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The Black Dog Thread

Started by Grugz, 02 January, 2016, 09:54:32 PM

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SmallBlueThing(Reborn)

Ah, thanks guys. Yeah, nice to be back. And yeah, another sprogling to add to the six we already have between us. Hey ho. Maybe it'll be a girl this time.
Regarding medication, I should have said "take meds if they work for you", obviously. Personally, they do for me (although this time they have proved problematic), but if you choose other ways to deal with this hideous horror then, basically, whatever works- as long as it does.
I remember some times, back when I wasn't dealing with it all very well, that contact with Board members (either here, on fb, or in the flesh) was close to being all that got me through the day. The benefits of this forum can be massively underappreciated.
SBT

Proudhuff

SBT ! great to have you back, :wave:
DDT did a job on me

Bolt-01

Welcome back SBT. You have been missed, old boy.

And congrats on the impending newbie, too.

SuperSurfer

Great to have you back, SBT.

You know that you have to recite the full Ace Trucking poem so you can be accepted back into our gang.

"I was boiling down the mainlane shrugging jeckyl by the mil..."

Hawkmumbler

Well i've been battle the black dog again myself recently, as those who know me on the faceybooks know. This is at present however a strange kind of anxiety i've not felt before, it's kind of like melancholy, but what i'm so sad about i'm not sure. By all intents and purposes my life has never been better. Full time, well paid work with a good employer, a small but close circle of friends who I love dearly, good marks in Uni and a bunch of muppets online whom i'm eternally grateful to have listen to me spill my heart out without any kinda of snark or hate to concern me.

So why can't I shake this feeling of the blues? Am I missing something, forgetting something, a subconscious realization that all these years trying to cure my condition turned up for nought? I can't decide. To those who know me through social media are quite likely aware I laid out a little concise post about how my autism, anxiety and depression have cohabited for decades, and the cocktail of insanity it drove me to for years after. I feel like i'm starting to get over that ridge in my life and things are looking OK, maybe this melancholy is my mind reacting to me actually being NICE to myself. I don't know.

Emotions are still obviously not the forte of one with autism, it would seem.

Definitely Not Mister Pops

The blues ain't nothing but a good man feeling bad
You may quote me on that.

TordelBack

Quote from: Hawkmumbler on 11 May, 2017, 06:19:36 PMThis is at present however a strange kind of anxiety i've not felt before, it's kind of like melancholy, but what i'm so sad about i'm not sure. By all intents and purposes my life has never been better.

The Bard has your back, Hawky:  "In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.  It wearies me; you say it wearies you. But how I caught it, found it, or came by it, what stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born, I am to learn.
And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, that I have much ado to know myself".  All you need is to bankrupt a Jew and marry his daughter off to your best mate and you'll be right as rain, just like Antonio.

Don't think what you describe has much to do with autism specifically: sounds sadly like all-too-familiar vanilla depression to me, in that I could have written that post myself (although obviously not in as cool and youthful a fashion).  Shit though it is, there is the Actual Reality that when you get through this spell (and you will) you should still have all those good things waiting for you. 

The Legendary Shark

There's so much wrong with the world, so much suffering and dis-ease, so much bullshit and fog, that when things are okay for me it can make me blue like that. It's not guilt, exactly, not feeling unworthy of the good in my life when so many are mired in shit - it's more like realising how little it takes to cheer me up and how little it takes to cheer anyone up. I want everyone to have that little and I think it's knowing that they either overlook it or have it withheld from them that makes my happiness turn blue.

And then I think, "drokk 'em, I'm gonna enjoy my happy anyway. Ain't no sin in that."
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JayzusB.Christ

Hard to know what advice to give to you, HM, other than to wait till it passes - awful as it is, it will pass.  Not quite through my own spell yet but I'm getting there; things don't seem quite as terrible as they did a week or two back, and I've had days that I've actually more or less enjoyed despite the hovering black clouds.  I hope you get out the other side too.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

The Legendary Shark

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The Legendary Shark

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Tjm86

Quote from: Hawkmumbler on 11 May, 2017, 06:19:36 PM
So why can't I shake this feeling of the blues? Am I missing something, forgetting something, a subconscious realization that all these years trying to cure my condition turned up for nought? I can't decide.

