12th September
After starting well yesterday, my mood noticeably went down. We'll call it. Melancholic. The enthusiasm drained to zero, any mild contentment disappeared.
The late afternoon sky was beautiful yesterday. Azure blues, orange studded clouds. The kind of sky I can fall into. I stared and fell into it and imagined flying off. And was overcome by a terrible sadness. I am not sure. But I think. It's something going back to childhood. Innocence lost. All the shitty baggage picked up over the years. The awareness of it. The simplicity of flying into the sky. Something like that. But it wasn't a rational step by step process. No direct thinking. Just an emotional response.
I've explained this to a lot of people. But. When under continued stress. Or depressed. Or failing to cope ( which are all peas in the same pod and can all devolve into proper depression ), your emotional thresholds come down, the meaning of which is that molehills become mountains.
Lets take an imaginary task. Writing a presentation or speech to be delivered to an audience from stage. And we will track how it impacts someone from not thinking about it, to writing it, to editing, to giving it, to the immediate aftermath.
On the left hand side, we have what kind of coping skills or emotional impact ( or both intertwined ) a task may require. This doesn't have to be a purely emotional response. It can be something mechanical or metaphysical or social. Like taking an engine to pieces. Fixing a piece of computer code. Asking someone for directions. Making a phone call to a stranger. Washing the dishes !
On the bottom we have where an event or task or the like rates. And you can even plot it over time if you like ( but not super necessary, it works with just a single axis ).
The red line is your coping level. Below this, you can get on with the task. As you approach that red line you may start to feel apprehensive. Over loaded. Stressed. Upset. Hopeless. Angry. And start to invent reasons to avoid the ongoing task. Invent more and more obstacles to put in your own path so you can rationalise not doing it and stopping and relieving the building pressure. But you can do it below that line. And deal with it. The rational side of you is still in control. They have the steering wheel of the car. *Above* this line you have a failure to deal with the task in hand. It becomes overwhelming. Too much. You cannot cope.
Everyone is different here. And no one can really sense where their levels are, or what a task requires, beyond a vague ballpark sense of it. Also people have differing levels of capability at the same task. What one finds easy, another may struggle with. This goes with all things. Emotional, social, physical. We can say things like some people have social anxiety, or struggle with social interactions. Whilst others are extroverts and revel in such things. Same task - being the life and soul of a party - one would find easy - it would be low down on that graph - and some others may find very difficult - above the red line on their graph. You would see this play out in their behaviour. Some would withdraw and give up on the task. Retreat away at best. "Meltdown" at worst.
What's more, people often have trouble grasping others context. So an extrovert may find an introverts reaction to a party, confusing, stupid, wrong in the head. Of course. Extrovert and introvert behaviour is fairly well understood these days. But the subtleties of it are not - a lot of social anxiety is not fully comprehended or acknowledged by people. What's wrong with you. Just ask them a question. Make a phone call etc.
In the above example someone is writing a speech. As the time approaches to write it, there is a certain drag, of a task that needs to be done, need to get it right, until the time comes to do it, and someone settles into the writing of it. As the speech giving day approaches "nerves" can set in, stress increases, rewrites possibly happen. And this then builds to the going on of stage. The critical moment. You often hear even famous people vomiting before going on stage because the nerves and stress of the moment is so much. Then once they get into it, they settle into a routine. Afterwards, the release of stress is palpable, a euphoria can kick in, task well done, difficult thing no longer on the horizon. Why euphoria you may ask ? Well, this can be a number of things. You get a good dopamine hit from satisfaction - completion of tasks ( go look at shrink studies of happiest jobs to see this starkly in action ). But also, to cope with stress and the like, your brain juices you up. Come on. It's ok. Pump those chemicals. Once the stressor has gone, you suddenly have no bad input, and only good input from your brain juicing you up. A chemical high. Suddenly. You feel *awesome*. Everything is *awesome*. We loosely define this as "relief". Also see, exercising. Pain relief. Survival. Yada yada yada. I also get post euphoric highs after some migraines. Once the pain is gone, all the positive juice my brain was dosing me with to cope has a short window of making me feel amazing. the world becomes sparkly and wonderful. Doesn't last. I get a maximum of maybe 30 minutes. Boo.
Anyway. Back to the example.
All the evnts in that task occur below the red line. Overall. It is copeable with. Well done.
Now, we'll see what someone who is suffering from trauma, or depressed, or already highly stressed looks like - the red line basically lowers. Your "emotional threshold" drops.
The same scenario plays out, but the person never gets to go on stage. They hit a crisis of stress, coping, emotion before that ever comes to pass. This situation is highly variable. For some this may just be walking away from the task. Giving up in dramatic fashion. This can surprise others and be viewed as "random" behaviour or being "unreliable". At worst, the red zone can be tears, mental breakdowns even suicidal tendencies. The cost of one of these limit breaks can't be underestimated either. It's not a flip switch. The person will then realise they are a "failure" or beat themselves up about flaws they think they have and *perpetuate* the state they are in, or, cause those thresholds to come even lower. More of that later.
There are a lot of nuances in this. Your coping limit *can* be different to your emotional threshhold level. I've slammed them together as the same thing here in a brutal handed simplification. They are often related however. You can also develop a sense of where your limit is and effectively build yourself a cutoff limit where you dont go over - I can't do this - but stay beneath your real limit - I'm now going to have a complete meltdown.
The above scenario where people can't cope and others may think they then exhibit "strange behaviour" plays out time after time. It's not strange. It's not unpredictable. Follow the stressors. Then imagine what someone does when their back is against the wall. Fight or flight or meltdown response.
