hope, a “symptom” of recovery

I love a good paradox!

Regulating an excess of joy and optimism is not something I, a “depressive”, ever thought I’d have to deal with and let’s face it ~ it doesn’t fit the stereotype, but in my experience(s) of recovering from depression, this need to regulate an unfamiliar energy of hope and empowerment has become one of the first hurdles I encounter

to such an extent that when I had “my episodes” they were, largely, a consequence of not being able to manage a rapid ascent out of the depressive spiral ~ something my wife and I came to call “escalation”.

A clinical term? Seems very broad and non-specific, not very sciencey, but might explain why the appointed psychiatrist started wondering whether I would qualify for the bipolar box.

Surprise! You don’t get the grand prize of genuine happiness but here, have this booby prize ~ it’s like the high-fructose corn syrup of happiness: very intense and very bad for your health longterm, and only a synthetic facsimile of genuine happiness.

Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven | Godspeed You! Black Emperor

But I’m getting there, and pleased that I now have healthier ways of responding when this “symptom of recovery” manifests in the middle of the night in the form of All The Things I’d Like To Do With My Life Now That I’m Not Incapacitated by Despair.

Sounds like a post-rock album!

I no longer jump out of bed to drink coffee and smoke cigarettes and attempt to complete a 5000-word essay from scratch. After a profoundly inspiring day at TAFE yesterday, I got myself to sleep last night with some guided yoga nidra and even when I woke through the night, I remembered my tools, directed my attention away from the mind and into the body, got back to sleep.

Success!

Then I woke again, as though by the sheer pace and volume of mental formations.

And after some deliberation, decided, Hey, it’s okay: I’ve been sleeping pretty well lately, I’ll cope with being tired through a day of working bees, I’ve got this.

I backed myself.

Who knew though, that needing to regulate joy would ever be a thing. I learnt that from Filipe Rocha at The Center for Human Flourishing, and will be ever-grateful because now I know what I’m responding to, not some broadly unhelpful term like ‘mania’.

I’m excited about the future! Good for me.

I can highly recommend Filipe’s course by the way, Cultivating Emotional Balance. Emotional balance and fluidity, nervous-system regulation and a general awareness that we are nothing more and nothing less than a spirited collection of environment-sensing cells a few billion years into evolution. Perspective, BOOM! We got this!

reporting on recovery, and offering support

I’m really proud of myself and very excited because I feel I can say I am in recovery from mental illness, which is no small deal.

Trigger warning though:

I have been debilitatingly depressed for months at a time in the last 10 years or so. I have experienced heart-breaking bouts of acute suicidal ideation and a deep sense of alienation from my self and my worth. (This is a trauma response I have learnt about and am able to see for what it is: no more and no less than fight-or-flight, my nervous system trying to protect me from acute and sometimes chronic emotional pain and suffering.) I have been through 2.5 episodes of spiritual emergenc(y) and about .5 episodes of full-blown acute episodic stress-induced psychosis. I have been dependent on drugs and alcohol and various behavioural addictions since my early teens. I am now 39! Apart from a bit of mild binge-eating or a dose of half-mindless entertainment, I am now nearly addiction free. (The final addiction to drop is our attachment to false ideas about reality.)

I no longer get floored by depression ~ I have learnt and am teaching myself how to respond to life in way that doesn’t result in debilitating overwhelm. I am able to see when my nervous system has been triggered and know that any thoughts (say, of worthlessness) are cognitive distortions. Most days I experience micro-mystical states of deep peace and contentedness that are dependent on no external source ~ due to the self-work I am doing, these moments of genuine happiness are the result of being in relationship with my true self and with reality as it is, compared with wishing reality were how I think it should be.

I am reporting this after an exchange with Zane tonight that previously would have totally derailled me. A minor (but vaguely problematic) exchange that remained minor because I saw what was happening: we were triggered = responding half-consciously from dysregulated nervous systems that believed we were in the past, not the now. I saw what was happening, and exited the situation instead of trying to make Zane see reason (read: instead of trying to make reality or Zane behave as I think they should). Earlier in the evening I had self-regulated after Zane had been pushy and rude. Then we had the exchange where we were triggered and I co-regulated with Nikki. And I have been at baseline ever since, whereas a year and a half ago I would have still been fuming.

In fact I now need to regulate joy because I am so excited about other positive things going on!

Previously I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy these positive things because once I was triggered it would sometimes take me days to come back to baseline. I would let triggering situations hijack my happiness and I would feel so trapped in suffering that suicide felt like the only option.

I didn’t know how to respond to or cope with life in a healthier way, but now I do and am learning more all the time.

So I’ve come a long way!

Nikki is doing really well too and we were able to report to our relationship counsellor today that we each feel we are genuinely healthy ~ at least, as healthy as we can expect. (I’ve since re-encountered Gabor Mate’s idea that a lot of our mental and physical symptoms today are the reasonable responses of our whole organism to the toxic culture we are growing in.) Sometimes we are distressed and suffering acutely, but this does not mean we are unwell. It means we are human. It seems really obvious now, but it’s been a huge paradigm shift to feel that.

The cool thing is … the really fucking cool thing: this sense of wellness among suffering has not resulted from some miracle or fluke; it is the result of some 15+ years of (self-) inquiry, application, research, therapy, meditation, a bit more inquiry, some giving up, a lot of starting again, despair, triumphs, bum steers and mistakes and lessons and gradually a very solid deepening of self- and other-love.

It’s been a fucken journey! It still is. I’m finding my way. Makes my heart swell inside to think of it and report this here.

And like all before me who travelled the Path, I carry a torch that lights not just my way but others’ as well, and apart from being excited about my own increasingly consistent wellbeing I am excited about beginning to support others more on the Path.

I’m starting to offer dana-based coaching, so if you’re curious about that, get in touch at that link. I am starting to offer this in in the most ad-hoc fashion, making it up as I go along ~ join me if you’re ready to explore the Path together.

My enrolment at TAFE Qld was finalised today so it’s now official. I am going to study Mental Health (Peer Work) and I feel ready ~ ready to use my lived experience of recovery to help others move toward recovery and health and wholeness as well.

Did you know the word “wealth” is derived from weal, meaning good health? I find that weally intewesting.

I bought Gabor Mate’s book The Myth of Normal to celebrate enrolment, because we got an advance payment from cLink and I bought myself a 5-subject lecture pad as well because hey, nerds like to live a little as well!

On that note (book), go well and godspeed 🙂

👆🏽 This on the back of the following report that I may be the world’s newest card-carrying member of the mad pride movement. I am proud that I “went mad” at least 2.5 times and came back from the brink alive and well, bearing insights for the village.

And I repeat:

like all before me who travel the Path, I carry a torch that lights not just my way but others’ as well, and apart from being excited about my own increasingly consistent wellbeing I am excited about beginning to support others more on the Path.

I am starting to offer dana-based coaching so if you’re curious about that, get in touch at that link and we’ll arrange a time to catch up.

imagination + trauma release

Working with a Somatic Experiencing therapist yesterday, I realised we have this incredible interface between the mind and the body and it’s called the imagination ~ shaman’s know this, and we too can learn the language of the body by tuning in to the imagery that comes up during emotional episodes.

When I allowed it, mine was a snake uncoiling from a clay-lump of anxiety to eat up the meat-confetti of shame that was underneath an immense well of sadness. The trauma release that followed was blessedly story-free.

The body really does know the score … and … because I love mincing metaphors … the music is light and sweet.