Sorry, Hawkie, just noticed this one.  Partially due to my own meltdown which has now landed me in trouble with my Head.  (note to all, secondary teaching and BPD are not a good combination at times!).  This is something that I can relate to.  Sometimes it just feels like the other shoe is going to drop at any moment?

For me the hyper vigilance that I used to survive as a nipper carried through to adult life and only in the last few years as I've been dealing with the fallout of my school experience has it started to shift.  The thing is though, shifting it after nearly 30 years is not easy.  I'm learning how amazingly flexible the human brain can be but also how long it can take to rewire pathways that have been embedded for that long.  Not impossible but damn difficult.  What I'm trying to say is that for me, the 'blue' feeling is sometimes a learned habit that I'm working on shifting.  Does that make sense?

I find as well that it helps to reframe, in fact I've stumbled across research recently that has looked at reappraisal / reframing as a simple technique for anxiety.  I know that I'm going to have slip ups from time to time (last couple of weeks being a classic case in point!) but I'm trying to teach myself to view them as learning experiences, pick out what I can from them and just ignore them / shrug them off if there is nothing new there.

Have a little compassion on yourself fella.  Sometimes it is good to just 'feel' and let it roll.  That avoids the feedback loop that triggers the anxiety to boot.

PS - you don't have to just have Autism to struggle with emotions!  You might also want to have a look at Lisa Feldman Barrett's book "How Emotions are Made" for a different perspective.  Her theory of constructed emotion is interesting.

Andy Lambert

Well now... funny the threads you come across when you venture out of the usual area you've stayed in.

As a depression sufferer myself, it's lovely to find a place here where people can share their thoughts, concerns and support.
I'm not exactly in the best place at the moment but my mind set is generally okay at present. I have been taking medication though I've stopped lately... I've come to wonder if the 'flatness' one feels on prescription drugs is actually any better than the depression itself. You might feel the lows sometimes, but you sometimes get to feel the highs too. Anti-depressants tend to suppress any feeling, which obviously is a good thing when you feel like shit. It could blow up in my face at any time though - something could trigger a dark spell and I won't be drugged up to deal with it.

My current concerns are more about anxiety and a lack of confidence, but at least the black dog itself is keeping a discreet distance for the time being.

I sincerely hope everyone here who's suffered or is currently suffering is finding the support they need, and if I'm able to help in any way, I will.

Tjm86

It's great to see that this thread has been so quiet for so long.  Hope that means that things are going okay for folks.  Personally, this year has gone from bad to worse and it is interesting to see exactly how extreme the anxiety can get.  Having told my line manager about my difficulties seems to have made matters worse rather than better.  Currently this feels exactly the same as it did back at St Georges.  Sort of come full circle.

Work is now going to hell in a hand basket and even with half term terror is the only way to describe the current state.  I guess having the letter through the post about capability on saturday was not the most helpful.  Union on the case too but have to wait until I get back to see what is happening next. 

At the moment it is all I can do to keep from doing anything really stupid but I know that is not going to help.  Concentrating on anything at all is a chore and a half so I'm just taking things in small doses.  The littlest thing can set me off, dropping something even ...

Sorry for being so down.  I know that this will pass but I just need to get it out there.  Like I say, glad that everyone else is doing okay right now.

The Legendary Shark

Strength and love to you, Tjm. Don't feel too lonely in your difficulties, silence doesn't necessarily mean all is well. That can be the worst part, sometimes, imagining that everyone else is okay and it's only me in this damnable black fog. I'm not suggesting that other people being in a similar place should cheer you up, of course, but that plenty of us know and understand.

And never, ever apologise for being down - certainly not on this thread.
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