Where has my optimism and excitement gone? Does it come back?
May 20, 2022 12:22 AM Subscribe
Depression, yes, I know, getting treatment but also I am confused by my experience. I have always had the capacity for excitement and optimism in most things. Not that I didn't have bad spells, or get upset, or cry, but they were usually tempered with an unrelentingly happy disposition. Even when I would be upset/angry about the state of the world or go full "there is something wrong on the internet!" mode, I reset to baseline level of excitement. Then I had the worst year of my life, and now I feel that is just gone, or at best, as shadow of me.
The period of time from around october-november 2020 to november 2021 was the worst single year period of my life. And that's saying something since the year my husband took his life a few years prior was pretty bad. The thing is, I can clearly remember the last time I was just really excited, and it was with virtual classes I was taking.
Then everything went to shit. Everything in my life just fell apart; and I thought I would be homeless, spent a bunch of time fighting with a landlord trying to coerce payment, self help eviction attempts, lived below the poverty line (still am, but in a moment), lived above tenants that were selling drugs (more than pot, but I don't know what), would have physical altercations that had me calling the police (and many times not because I just didn't know what to do), dropped out of school again, got covid myself, had a terrible therapist, and was really isolated.
I hit a level of depression I had never experienced in my life, and I thank the stars I have some sort of internal resistance to harming myself. My therapist was garbage, and that's its own story, but it left me with someone that as more interested in treating adhd than a pretty clear depressive episode with suicidal ideation. Including treating fairly clearly depressive symptoms as adhd (I know that sometimes in depression with adhd, you have to treat the adhd first. That wasn't this). It was a very bad time. I don't know how exactly I got out of it, but I did a few things; started on 5htp, dragged myself to the gym as best as I could even though it took a lot of momentum, and just IDK, plugged along until things seemed better, or more better. People I knew in communities like metafilter and facebook communities helped.
I was definitely out of the worst of it, and managed to get myself back into school, while starting to get some disability services set up. The thing is, I don't know I ever really got out of it. I remember seeing some people I missed so much for my birthday that year and I was excited but also just kinda low level sad. My situation started to stabilize a tiny bit with covid rent relief, then some more landlord shit went down, but I moved to a better place, university housing; with a wonderful roommate I get along with.
And yet I hit a depressive episode over the winter again. Not AS bad as the previous winter, but it was on where I struggled to get out of bed and face anyone, missed a bunch of classes. etc.. I slipped into it so unaware, that I thought it was a problem with adhd and got triaged when I called, only to have it become apparent during the phone screener that this was depression again.
I went on an antidepressant, and it helped a lot (bupropion). but there just seems to be this undercurrent I can't shake. Like my real joy and enthusiasm is at best, damped and at worst, just gone. I feel better, but have crying jags a lot. And the happiness is fragile.
I'm not saying this is easy or that adverse life events shouldn't matter in all this. However, I don't recognize myself. I've always been someone that just gets back up again. Or that no matter how afraid I am, will just push ahead and find the bright side to whatever the negative is. It's so strange, I because I don't recognize me. I don't care anymore. The things I found joy in just don't do that anymore.
Does it come back? Can joy and optimism be just irreparably gone?
The period of time from around october-november 2020 to november 2021 was the worst single year period of my life. And that's saying something since the year my husband took his life a few years prior was pretty bad. The thing is, I can clearly remember the last time I was just really excited, and it was with virtual classes I was taking.
Then everything went to shit. Everything in my life just fell apart; and I thought I would be homeless, spent a bunch of time fighting with a landlord trying to coerce payment, self help eviction attempts, lived below the poverty line (still am, but in a moment), lived above tenants that were selling drugs (more than pot, but I don't know what), would have physical altercations that had me calling the police (and many times not because I just didn't know what to do), dropped out of school again, got covid myself, had a terrible therapist, and was really isolated.
