Depressive Episodes

I'll be occasionally talking about depressive episodes on here--this is by way of introduction to how I deal with it.  I take St. John's Wort on a regular basis--it's one of those natural herbal things that medical clinical trials have demonstrated really does help with depression.  If I'm off of it for a couple of days, I can tell the difference and Adored Wife can really tell the difference.

About every year and a half or so, I go through a major depressive episode.  A doctor has diagnosed it as clinical dysthymia, and it's no fun.  Episodes have lasted anywhere from eight to eighteen days.  The last one was in December of 2014 and lasted sixteen days so I can probably look forward to one somewhere around next June or July.  Whee!

When in a depressive episode:
1. I wake up early and can't get back to sleep.
2. I have no enthusiasm about anything.
3. I am extremely disinclined to work.
4. I'm prone to spending excessive amounts of time fidgeting and fiddling with things (this is called "somatic preoccupation.")
5. My sense of humor disappears, as does my patience.
6. My creativity disappears.
7. I get temperamental and sullen.
8. Really weird things happen in my imagination.

Basically I don't have any fun and I'm no fun to be around and all the world seems sad and gray and dull and pointless and stupid.  I make myself get out of bed and get my work done through sheer force of will, but it's exhausting.

Having occasional bouts of depression makes me more empathetic to other sufferers.  Sometimes people try to cheer me up--I appreciate the effort but if you've never been "depressed" yourself you might have a hard time understanding that it just doesn't work that way.  When I'm depressed things that I would normally find funny or exciting or challenging simply don't have any effect on me.

And I really, really, really don't appreciate the thankfully rare people who think I ought to be able to just snap myself out of it.  It doesn't work that way, either.

But it does come to an end and the brain starts working again and it's a wonderful feeling when that happens.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.