It is funny how once fate is tempted it really decides to bite you on the proverbial. I wrote a lot in my last post about how well things were going and how I looked forward to it all continuing – and for the last couple of days I think they have broadly continued the 2013 trend.
I say broadly because as I’m writing this I’m finding it difficult to be positive. I’m tired and anxious, fidgety and distracted. Not good really. However, if I peer long enough through the murk of my current thinking pattern I can see what’s triggered these feelings and what is the beginning of another downward spiral.
Much of today was fine – good even. I did my garden volunteer thing and it was good to be back doing something physical and team related – although I’ve probably over exerted myself as it was my first day back after a couple of weeks and I went at it like I hadn’t had a break. So then I went to a meeting, which was straightforward enough and the right decision was taken. Again, good. I had feedback on a proposed job application, which was very positive and with a couple of minor tweaks will be ready to go later this week. Third good thing. All going well so far – and, actually, writing this is helping me to see that I did have positives through today. Fourth good thing, I suppose.
My weekly tutorial was where this all came to a grinding halt. Now, I believe that the core of my depression is related to issues around defeat and inferiority, with one of the key pillars being that I have to achieve great things in order for people to value me and have a feeling of self worth. In practice, this means that I push myself hard to achieve unrealistic aspirations, continually fail to achieve those aspirations and therefore consider myself to be a failure – and the cycle repeats. It is a vicious cycle and, it must be said, was rather unhelpfully reinforced at times in my last job. However, since starting my course I’ve tried to set realistic aspirations and have been surprised at the broadly positive feedback on my work. This has developed into a positive cycle – I have worked hard, seen that it was been worth it, and have been positively motivated to work harder.
Tonight, however, demonstrated the fragility of this positive cycle compared to the vicious cycle. The feedback I got on my latest piece of work was dire. I was asked to go back and start all over again – it was that bad – and this is on a piece of work I’ve been working on for four weeks now trying in each week to incorporate the latest set of feedback. On receiving the feedback I was flooded with negative thoughts about how I wasn’t good enough, hadn’t worked hard enough, wouldn’t succeed, that no-one would want to know me. And so it began, as someone once said. I then started to be flooded with thoughts of how I was inferior in many other areas of my life. And as I dwelled on them and tried to sort each one out, they pushed me down. Even tightly gripping my little stone (which my son has named ‘Happy’, rather randomly but aptly) didn’t help.
And yet as I’m writing now (recognising an hour or so has passed since I started this post) I feel like the fog has cleared a bit. Some of the strength and stability has returned and whilst I still feel a bit fragile and a bit battered I don’t have the same overwhelming sense of anxiety I did have. I’ve stopped shaking. I don’t feel trapped any more. Maybe that counts as the fifth good thing today, then.
That’s where the title of the post comes in. Depending on my mood, silence can either be a trigger for me to be flooded with a whole range of negative emotions and thoughts; or it can be rejuvenating. The way I got out of it tonight – albeit a little later than desirable – was by writing this post. By writing the stuff down, it helps sort it out in my head and it allows me to view things more dispassionately than if I didn’t. Of course, talking to friends also helps but when I’m at the top of a spiral I genuinely don’t think that anyone will have the time or the desire to talk to me – ties into my issues of self-worth. Intellectually, I know that’s not true – and one day the emotional side will catch up with it. But for now, writing acts as a suitable proxy for alleviating the sound of silence. And now I know that, perhaps I’ll turn to it a little sooner before I end up like I was earlier this evening.
Thanks for reading, and until next time…
Tales from the Lichfield Flyer 