Mood swings
Stopping the slide
After feeling so well, I had a mood swing, and I want to describe it.
For the last few days, I’ve been sitting in my easy chair, eating carbs and spending my time on FB and YouTube. What happened to the woman who was eating healthy food, doing her exercises, walking and smiling?
She’s still here; she just crawled under the covers for a bit. I wasn’t feeling really badly - yet - but my mood had fallen, and I knew I needed to take some action. I was low enough that I even skipped tai chi, although the focus, the socialization, and the mild stretching and exercise would have helped.
Please understand: I have no idea how much of this is related to mental health issues, and how much is simply typical, rational behavior - the way a more stable person responds to a bad mood. Maybe it’s just “normal.” I truly have no idea, and that adds to the issue.
I freely admit I never figured out how to do this at work; frequently, being at work was the cause of a slide. Even at home, it often takes two or three days to recognize my mood has drifted down. How to stop or slow this mental mess? I needed to do something.
For me, figuring out what’s going on and finding solutions is mostly done by paying attention to what’s dragging me down, and resolving things a little at a time.
We all know the standard, recommended solutions for this situation. Exercise. Get outdoors, get some sunshine. Socialize. Those recommendations work, consistently. They are the best. What I’m describing is an effort to slow a mood drop enough to permit you to take those larger steps.
What follows is a kind of brain dump. This often helps me regain focus. The main purpose of the brain dump is to identify and acknowledge the things that are bugging me - things I’ve been trying to ignore. Actively ignoring something is nearly impossible; my brain keeps niggling at me, which costs me energy. Often, acknowledging the “ick” is enough to make me act.
For example: I received next year’s apartment lease in my email last week. I dreaded opening it; I didn’t want to know the size of my rent increase. But every time I checked my email, there it was - another reminder from the leasing office I tried to ignore, to intentionally postpone.
There were other things I was actively trying - but failing - to ignore. I call them “nags.” They’re the little things that I’ve left undone that contribute to my lowered mood. They are a near-constant mental drip, a distraction that makes my falling mood even worse.
A number of tasks (large and small) had accumulated during my days of lethargy, and every one lowered my mood a bit. The value of the brain dump is to identify the issues I can control, and realize the mental and physical cost of the active neglect.
Once I recognize and acknowledge that cost, I can start breaking the nags into pieces I can manage with my flagging energy. I can focus on the big-payoff tasks. I get a few things done, and then I start to feel better.
For example: My kitchen was wrecked. It’s small enough that my groceries have to be put away immediately or there’s no room for anything else. I’d bought a lot of snacks, thinking I’d make my own party mix. Instead, I opened multiple packages, left them on the counter, and started the carb binge. Those packages took up space, on the countertop and in my head. The dishwasher was full of clean dishes, so dirty ones were piling up. I’m a messy cook, leaving crumbs and spills in various places. These were visible nags that hit me whenever I walked into the kitchen - which, in a carb binge, is fairly frequently. And most of these tasks required something else to be done first.
Here’s what I did: I repackaged the evil carbs into harder-to-access containers. I unloaded the dishwasher, walked through the apartment to find stray iced tea glasses and ice cream bowls, and re-loaded. I stacked any remaining groceries that didn’t fit in my cabinets. That got the counters cleared off, which led to cleaning the crumbs and the spills. Each of these tasks took minimal effort and minimal time, but each one eliminated a nag. I didn’t do them all at once; I broke them into individual tasks, each of which required minimal effort. But the cumulative results were big.
I had a pile of laundry on the bedroom floor, and some in the dryer. I pushed myself to clear the dryer and start one load of clothes, which eventually became two. I left a third for today.
I have a really large end table, which is always cluttered. Bills I’ve paid but haven’t tossed, bills that I need to pay...eventually. Catalogs I think I might order from, but never do, and magazines I “really do” intend to read. Multiple pens, because they’re always hidden beneath the papers. Manicure tools. Books I think I want to read next but that keep slipping down the line. Envelopes with important notes scribbled on the back. An empty coffee cup and an iced tea glass; a random fork. Earbuds, the stereo remote. (It really is a large table.)
I forced myself to toss the unnecessary papers, put the dishes in the now-empty dishwasher, and return the manicure tools to the basket where they’re supposed to be kept. Anything that belonged somewhere else, was at least returned to the room where it belonged, although not necessarily put away.
Everything else got neatly stacked for another day (I’m not going to extremes here!) It’s really much better. Again, some smaller nags removed, and a less annoying surface to see. (This is the after!)
My car insurance bill showed up in email, and I immediately I set up payment, partly to avoid forgetting it, partly to avoid a future (and large) nag. That led me to think about my renter’s insurance, which was another reminder of my lease. I bit the bullet, and opened the file. Fortunately the rent increase wasn’t nearly as much as I dreaded it would be, so I e-signed it - a huge nag eliminated.
Yet another issue: the day before, I had let my blood sugar drop far too low, from lack of paying attention. That always leaves me tired, leads me to overeat, and was probably why I snacked all afternoon. To prevent that from happening again, I checked my glucose at around 11:45. It was dropping; I needed to stop and eat. I talked myself out of takeout, and had a bean cheeseburger and some air-fries. (Food stupidityis a major nag. See carb binge.) After lunch, I put a bowl of grapes on the counter - again, because I’ll eat whatever is in front of me.
I didn’t do this all at once, although it was probably only an hour’s worth of work. I spread it over the course of the morning. When I got tired (or bored), I rested. Then I re-read the list of nags, remembered the mental cost, and got going again. Throughout the morning, I eliminated several of my more contentious annoyances - that’s really what a nag is, a constant undercurrent of annoyances - while accommodating my energy level.
At the end of the morning, I’d slowed the mood slip. Having removed some annoyances, I felt better.
While I was eating lunch, a light rain started to fall - my favorite kind of weather - so I congratulated myself on the progress I’d made, and spent the afternoon reading on the deck.