I hit a level of depression I had never experienced in my life, and I thank the stars I have some sort of internal resistance to harming myself. My therapist was garbage, and that's its own story, but it left me with someone that as more interested in treating adhd than a pretty clear depressive episode with suicidal ideation. Including treating fairly clearly depressive symptoms as adhd (I know that sometimes in depression with adhd, you have to treat the adhd first. That wasn't this). It was a very bad time. I don't know how exactly I got out of it, but I did a few things; started on 5htp, dragged myself to the gym as best as I could even though it took a lot of momentum, and just IDK, plugged along until things seemed better, or more better. People I knew in communities like metafilter and facebook communities helped.
I was definitely out of the worst of it, and managed to get myself back into school, while starting to get some disability services set up. The thing is, I don't know I ever really got out of it. I remember seeing some people I missed so much for my birthday that year and I was excited but also just kinda low level sad. My situation started to stabilize a tiny bit with covid rent relief, then some more landlord shit went down, but I moved to a better place, university housing; with a wonderful roommate I get along with.
And yet I hit a depressive episode over the winter again. Not AS bad as the previous winter, but it was on where I struggled to get out of bed and face anyone, missed a bunch of classes. etc.. I slipped into it so unaware, that I thought it was a problem with adhd and got triaged when I called, only to have it become apparent during the phone screener that this was depression again.
I went on an antidepressant, and it helped a lot (bupropion). but there just seems to be this undercurrent I can't shake. Like my real joy and enthusiasm is at best, damped and at worst, just gone. I feel better, but have crying jags a lot. And the happiness is fragile.
I'm not saying this is easy or that adverse life events shouldn't matter in all this. However, I don't recognize myself. I've always been someone that just gets back up again. Or that no matter how afraid I am, will just push ahead and find the bright side to whatever the negative is. It's so strange, I because I don't recognize me. I don't care anymore. The things I found joy in just don't do that anymore.
Does it come back? Can joy and optimism be just irreparably gone?
I have had depression since I was 14. Although I find it hard to believe right now, I do have good years as well as the molasses years, where every step I take requires great will. I don't know, even with analysis (my own and therapeutical) what causes a slump or the opposite, but I believe, I choose to believe that this too will pass, and for the sake of pessimism return. Nothing is permanent, not even the chemicals or hormones impacting my thought processes, not my living arrangements or pet parenting or travel excitement.
So "where has my excitement gone?" I don't know. "Will it come back?", given enough time, almost certainly. "What is this new level of despair?", again, I can not say.
Keep looking please, and keep trying, though it doesn't seem worth it. One day a new medication, a new exercise regime, a change in life experiences will lift the cloud - maybe not enough that you feel content, but enough that you feel like a whole person and not a cardboard cut-out. Maybe enough that you find new dreams and goals that are within your abilities to aim for. In the meantime, as a long-time survivor, I suggestion you (as my favourite psychologist describes it) ride the wave of depression, not fighting it till you are exhausted, not ignoring the extra demands it puts on you, but as acceptance - "oh yes, there you are, my very own little black dog. I see you. I feel you. I acknowledge your existence, and having done that, today I will be kind to myself, I will accept that I have an invisible illness and maybe I won't rush or blame myself for not doing the dishes or socialising. I will just be, and some chaotic butterfly may or may not visit me and that's okay, because none of this is my fault and I'm doing the best I can."
posted by b33j at 1:33 AM on May 20, 2022 [6 favorites]
So "where has my excitement gone?" I don't know. "Will it come back?", given enough time, almost certainly. "What is this new level of despair?", again, I can not say.
Keep looking please, and keep trying, though it doesn't seem worth it. One day a new medication, a new exercise regime, a change in life experiences will lift the cloud - maybe not enough that you feel content, but enough that you feel like a whole person and not a cardboard cut-out. Maybe enough that you find new dreams and goals that are within your abilities to aim for. In the meantime, as a long-time survivor, I suggestion you (as my favourite psychologist describes it) ride the wave of depression, not fighting it till you are exhausted, not ignoring the extra demands it puts on you, but as acceptance - "oh yes, there you are, my very own little black dog. I see you. I feel you. I acknowledge your existence, and having done that, today I will be kind to myself, I will accept that I have an invisible illness and maybe I won't rush or blame myself for not doing the dishes or socialising. I will just be, and some chaotic butterfly may or may not visit me and that's okay, because none of this is my fault and I'm doing the best I can."
posted by b33j at 1:33 AM on May 20, 2022 [6 favorites]
Some of it might be that the crisis time has ended, and you're finally feeling the weight of everything you experienced.
