A step at a time
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Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Saltburn UK
Posts: 278
A step at a time
I was just feeling a bit sorry for myself,going through depression which has been brought on by the stress ( I think) of my partners drinking. Then I came across these words in a post by Purple Squirrel 'Sometimes we take steps backwards, sometimes we stand still. That is the nature of recovery - we don't always move smartly forward.'
I think all of us who have suffered need to be reminded, and be gentle with ourselves during what can be a slow process of healing, one step at a time.
I'm thankful that the day gets better, waking is the worst time.
I look forward to the day when I can embrace the sunshine and the birds singing with the joy that I normally do.
I realise now that in my efforts to keep everything level for myself and my family I wasn't watching what must have been my own fatigue-the main lesson from Al Anon seems to be look after your own health, with hindsight I wasn't detaching as much as I thought I was.
Just wanted to rant a little.
I think all of us who have suffered need to be reminded, and be gentle with ourselves during what can be a slow process of healing, one step at a time.
I'm thankful that the day gets better, waking is the worst time.
I look forward to the day when I can embrace the sunshine and the birds singing with the joy that I normally do.
I realise now that in my efforts to keep everything level for myself and my family I wasn't watching what must have been my own fatigue-the main lesson from Al Anon seems to be look after your own health, with hindsight I wasn't detaching as much as I thought I was.
Just wanted to rant a little.
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Anchorage, Alaska
Posts: 4,719
These emotions come and go, even when we wake up with joy! I had a great morning/afternoon yesterday, working in my yard in the sunshine, etc. But come evening, when spending time with my family for Father's Day, it hit me - the grief of the relationship dream lost. I went home very sad last night, and cried myself to sleep.
The good thing that comes out of these moments nowadays is I no longer need to react to those feelings. I can just feel them until they pass.
Comes and goes, ebb and flow of life, I suppose. Hang in there, painterman.
The good thing that comes out of these moments nowadays is I no longer need to react to those feelings. I can just feel them until they pass.
Comes and goes, ebb and flow of life, I suppose. Hang in there, painterman.
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: new moon road
Posts: 1,545
Painterman,
Yes, clinical depression does create quite deep exhaustion. It is a different experience than the fatigue that comes from sadness because the illness of depression actually impacts the body's organs and we even lose brain tissue during clinical depression (fortunately the brain is regenerative and grows new brain tissue). Depression is especially hard on the heart. (Well, that's true in a double sense, isn't it?)
Mornings are very hard. I believe this is due to the serotonin drop in evening. There is no thinking oneself out of depression, it is a form of brain illness, and all the uplifting books in the world do not treat it. We are very lucky to have medicines for this illness, as the world has lost so many people in times past to depression. Abraham Lincoln suffered terribly, from adolescence, and his friends sometimes took turns staying with him to prevent him from committing suicide. Fortunately, depression does not stay, even clinical depression, it cycles out, and he survived. And changed the world, I might add.
Some men who suffer depression try to treat it with almost manic work schedules or with extreme risk-taking sports. I have forgotten the name of the man--a doctor-- who climbed Everest several times--he is in the Krakauer book about the Everest disaster-- he has given interviews about his fight with depression and throwing himself into mountain climbing to try to escape it. Since depression is so fatiguing, he must have incredible stamina.
What people do not know about the drug Ecstasy is that use of that drug --and even only 5 or 6 uses--can do brain damage which can result in a permanent state of depression. One does not cycle out of it. Medicines do not treat it. It is permanent. More teens need to know this. Anyone who has known the suffering of clinical depression would never understand why any human being would risk it becoming a permanent condition.
Ongoing emotional stress over a long period of time can trigger clinical depression because the cortisol level in the body malfunctions. The person is in an unrelenting fight-or-flight state over a long period of time and the cortisol skyrockets while the serotonin, so necessary to our ability to experience pleasure, plummets. (It has been a while since I've read a text on depression but I think I have explained that correctly). Without serotonin, we suffer, deeply, for nothing, absolutely nothing, is pleasurable and all of life, every inch of it, hurts. Our body hurts, too.
