“Mentally Ill vs Physically Ill: Finding the Difference”
This post is not meant to diagnose, treat, or save you from mental illness, if you or someone you love is in danger, please get help. You can text HOME to 741741 to be connected with a crisis counselor. I personally have. You can also call or text 988 for suicide and crisis help.
http://www.cdc.gov/suicide/facts
This post may be a little all over the place as I am currently in depression and having trouble functioning or even staying on task. However, I want to discuss the differences between mental and physical sickness. Sometimes when you are in depression, you are so shut down, it can feel like you a physically ill too. They usually go hand in hand. The lack of drive and absence of motivation can bring on symptoms very similar to that of having the flu. You may not want to eat and drink, you may feel weak and dizzy, and you may even feel nauseous. This is how it is for me any way. I begin to feel like I am coming down with some sort of virus. My stomach begins to hurt, I develop chills and my head begins to pound. The only way out of this is through tremendous amounts of sleep. I know it can seem like laziness, most depression can. Although this is different. When I attempt to do anything physical, I feel faint and have to go lay down. When I try to focus on a task, my mind actually begins to hurt. Yes I am prone to migraines when I am in this state. Is it a lack of water and nutrition? Possibly, but the idea of getting up to eat when I am in this state is daunting.
Currently, I am feeling this way, I do not want to eat and drinking is a task I have to force upon myself; I know that dehydration can bring on even more symptoms. I currently feel like a failure and I am incapable of paying attention to anything very long. I do not want to scroll on my phone, I simply want to sit around and watch old Disney movies that I have seen several times before. I do not want to watch anything new or speak to anyone. I am depressed. I have discovered a lot of coping skills that work for me when I am in this state. For one: watching those old movies is a way of making my brain feel comfort. I like the feeling that some things never change. Another thing I try is accomplishing just one hard task a day. When I say “I don’t want to” it goes deeper than that. It’s as if someone flipped the off switch in my motor skills. I become so weak and foggy in my mind that I can’t even remember how to unpack the dishwasher. This leads me to feel defeated. The state of my house also becomes over whelming; like if I can’t accomplish one task, then how am I ever going to accomplish many?
I just lay there sometimes wishing for the will to enter its way back into my body. Yes I still care for my children’s needs and wants, but for my own I fall short. Because all I really want to do is curl up into a ball and cry. I can escape through sleep; it is the one way that I can rest my throbbing brain and relax my over worked body. For someone with Bipolar, it’s as if you go, go, go throughout the mania and then you have to crash into depression. Although, me personally, I give myself no credit for all the things I accomplished while I was manic. In fact, I do not give myself credit for anything. It’s often that I feel like I am worthless and that nothing I do matters anyways. I am too inconsistent to carry a regular job, and even if I was, I have two children that need me on a moments notice. I have been in mania and depression for seven years now. Power cycling through life trying to find my balance. Sometimes I can reach it; ever so rare is a time when I am in neither mania nor depression. These are the times where I can actually find myself, know myself, and feel like myself. Other wise, I am in a constant state of cycling. I feel great for a few weeks, then I feel awful again. I do all I can in depression to feel some sort of happy. But it’s much more than that: its feeling like you are sick 24 hours a day. It’s wanting to sleep and rest, but only taking short sweaty, shakes naps that are disrupted by weird (mostly scary) dreams. Lately I am getting attacked by a dog over and over again or my Dad is dying in many different ways in the water. The PTSD can add to the depression.
So why am I telling you all of this? Why am I “belly aching” about all the things I can not do and all of the ways I feel? Because maybe you can begin to understand. Maybe this will reach one person who does not understand what depression can feel like. For some of you, perhaps you think it is nothing more than the mindset of being sad. I am here to explain that it is much more than just that. It is your bodies way of shutting down because you can’t manage. Depression for me looks like the inability to get out of bed, not just the want to stay in it. I say I don’t “want” to do things. I say I am sad. But underneath it all is the lack of chemicals allowing me to motivate myself. There is an actual physical exhaustion and ailment that goes hand in hand with the psychological factors of depression. I feel like I am carrying someone on my back, my limbs feel weak and no matter how hard I try, all I can do is sleep. I know my coping skills, they don’t always help. Who wants to call someone and say “hey, I am so sad I can’t get out of bed or off the couch”. To this, most people respond with “hang in there”, “you got this”, “you can do it”, “keep trying”, “that sucks”, “I’m sorry”, because what else are they supposed to say? What can anyone really do? Thankfully I have a supportive husband who just tells me to rest. Sometimes, that’s all I need to hear: validation that resting is okay. That I don’t have to be awesome all the time. That its okay to not be okay all the time. Maybe I can just rest and feel better. Maybe there is an end to this that is not death, but instead a rejuvenation of self. Is it possible that when we are depressed all we really need is some serious self care and relaxation? Maybe we all (especially those who are prone to depression) are just so hard on ourselves all the time, that our nervous system just has to shut down for a while in order for us to function again. Maybe if I just give myself some grace to be depressed I won’t feel like a big useless lump.
If you made it this far, thank you for reading. I am obviously not in the best headspace possible. But I do not wish to just blog when I am feeling good. I want to explain to you the bad and the ugly too. I wish that someone can read this and either have a better understanding of what depression means or maybe feel less alone about their own depression. I am going to get off the computer and go make myself eat and do one hard task today. Then, I am going to curl up with a soft blanket and watch a Disney movie.
-A Manic Monday
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