You likely pushed a lot of it to the side, put your head down, and survived. But now you're acknowledging all the adverse life events and experiencing a delayed reaction.
You also could be setting yourself up to fail a bit with your self-talk.
Instead of thinking of yourself as someone "who just gets back up again," can you reframe things, and set a more reasonable expectation for yourself?
"I am a person who has been through a lot. I'm getting the help I need, and I'm resilient. I will be kind and patient with myself, and trust that I'll find joy again. I will get back up when I'm ready."
posted by champers at 2:45 AM on May 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
You likely pushed a lot of it to the side, put your head down, and survived. But now you're acknowledging all the adverse life events and experiencing a delayed reaction.
You also could be setting yourself up to fail a bit with your self-talk.
Instead of thinking of yourself as someone "who just gets back up again," can you reframe things, and set a more reasonable expectation for yourself?
"I am a person who has been through a lot. I'm getting the help I need, and I'm resilient. I will be kind and patient with myself, and trust that I'll find joy again. I will get back up when I'm ready."
posted by champers at 2:45 AM on May 20, 2022 [4 favorites]
In my experience, it always comes back. Depression, to me, is precisely the opposite of optimism and excitement. Describing depression as a kind of sadness, as you often see, always felt wrong to me. Sadness is part of non-depressed life, the insidious bits of depression are the pessimism, the apathy, the not-seeing-the-point-in-anything.
So I wouldn't look at it at something being fundamentally broken or irreparably gone, it's just a bad depression (+ all the terrible shit you've been through!), and those go away over time, especially with the right treatment. And when that happens, the joy and optimism will definitely, slowly but surely, pop back up.
It's good to hear that you're on working anti-depressants, those really help tone down the severity of the depression, and the 'stickiness'. But in my experience, anti-depressants are mostly that, they work against the depression, not so much pro-happiness/joy/excitement. To get back the good things takes time, time to get back on your feet, time to heal, to let the bad stuff and depressed thought patterns fade from memory, to get back to your old self. Good therapy can help to make that process go smoother and hopefully faster.
tl;dr: it takes time, be patient and keep up the good work, and the excitement will return.
posted by arkhangelskchange at 2:50 AM on May 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
So I wouldn't look at it at something being fundamentally broken or irreparably gone, it's just a bad depression (+ all the terrible shit you've been through!), and those go away over time, especially with the right treatment. And when that happens, the joy and optimism will definitely, slowly but surely, pop back up.
It's good to hear that you're on working anti-depressants, those really help tone down the severity of the depression, and the 'stickiness'. But in my experience, anti-depressants are mostly that, they work against the depression, not so much pro-happiness/joy/excitement. To get back the good things takes time, time to get back on your feet, time to heal, to let the bad stuff and depressed thought patterns fade from memory, to get back to your old self. Good therapy can help to make that process go smoother and hopefully faster.
tl;dr: it takes time, be patient and keep up the good work, and the excitement will return.
posted by arkhangelskchange at 2:50 AM on May 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
It does pass. Often not on the timescale we would like, but it does.
For a long time, I've thought of depression as being a disease of time. The same way that you can have a disease of the liver or of your heart, depression is a disease of time. One of the hardest things it does, is make it incredibly hard to perceive the future. The future, and the sense of potential and excitement it brings, just withers away to nothing. It makes it particularly hard to imagine a future where you will feel any different from the way you do today. Which is doubly cruel when the way you feel today is so awful. So it feels like you're definitely going to be stuck in a never-ending groundhog day of awfulness, this is the way it is now and the way you are in your very bones, forever. But that's not true, it's just another pernicious symptom of the disease, making your brain unable, at some deep level, to inflate and hold up the idea of an exciting, unknown future.