The above can be quite insidious. That threshold can very slowly, and subtly creep its way down without the person being super aware, or even aware at all. Long term stress ( which they then classify as depression once it "sticks" and changes your physiology - your stress chemicals are now the new normal ) is a prime cause of this.
We can eventually get to a state of -
As soon as anything is attempted, an immediate crisis can occur. This can be that something that others around the person may find very difficult to understand. You are just writing words ? Why are you crying ?
This happens *a lot*.
It should also be noted that although the example is in isolation, these things are cumulative. Tasks can stack on top of each other. Washing the plates. Easy. Washing the plates whilst tight rope walking. Not easy. And it can be surprising that the smallest of tasks, the things we don't even normally think about - getting on a bus, doing the washing up, *also* turn out to require a level of coping skill and rationality to them. And in doing so, even these most minor of things can be a tipping point. Hence we can finally get to a sorry situation of
At this point, the person is probably permanently, or near permanently in crisis. Each spike could well be suicidal - because living like that is awful - and capability to cope with even the most basic things is very difficult.
I should know. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Multiple of them. And seen it first hand in so many other cases.
The emotional threshold bit, is that your emotions - to you - are off the scale. Hence the smallest of things can reduce you to a fit of tears. An intense emotional response. Someone else may look at you and think, well shit, you just dropped toast. Ok. Get a grip. To the other person, the world has ended. This is not about strength of weakness. Or some people being pathetic. Oh. Hell no. It's about the suffering endured. We know of things like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder where the things that have happened to you in the past, carry forward, and fuck you up in the future. A way to think of this is a car engine. One that's done 10,000 miles. Versus one that's done a very hard 200,000 miles. The drive down to the local shop is a very different ask for each of those engines. And here's the thing. You can't tell how many miles each engine has done - you cannot tell how much suffering or the place that someone is in. This isn't a strong versus weak. This is a *human* thing that applies to *all* of us. Part of a stress response cycle. Our evolutionary wiring.
There are two common responses to crises. And they are not exclusive. Crying and abject sadness. And anger and violence. It's a bit like asking if someone is a happy drunk or an asshole drunk.
The shrinks will tell you that the common root of depression is repressed anger. It starts to all tie together.
There is however, a large element of self awareness here. You can be *aware* of where you are and whats happening. As I always say *knowing* is 50% of the battle. Thats not to say you get to be in control of the steering wheel again. Oh no. But. You can alter it slightly. Don't take it out on others. Redirect that anger - if youre the angry type. For someone about to jump off a bridge this can be a hard ask. But. Such is the monster. Not easy. Professional help - and meds - likely required.
There is another example some people give to explain mounting pressure. That of the glass and water. The glass represents your coping level. Each task or bit of stress pours more water into the glass ( or stuff into the wheelbarrow ). At some point, the water overflow, the straw that broke the camels back is applied, and the situation goes into crisis. But. All of those examples miss one extremely important detail. The size of the glass. Or wheelbarrow. Or camel. Is not fixed. It can change in size, dramatically under the right ( or wrong ) circumstances. The glass can become a thimble. The wheelbarrow a teacup. The smallest of things added to it makes it overflow. Threshold lowered. And. With that. Higher emotions more quickly reached.
All of which is why, people that are completely mental - and I use that term with all due respect being mental myself - can find it difficult to even get on a bus. I have felt that drag myself. Just getting the right fare. Approaching the bus driver. Is a screaming horror. For those people in that place, the world is a crawling nightmare of fear and sorrow and rage.
For really violent types, this can be a horror show of a cycle they cannot break out of. Any help will be attacked. Those that care will be pushed away. And ultimately they end up isolated and or, in the mental ward. For those of a less violent bent, and if you get stuck there for too long, it can end up as a recipe for continually bouncing in and out of crisis, your life just being one long exercise in coping management.
It is no wonder suicide comes up. Who would want to live like that ?
There are even darker depths to this. Where the mind falls apart into pieces. Processes just don't work anymore. Pyschosis. Neuroses. The complete dissolution of what makes a person, a person. Like a solvent melting away your brain. For most. It doesn't come to that. I've walked along those shores a few times. It's very not cool. And very scary. I did say I was mental right. Right.
Anyway.
Things you never wanted to know, explained :p
Back to me.
The depth of emotion whilst staring into the sky was no surprise. I am used to it. I am used to those emotions being dialled up to 11. It is, the analytical bit of me says, in line with being depressed, trauma and all the other bullshit. Emotional thresholds are low. Very good Dr Johnny. You have applied your knowledge. Gold star. Round of applause. Does it help ? No. Ha ha. But. At least I can not take it out on others. And seek help - which for me is talking to people. Drawing them close. Caring for others and vice versa. Really. I am just a fluffy bunny. Except for professional standards at a job :p
I read an article yesterday about someone dealing with the loss of their dog. Various shrinks and counsellors chipped in. Apparently. It can be the greatest sense of loss someone will have. More so than parents and the like. Apparently, because of the wholesome relationship you have with pets. Uh huh. So. Perhaps I am not that crazy. Pretty crazy. But. Eh. Article is here if you want to read it.
Feel a tiny bit more upbeat again today. I feel like I could really do with a lot of human interaction at the moment. But. I'm also tired. Catch 22. Hopefully I can maintain today, and not have too bad a day.
One day at a time. Marathon not a sprint. And bad days are just bad days. They will get better.
Repeat after me. :p
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