Psyched Out

It turns out that part of staying in bed and feeling like I couldn't face anything Sunday was a virus. I threw up multiple times at work the next day and went home early. I was hoping that feeling physically better would put the whole thing behind me. I woke up today feeling better from the virus but still depressed. It's so overwhelming, the inertia that I experience at these times. I just lay there. I know it's not healthy, I know the best thing is to crawl out from under the covers and face the perfectly unspectacular and easy day. And it's not at all like I usually feel when I don't want to get out of bed. I have my too late nights like anyone else where I regret watching the huge tumor removal program all the way to the end. When I'm depressed I tend to wake up completely before the usual time. Then I lay there feeling helpless and weak and stupid. After all these years. After all of my professional experience. Despite every positive thing in my wonderful life. None of it matters when the feelings come roaring back like a waterfall I'm plunging over. It's so impersonal, it has nothing to do with my circumstances, it's not connected to my life. When the depression really hits cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) stops working. It has what I believe to be a fundamental flaw: the assumption that depressed feelings arise solely from deep seated but erroneous beliefs or thought patterns. I experience depression as a wave of negative emotions and physical symptoms that can cause superficial negative thoughts. I don't think that I'm a bad or weak or helpless person at all. I have too much experience with this illness to let it interfere with my deep seated thought patterns. I just feel bad and weak and helpless while knowing that those things are untrue. It's definitely the feeling affecting my thoughts, and not the other way around. CBT has done a lot for me in the past when I was learning to cope with actual wrong beliefs (example: "if I feel bad then I am bad"), but it has had reduced effectiveness as I have grown more skilled and knowledgeable. CBT does not address the physical and emotional side of depression well. If its premise that thoughts cause mood and not the other way around, once learned it would prevent recurrance of depression, which it most definitely does not.

Did I mention that depression makes you self centered? It does. As soon as I muddle through this bout I'll return to more interesting subjects, I promise.