It made so much sense to me when I read that people with depression often have lowered blood flow in the part of the brain used for forward planning and executive function. That's why taking a shower can feel so impossible. Because it means thinking about the (very near-term) future. All those future actions you have to think about and stack up on top of each other? Just can't be done, I'll just stay exactly here and now in bed. It's because your brain is, in depression, unable to work with the future at all. It can affect our ability to shower, and it can affect our ability to just generally look forward, both in the general sense of looking forward and thinking about the future, and also in the sense of pleasurable anticipation - "I'm looking forward to next year". I wonder if this "disease of the future" thing is one of the reasons behind suicide, because when the brain literally can't conceive of the future any more, it has an unstoppable urge to bring reality into line with its conception.
Which is to say, that I think you're going to be OK, eventually. Your brain is still exhausted and repairing itself and relearning how to be not-depressed, and eventually it'll get the blood flow pumping again into that corner of the brain that hosts the concept of a bright future, and things will start to improve. It's just bloody slow sometimes. Best of luck.
posted by penguin pie at 2:57 AM on May 20, 2022 [7 favorites]
For a long time, I've thought of depression as being a disease of time. The same way that you can have a disease of the liver or of your heart, depression is a disease of time. One of the hardest things it does, is make it incredibly hard to perceive the future. The future, and the sense of potential and excitement it brings, just withers away to nothing. It makes it particularly hard to imagine a future where you will feel any different from the way you do today. Which is doubly cruel when the way you feel today is so awful. So it feels like you're definitely going to be stuck in a never-ending groundhog day of awfulness, this is the way it is now and the way you are in your very bones, forever. But that's not true, it's just another pernicious symptom of the disease, making your brain unable, at some deep level, to inflate and hold up the idea of an exciting, unknown future.
It made so much sense to me when I read that people with depression often have lowered blood flow in the part of the brain used for forward planning and executive function. That's why taking a shower can feel so impossible. Because it means thinking about the (very near-term) future. All those future actions you have to think about and stack up on top of each other? Just can't be done, I'll just stay exactly here and now in bed. It's because your brain is, in depression, unable to work with the future at all. It can affect our ability to shower, and it can affect our ability to just generally look forward, both in the general sense of looking forward and thinking about the future, and also in the sense of pleasurable anticipation - "I'm looking forward to next year". I wonder if this "disease of the future" thing is one of the reasons behind suicide, because when the brain literally can't conceive of the future any more, it has an unstoppable urge to bring reality into line with its conception.
Which is to say, that I think you're going to be OK, eventually. Your brain is still exhausted and repairing itself and relearning how to be not-depressed, and eventually it'll get the blood flow pumping again into that corner of the brain that hosts the concept of a bright future, and things will start to improve. It's just bloody slow sometimes. Best of luck.
posted by penguin pie at 2:57 AM on May 20, 2022 [7 favorites]
If you're the type for whom more information makes you feel better, read up on allostatic (over)load. It's physiological and has physiological (not just "mood-related") effects. [Skip the second link if you're not the type for whom more info = better.]
posted by heatherlogan at 6:12 AM on May 20, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by heatherlogan at 6:12 AM on May 20, 2022 [6 favorites]
You mentioned not being so badly affected before by your husband's suicide a few years ago, but that is a large trauma, and may be adding to the other traumas you are recovering from/that aren't resolved yet still.
You are doing what you are supposed to do, and that joy will return eventually. But let yourself grieve and don't rush your sadness. Brain chemicals yes, but also perfectly logical reactions to extreme stress. Maybe it's more like PTSD.
posted by emjaybee at 7:19 AM on May 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
You are doing what you are supposed to do, and that joy will return eventually. But let yourself grieve and don't rush your sadness. Brain chemicals yes, but also perfectly logical reactions to extreme stress. Maybe it's more like PTSD.
posted by emjaybee at 7:19 AM on May 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
there just seems to be this undercurrent I can't shake. Like my real joy and enthusiasm is at best, damped and at worst, just gone. I feel better, but have crying jags a lot. And the happiness is fragile.
Sounds a lot like what went on with me for the first few years of recovery from psychosis. The way I described it to myself was as a devastating loss of innocence: there were suddenly so many many things I knew about myself that I'd never known before, and very few of those things were good, and most of them involved having things I'd generally liked about myself revealed as illusory and/or banal and/or just flat wrong.