Ongoing unrelenting emotional stress causing low-grade depression has been compared to an iron building sitting in the rain, year after year. With each rain, it rusts, little by little, it rusts over time. It stands there for a long time, rusting away. And then one day, it cannot hold anymore. It collapses. The mental and emotional breakdown when low-grade depression turns into major depression is like that.
People, especially men, are often ashamed of this mental illness because our country is so resistant to believing there is a state of mind so debilitating that one cannot just read more happy books and watch funny TV and sit in the sun and cure it. They do not understand the difference between deep sadness and clinical depression.
You have been through hell with your AW, and I think sometimes men with alcoholic wives do not have the therapeutic release of floods of crying that women engage in. Many women here at SR describe their hours and days of tears and maybe those tears are releasing all that stress that men do not release. Maybe those tears are saving some of them from clinical depression.
When my son suffered the illness, he slept so much, so much, he would sleep 16-18 hours at a time. He was disabled by the illness, it was very clear, until the medicines began to balance his brain chemicals, bringing the serotonin up to a normal level.
So, I share all this just to affirm that you do suffer, have suffered, and also to confirm for you that you will get better. You will emerge from this darkness a changed man, you will believe in life, you will laugh again, you will want to go out in the world. No matter what your AW is doing. Once your depression lifts, you will be able to really and truly live life and you will, I promise, love your life once more. And no one will be able to touch that.
Just hold on, you are emerging more and more each day.
Yes, clinical depression does create quite deep exhaustion. It is a different experience than the fatigue that comes from sadness because the illness of depression actually impacts the body's organs and we even lose brain tissue during clinical depression (fortunately the brain is regenerative and grows new brain tissue). Depression is especially hard on the heart. (Well, that's true in a double sense, isn't it?)
Mornings are very hard. I believe this is due to the serotonin drop in evening. There is no thinking oneself out of depression, it is a form of brain illness, and all the uplifting books in the world do not treat it. We are very lucky to have medicines for this illness, as the world has lost so many people in times past to depression. Abraham Lincoln suffered terribly, from adolescence, and his friends sometimes took turns staying with him to prevent him from committing suicide. Fortunately, depression does not stay, even clinical depression, it cycles out, and he survived. And changed the world, I might add.
Some men who suffer depression try to treat it with almost manic work schedules or with extreme risk-taking sports. I have forgotten the name of the man--a doctor-- who climbed Everest several times--he is in the Krakauer book about the Everest disaster-- he has given interviews about his fight with depression and throwing himself into mountain climbing to try to escape it. Since depression is so fatiguing, he must have incredible stamina.
What people do not know about the drug Ecstasy is that use of that drug --and even only 5 or 6 uses--can do brain damage which can result in a permanent state of depression. One does not cycle out of it. Medicines do not treat it. It is permanent. More teens need to know this. Anyone who has known the suffering of clinical depression would never understand why any human being would risk it becoming a permanent condition.
Ongoing emotional stress over a long period of time can trigger clinical depression because the cortisol level in the body malfunctions. The person is in an unrelenting fight-or-flight state over a long period of time and the cortisol skyrockets while the serotonin, so necessary to our ability to experience pleasure, plummets. (It has been a while since I've read a text on depression but I think I have explained that correctly). Without serotonin, we suffer, deeply, for nothing, absolutely nothing, is pleasurable and all of life, every inch of it, hurts. Our body hurts, too.
Ongoing unrelenting emotional stress causing low-grade depression has been compared to an iron building sitting in the rain, year after year. With each rain, it rusts, little by little, it rusts over time. It stands there for a long time, rusting away. And then one day, it cannot hold anymore. It collapses. The mental and emotional breakdown when low-grade depression turns into major depression is like that.
People, especially men, are often ashamed of this mental illness because our country is so resistant to believing there is a state of mind so debilitating that one cannot just read more happy books and watch funny TV and sit in the sun and cure it. They do not understand the difference between deep sadness and clinical depression.
You have been through hell with your AW, and I think sometimes men with alcoholic wives do not have the therapeutic release of floods of crying that women engage in. Many women here at SR describe their hours and days of tears and maybe those tears are releasing all that stress that men do not release. Maybe those tears are saving some of them from clinical depression.
When my son suffered the illness, he slept so much, so much, he would sleep 16-18 hours at a time. He was disabled by the illness, it was very clear, until the medicines began to balance his brain chemicals, bringing the serotonin up to a normal level.
