Oh, I have reached my boiling point. My mood is so damn dynamic, yet it never graces a joyful moment or happiness in any capacity. I can mildly entertain myself, but it’s coupled with an anhedonia that leaves me feeling bland and unnatural. I am sick of my meds, seems they only worked for roughly a week, and due to diminished returns eventually my brain chemistry adapted leaving me with raw shitty emotions. I get endless anger; I am a ball of nerves. I desperately want stability, yet every damned minute my mood fluctuates. So exhausted right now.
What do you do to get yourselves out of those all encompassing moods, things like overwhelming anger, an impending panic attack, or really anything that greatly influences your behavior? How do you guys squeeze juice from a raisin, how do you find joy when it seems you are fundamentally incapable of feeling it?
3 comments
Some things that helped me in the past (but I don’t know whether they would help anyone else):
1) Find a song that you really like, one that sounds powerful or gives you goose bumps. Put on some headphones and listen to it over and over. Somehow when I do this it gives me energy by providing something to focus on. Music has an energy all its own, and all we have to do is listen.
2) When I was a child, I would have severe panic attacks for no reason (at least no reason I could identify at the time, other than a strange sense of deja vu). They eventually stopped when I decided to just let them happen and sort of analyze them as they happened. It was as if I allowed myself a sense of scientific detachment, like a guy in a lab coat watching a rat. Eventually those kinds of panic attacks diminished to nothing. These days I have different kinds of panic attacks for reasons I CAN identify, but at least the horribly crippling ones aren’t happening anymore.
3) Find a book you really like; find one with another world you can “go” to. Whether it’s science fiction or fantasy or whatever. Whenever this world seems like too much, just sit quietly and imagine that you ARE in that other world. Maybe even create a whole different character for yourself. It makes a “safe” place to escape to, when things get to be too much.
I’m not sure if any of this will help you, but it has all helped me at one time or another.
Interesting tips tbh. I find that my panic is destined to happen in ever situation. It’s weird, I am able to appear calm, I am able to appear normal, but my inner consciousness is hardly involved in the moment. Instead I am stuck worrying about my hyperhydrosis. (under arms profusely sweating, normally hidden by a jacket, even if the climate of the building I am in or even outdoors is completely inappropriate.) I can’t deter my thought from thinking about sweating, I just sweat. Sometimes I even sweat just concentrating, seems I have a generalized anxiety that is so widespread the only thing that keeps me calm is sleeping.
I like the tip about the song, I have a few songs that do that to me. Motivate or carry me towards stregnth, but feels like everything has lost meaning lately. I am damn tired and sick of living, but I have no motives to kill myself. I just want to reach a place of comfort, and to detach from this disgusting feeling of dysphoria and anhedonia.
Headphones help me to ignore everything else that’s going on, at least for that moment.
I turn it up loud enough to cover everything else up.
And I listen to the same song (or set of songs) over and over.
For me at least, it helps.
For #3, it doesn’t have to be a book; it could also be a movie that has some other world you could see yourself escaping to. Whether it’s the world of Lord Of The Rings, or Harry Potter, or some superhero/villain saga. Anything where you can create the ideal character for yourself… and (at least in my case), gradually try to become more like that ideal person you envision.
I’ve had social anxiety for the vast majority of my life, so I started creating characters that were comfortable and charming in social situations. I created characters that were funny and likeable. I imagined what they would do in all sorts of situations, and I honestly did my best, over a few years, to become more like them.
(The point being that it was still “ME” either way; I just had to learn how to bring out those particular qualities).
I’m nowhere near perfect, but I’ve come a LONG way from where I started.
Social situations still make me nervous, but I can smile and fake it like a pro. 🙂
And I have to admit there have even been some occasions when I actually had a good time.