I've never recovered the self-concept I had before psychosis, and nor have I recovered the way I used to look at the world. But although it took ten years for genuine, heartfelt, unalloyed joy to make an appearance again, it did; and it was all the deeper for having been experienced by a man with a vastly if forcibly widened perspective.
What you're going through right now will end up giving you personal resources that you're currently in no position to appreciate the value of. Hang in there. Keep concentrating on immediate self-care, mourn and grieve the loss of the person you'd always believed yourself to be whenever you feel the urge until you can let your history just be what it is and allow yourself to be whoever you are in the moment again, and it will get better. Just not in the ways you're currently equipped to expect, which is of course what makes it so damned hard to see coming.
Internet hugs are on offer, in unlimited quantities, if they'd be of any use to you.
posted by flabdablet at 10:16 AM on May 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
Sounds a lot like what went on with me for the first few years of recovery from psychosis. The way I described it to myself was as a devastating loss of innocence: there were suddenly so many many things I knew about myself that I'd never known before, and very few of those things were good, and most of them involved having things I'd generally liked about myself revealed as illusory and/or banal and/or just flat wrong.
I've never recovered the self-concept I had before psychosis, and nor have I recovered the way I used to look at the world. But although it took ten years for genuine, heartfelt, unalloyed joy to make an appearance again, it did; and it was all the deeper for having been experienced by a man with a vastly if forcibly widened perspective.
What you're going through right now will end up giving you personal resources that you're currently in no position to appreciate the value of. Hang in there. Keep concentrating on immediate self-care, mourn and grieve the loss of the person you'd always believed yourself to be whenever you feel the urge until you can let your history just be what it is and allow yourself to be whoever you are in the moment again, and it will get better. Just not in the ways you're currently equipped to expect, which is of course what makes it so damned hard to see coming.
Internet hugs are on offer, in unlimited quantities, if they'd be of any use to you.
posted by flabdablet at 10:16 AM on May 20, 2022 [3 favorites]
similar boat. jfc, it's so hard, right?
I'm working with a strategy my therapist suggested (therapy homework, if you will):
Identify an activity that you remember bringing you joy in the past. put it on the calendar within the next week. report back to therapist what happened.
posted by j_curiouser at 11:52 AM on May 20, 2022
I'm working with a strategy my therapist suggested (therapy homework, if you will):
Identify an activity that you remember bringing you joy in the past. put it on the calendar within the next week. report back to therapist what happened.
posted by j_curiouser at 11:52 AM on May 20, 2022
What you describe is a major component of clinical depression. It's so awful and takes away everything good. There is a pandemic of depression and adjustment issues now that we are coming out of covid pandemic isolation (whether we should or not is a different question, but it's real where I am). Therapist appointments are impossible to find, esp. adequate therapists.
Does it come back? Can joy and optimism be just irreparably gone? Yes, it can, and No, they are not necessarily gone. Get outside if you can, Nature is healing. Exercise can actually help, as can good nutrition. Know anybody with a friendly dog? medicinal. I hope things get better for you soon.
posted by theora55 at 12:34 PM on May 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
Does it come back? Can joy and optimism be just irreparably gone? Yes, it can, and No, they are not necessarily gone. Get outside if you can, Nature is healing. Exercise can actually help, as can good nutrition. Know anybody with a friendly dog? medicinal. I hope things get better for you soon.
posted by theora55 at 12:34 PM on May 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: Thanks everyone. I wrote this after being at the library studying for an exam that I forgot so much of that it felt like most of it was new. Maybe it was, this semester has been rough and when I was in that depressive episode, I tried to keep up and then after, catch up but I didn't retain like I normally do, and who knows how much I was just skimming, its like huge chunks from each chapter were new.
What bothered me was not that, but that the normal excitement i feel when learning something new was there because either forgetting or just missed that information. Except it was so muted. I am one of those people who Gets Excited learning new things.
I happened to have a med check that morning (yesteday) and we're going to adjust my medication because I was doing better on the buproprion but we made a change and things sorta slipped from feeling more normal to feeling meh to a slow creeping where I was crying all the time again, not caring much and just gritting my teeth to get through.
