy with Z for about 9 years now, and he does do quite a bit of housework, it's just that I seem to have been assigned ownership of a lot of it without really knowing why. Possibly because during the times I'm unemployed I feel obligated to do it since I'm home all the time. But as I write this he's just hauled all the paper recycling out in the rain, after having put it together last night and left it carefully by the door so it wouldn't get soaked through before the truck comes this morning. He's not so bad as all that, and he's right in that a lot of the clutter is mine, but for some reason that means that I'm in charge of all of it, and I think that's weird.

Bah, I dunno, hence all the whining. Your perspective, as a genuine and true original who's lived so far to tell the tale, is certainly valuable.

[kittyc1978.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna echo that go to the dr thing. U r not crazy!

And your Z ...needs to scrub the toilet once in awhile.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Oh, he does plenty; I'm not saying he never does anything. But there are a lot of things we take turns doing, and he does slightly more of than me, or I always wind up asking him to do while I'm doing something else. And i just feel like there are all these things I do that somehow don't count toward the cumulative totals of housework, and if I've just spent six hours on laundry and cleaning the bathroom and sit down to relax a minute, and he gets up and starts cleaning the kitchen, I feel guilty the entire time. He may not even be expecting me to help; he may well realize that I've just spent my entire day working on housework. But I feel like he doesn't know that. And sometimes he'll refer to the chore he's done more than half of, in a slightly wounded tone, and I'm never calm enough to coherently point out all the invisible things. Like the toilet, and the laundry.
I like doing laundry, in that it satisfies me; I have a slightly OCD kinda thing about doing it "efficiently", and I have a lot of fussy/delicate clothes that can't just be tossed in the washer and dryer and folded whenever I remember. I find it satisfying to do the laundry just-so and get everything clean. I don't have the slightest interest in putting it away, however. And just because I find it satisfying doesn't mean it's a hobby and I'd rather be doing it than sitting on the couch. I mean, it gets done because I'd rather do it than sit and fret about it not being done, but that's not the same. So it's really not fair that somehow the hours a week I spend on laundry, even in weeks when I'm tearingly busy and don't have time to do it "right", etc., never get factored into our mental algebra of who's keeping up with the housework and who's slacking.

Buh. But either way, I definitely feel better having identified that this feeling is not rational or integral-- it's kind of 'external' and therefore it's not like I deserve this for living my life badly, or something. That alone is an immense comfort to me. So it's helping. I should go to the doctor anyway, so I'll add it to the list of things I need checked out.

[kittyc1978.livejournal.com]

I know he does a lot.

Jer doesn't change diapers. I finally told him he needed to do it regardless of the things he always does. The toilet is everyone's diaper. I'm not attacking him. I know you love him.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Good point. :) Both of them.

[kittyc1978.livejournal.com]

When I was medicated I was on a tiny dose of an ssri and it made me feels much better. I took it for a year and then went off it slowly. I've never needed it again, even with your family history itis possible you're just in an accrue state, and don't discount to
Our recent loss and that idiot at the store, which would make anyone shaky!

Sometimes just telling your GP that you feel bad helps a lot.'

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Yes. I'm really hoping that it's something that either I can medicate briefly and go back to being able to live my live around with little issue. That reassures me; some people seem to think that if you go on an SSRI you'll be dependent. :/ My sister keeps trying to taper off of hers but gets bad if she does.
Ah well, all of this advice has made me feel like I could feel better again someday soonish, at least. That's very comforting.

[jennnlee.livejournal.com]

When I was medicated, the whole point of it was to bring me up to a level where I could function on a daily basis, then I saw a therapist who helped me figure out how to deal with the underlying issues that triggered my depression. Once I got that figured out, I weaned off the meds and haven't been on them in years.

I still have bad days, but I have better emotional tools to deal with them, if that makes sense.

Anyway, wanted to throw that out there too. And hey, shoot me an email sometime, or a PM on Facebook. I think you can get to my cell # there too. We've "known" each other for a while now, though we've never met, and I was thinking about you a lot today. I'm available if you ever need an ear.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

I have had this tab open in the background behind all the other zillion tabs for like weeks now, and I just meant to say, thank you. (I only found this because my browser crashed three times today and I finally got up the incentive to go through and figure out why I had these zillion tabs open.)
Things aren't really better, but having figured out what's wrong has given me a little more ability to work around it, at least.

[buschibaby.livejournal.com]

"And when I do something bad, something stupid or socially awkward or incorrect-- my mind seizes upon it, as something real to worry about, and I will spend between twelve and thirty-six hours nonstop beating myself up over whatever it was."

This describes the exact state I get to when I pass the line from mostly fine to properly depressed. Not forgiving yourself for things that are objectively not that important isn't a good place to be in. See a doctor, whether you're interested in medication or not. There's a lot of other help out there - are there any counselling services you can access? And the thing that meds do do is give you a bit of distance from the stuff that's eating you and some time out from the paralysis to work on getting things to a better place for when you come off them again.

Oh, for what it's worth, one other failsafe symptom of depression for me is that my relationship seems broken.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

It's so annoying! I hate it when other people do that, and try to talk them out of it, but somehow can't convince myself that I should get the same consideration. Bah!

>broken
It doesn't seem broken, per se, but he seems like he's upset or annoyed with me all the time, and then I drive myself frantic wondering why, and then he is annoyed because I'm inexplicably frantic. I console myself that I'm self-aware enough that I'm nowhere near as annoying as I was at 19 (heh) or 22, but not quite able to freaking stop it already. So I can't tell if he's actually annoyed, or just trying to stay out of my way since I'm obviously in the middle of something bizarre.

Ha ha, I have your baby post open in another tab somewhere to comment upon but until I get around to that, i will just say congrats! She looks lovely! here. :)