So, I share all this just to affirm that you do suffer, have suffered, and also to confirm for you that you will get better. You will emerge from this darkness a changed man, you will believe in life, you will laugh again, you will want to go out in the world. No matter what your AW is doing. Once your depression lifts, you will be able to really and truly live life and you will, I promise, love your life once more. And no one will be able to touch that.
Just hold on, you are emerging more and more each day.
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Saltburn UK
Posts: 278
English Garden, that is about as thorough an explanation I have seen-I do believe relentless stress caused this, I take great heart from your last paragraph and I can feel myself very gradually emerging from the sadness, with periods of slipping back. I understand that's how it happens. I have not gone to physical extremes to combat the illness, but I do go to the gym every day for a gentle workout, I find this really helps my mood. Thank you again for your kind words of support-it means so much to me to be able to re read such positive messages.
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Florida
Posts: 6,780
Wow, English thank you for such a great post. Perfect timing for me, I've been struggling with this more than I was allowing myself to believe. (I think 
)
Painterman - this post is so timely for me. I had a weekend filled with back-sliding into depression & fatigue & bouts of uncontrolled & unprompted sobbing. I woke from a nap on Sunday & was shocked to find tears running down my face while I slept. And I can't believe how much I sleep!!! AH has been sober for almost 11 months now but I'm only just starting to settle into it. My fight-or-flight instinct has been turned on 'high' for so long that it's really hard to figure out what the new 'normal' is. Or if there is such a thing for me any more, maybe? I don't know. It's hard to be prepared for a potential relapse while rebuilding trust & trying to move forward together. It messes my head up being stuck between 2 places like this!
I think I've been putting a lot of pressure on myself to just GET OVER IT & I keep thinking it's dragging on & on & on,...... but I think in reality I'm still on the outer layers here, no where near the core.
I'm going to keep using my recovery tools & keep adding to them when I can, but I'm trying to also realize that wallowing for just a little while might be good therapy too. I hope you are feeling better today!
)Painterman - this post is so timely for me. I had a weekend filled with back-sliding into depression & fatigue & bouts of uncontrolled & unprompted sobbing. I woke from a nap on Sunday & was shocked to find tears running down my face while I slept. And I can't believe how much I sleep!!! AH has been sober for almost 11 months now but I'm only just starting to settle into it. My fight-or-flight instinct has been turned on 'high' for so long that it's really hard to figure out what the new 'normal' is. Or if there is such a thing for me any more, maybe? I don't know. It's hard to be prepared for a potential relapse while rebuilding trust & trying to move forward together. It messes my head up being stuck between 2 places like this!
I think I've been putting a lot of pressure on myself to just GET OVER IT & I keep thinking it's dragging on & on & on,...... but I think in reality I'm still on the outer layers here, no where near the core.
I'm going to keep using my recovery tools & keep adding to them when I can, but I'm trying to also realize that wallowing for just a little while might be good therapy too. I hope you are feeling better today!
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Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Pacific NW
Posts: 152
Hang in there painterman,
English Garden put it so well. Men dont use the same sort of emotional releases that women do. I dont think that I have cried yet. I find myself in more of a fog. I do find myself being a bit hyper vigalent, trying to out guess what the next episode with my wife is going to be and how I am going to respond. But the sun comes up every morning and it our choice on how live it.
grizz
English Garden put it so well. Men dont use the same sort of emotional releases that women do. I dont think that I have cried yet. I find myself in more of a fog. I do find myself being a bit hyper vigalent, trying to out guess what the next episode with my wife is going to be and how I am going to respond. But the sun comes up every morning and it our choice on how live it.
grizz
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Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Saltburn UK
Posts: 278
I wish you luck Firesprite, it sounds positive to me, and likewise my relationship is a lot better, I suppose we need to be patient and give these things time to settle down. When I think how long I have been under stress it's not surprising I have to be gentle with myself and recover in my own time. Bless you all for being with me. Grizz, keep going!
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Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Ireland
Posts: 202
Originally Posted by painterman 
I suppose we need to be patient and give these things time to settle down. When I think how long I have been under stress it's not surprising I have to be gentle with myself and recover in my own time.
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