But she also recommended intensive outpatient therapy, and I agree it would be beneficial. To be honest, I have thought so for a while, had a therapist recommend it after my husbands suicide, couldn't then due to not having insurance, and once I did, I had turned a corner in therapy, therapist and I discussed, he felt that it wasn't as necessary, though I could benefit from it but if I was feeling like I didn't want to commit the time, he didn't think I should force myself to and I could always do later.
I always kept it in the back of my mind as a tool I might need, and at some point realized I probably did because I wasn't coping well with subsequent changes in my life, and I'm sure that the trauma from my husbands suicide was playing a role. But there was always some urgent task that I couldn't spare the time (which you know, probably wasn't the case although sometimes it kinda was; its been a tightrope of keeping myself afloat.).
The problem there is that when I had a pretty severe depressive episode two winters ago, the therapist I was seeing I asked if I should be doing something like an intensive outpatient program. And he said flat out no, it was inappropriate unless I had attempted suicide, then I'd go to something like that. In retrospect, thats nutso and counter to everything I knew about intensive outpatient programs. But I was so depressed and low, I listened to EVERYTHING he said. I outlined some of it in a previous asks (More precisely, my uncertainty towards this therapist as I started to come out of my depression.)
I think the IOP will help; waiting for some specific recommendations. Funny thing is, I had some silly things happen yesterday that kinda snapped me out of the low place I was, thank god. This, however, has been part of the problem; I think my mood recovers from certain aspects of depression and difficult situations and while it's been a blessing in some regards, it's slowed seeking treatment because "I'm fine now". I'm still going to pursue the IOP, I'm certain at this point I need that help. I haven't gotten a new therapist yet for a bunch of reasons but a big hurdle the experience with that last therapist just shook me so much that I find reasons to put it off. So that has to change too.
At least I can see that the spark is still there.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 9:54 AM on May 21, 2022 [4 favorites]
What bothered me was not that, but that the normal excitement i feel when learning something new was there because either forgetting or just missed that information. Except it was so muted. I am one of those people who Gets Excited learning new things.
I happened to have a med check that morning (yesteday) and we're going to adjust my medication because I was doing better on the buproprion but we made a change and things sorta slipped from feeling more normal to feeling meh to a slow creeping where I was crying all the time again, not caring much and just gritting my teeth to get through.
But she also recommended intensive outpatient therapy, and I agree it would be beneficial. To be honest, I have thought so for a while, had a therapist recommend it after my husbands suicide, couldn't then due to not having insurance, and once I did, I had turned a corner in therapy, therapist and I discussed, he felt that it wasn't as necessary, though I could benefit from it but if I was feeling like I didn't want to commit the time, he didn't think I should force myself to and I could always do later.
I always kept it in the back of my mind as a tool I might need, and at some point realized I probably did because I wasn't coping well with subsequent changes in my life, and I'm sure that the trauma from my husbands suicide was playing a role. But there was always some urgent task that I couldn't spare the time (which you know, probably wasn't the case although sometimes it kinda was; its been a tightrope of keeping myself afloat.).
The problem there is that when I had a pretty severe depressive episode two winters ago, the therapist I was seeing I asked if I should be doing something like an intensive outpatient program. And he said flat out no, it was inappropriate unless I had attempted suicide, then I'd go to something like that. In retrospect, thats nutso and counter to everything I knew about intensive outpatient programs. But I was so depressed and low, I listened to EVERYTHING he said. I outlined some of it in a previous asks (More precisely, my uncertainty towards this therapist as I started to come out of my depression.)
I think the IOP will help; waiting for some specific recommendations. Funny thing is, I had some silly things happen yesterday that kinda snapped me out of the low place I was, thank god. This, however, has been part of the problem; I think my mood recovers from certain aspects of depression and difficult situations and while it's been a blessing in some regards, it's slowed seeking treatment because "I'm fine now". I'm still going to pursue the IOP, I'm certain at this point I need that help. I haven't gotten a new therapist yet for a bunch of reasons but a big hurdle the experience with that last therapist just shook me so much that I find reasons to put it off. So that has to change too.
At least I can see that the spark is still there.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 9:54 AM on May 21, 2022 [4 favorites]
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posted by Bottlecap at 12:48 AM on May 20, 2022 [7 favorites]