Episode Summary
At the beginning of this week I had what I thought might have been a relapse. Today I had something similar. On both occasions there was one striking similarity. In this episode I’m embarrassed to explain how I am feeling but positive about what I have learnt.
Episode Transcript (Edited)
Hi and welcome to today’s episode of Hope, Help, Happiness.
I have discovered something important. I’ve discovered that my routine vaccinates me against rumination.
I know this because this morning I didn’t do my morning routine and it had an impact on my mood. The reason I didn’t do it was because it was Saturday. I was out late last night. When my alarm went off I thought, “I’ll just have another half hour to have a bit more sleep before I do get up and do my normal routine”.
But I couldn’t get back to sleep. Unfortunately, I allowed my mind to focus on stuff it shouldn’t really focus on. As a result I got into a long session of rumination. In fact it was nearly three hours.
I was triggered by something that happened last night. I had a situation where I rushed into something without thinking and it didn’t go as I would have liked. So I started beating myself up about it. I started getting low because I felt I should have known better and not thinking properly about what I was saying at the time was a stupid mistake.
So I went to bed unsettled. Then this morning I focused on that. I ended up criticising myself and beating myself up. That led to all sorts of negative thoughts.
I think I’m still a little bit raw from my experience of hitting another low at the beginning of the week. That was triggered by a perceived rejection. I think last night’s issue had a related theme. But also, I didn’t do my morning routine that day, and I let rumination take control.
Rejection for me is a massive issue. I have sometimes been almost startled by the impact a rejection has had on me.
The situation last night surfaced more thoughts in me that I’m unlovable and I’m unworthy. That sets off a train of thought leading to not feeling good enough and that I don’t deserve. Which of course sets me off feeling low again.
When I start feeling like that, I start to see how my thought processes automatically lead me that way and I start to focus on the perception of the impossibility of my situation. The fact that my beliefs seem to be so ingrained and that I appear so openly and easily susceptible these low feelings is distressing and disheartening.
What is most disturbing is I seem to want to hang onto my low mood when it takes hold.
I get into this cycle where I know I shouldn’t hang on to it, but I get annoyed at myself because I’m hanging on to it. And that drives it deeper.
With that anger at myself, almost a rage sometimes, I turn on myself and that drives me even further into low feelings. I get a sense that I’m punishing myself. I don’t know what for.
Maybe I’m punishing myself for not being good enough, for being unlovable, for being unworthy and that I should be better.
I found the longer I stayed in bed this morning, the worst I felt. The worse I felt, the angrier I got with myself. Essentially I dived into a state of learned helplessness where I was annoyed I hadn’t got up. And because I was annoyed I hadn’t got up, I didn’t want to get up… because I was annoyed I hadn’t got up.
I did try the five, four, three, two, one technique. I could start to feel it making a difference because it shifted my focus into something else. But because of the residual feelings I was consumed by were so strong, the impact of that shift was short lived.
I just felt myself trying to hang on to it like it was the only way to be.
I think I have an addiction to those feelings. Stuff I’ve read about neuroscience indicates it doesn’t matter what those feelings are, if we get to use to them, then we become addicted to them.
Any shift away from them is a form of Cold Turkey. And that’s why I get sucked back into it them.
So at the moment I’m angry. I’m angry I’ve allowed myself to get into this state because I appeared to making such good progress.
I’m embarrassed to record this and describe how I’m feeling because I was hoping my journey to recovery would be one of continual upward momentum.
But it’s not been that way.
However, if I can take anything positive from this, it’s the realisation of the importance of my morning routine. So far it has had a very positive impact on my physicality and my health and my energy – when I do it.
If I don’t get up first thing in the morning and do my morning routine, then I am more vulnerable to thoughts that drive me down to a low mood.
Until tomorrow.
