lets face it.... im a moody and tempramental person. im also prone to depression. its an inbuilt defect - hardwired to my system. i cant change that anymore than i can change the colour of my hair (ok wait thats wrong.... i change my hair colour every month!). let me re-phrase, i cant change my depressive and tempremental tendencies any more than i can change my eye colour. and yes i have changed my eye colour, but we all know that was a fake - a cover up. the real colour still lay beneath the surface.
another analogy would be inherited diseases.... more like reality. depression is inherited. its like diabetes. its in your blood / hormones what not. your body betrays you. but with sufficient outside controls your body cannot defeat you. you can control your body. its simple - you cannot control what you body will inevitably do to you, but you can mitigate the effects by controlling your environment.
Your diet for example. Diabetics need to control sweet stuff intake to maintain their blood sugar levels - cant have the wrong foods but have to have the right amount of the right foods. I need to control my food intake too - i need to be well fed all the time. I'm picky about what i eat therefore i need to eat what suits me. If a diabetic doesnt eat correctly or enough their blood sugar levels go down and energy levels fall and at extremes they can collapse. If i dont eat (and must eat what i like cos otherwise i wont eat), my energy levels go down and that leads to low moods. leave me hungry long enough and i will be cranky. stretch that a bit more and i have been known to cry over it. dammit yes me cry. Now people who know me migh laugh at how much importance i give to food given how thin i am and how little i eat - but thats exactly the point - i dont have fat stores to sustain me so i need to eat when i need to eat. and i cant have large meals in one go - i need to eat in increments all day. also i need to eat healthy. i hate oily food and not a huge fan of random sweet stuff- other than chocolate that is and even that i cant have huge amounts in one go. i love fruit. im not a big fan of processed junk food either - other than bakery chips and i dont think those qualify as processed junk food. so of course im not gonna me gaining any weight ever. but thats off the track. the point is food is important. without the environmental control of food intake, my body betrays me and my emotional control goes out the window.
Next - sleep. Studies show that sleep deprivation makes a person more likely to catch a cold and basically reduces their resistance to bacteria / viruses / infection etc. Sleep is necessary to recover from illnesses. Sleep deficiency causes concentration and memory issues. Sleep is a basic human requirement. There are debates on how much sleep does a human really need. 8 hours is the standard quotated, but some say adults need as little as 4 to 6 hours, whereas adolescents may need upto 10 hours of sleep. Every human is different. they have a different physiology, hormonal make-up and what not. So it makes sense that each person would have a different sleep requirement. Its not laziness - just a basic fact about myself - I need more than 8 hours of sleep. Its a different thing that I've trained myself to accept less, but the impact of that manifests itself in horrible ways. Fatigue, crankiness, moodiness. But hey I survive - 8 hours is minimum, 9 is better. 9.5 to 10 is my optimum. but i survive on 8. but when it gets less than 8, its a problem. Getting less than minimum is a problem for anyone. For me it effects my emotional balance. As sleep deprivation accumulates, i progressively get cranky, moody, irritable, easily annoyed, angry, prone to angry outbursts, and of course depression and complete mental breakdown.
When i was a teenager i had a chronic sleep problem. it felt like i hadnt slept in years. i dont remember ever getting a complete nights continuous sleep. i'd always be tossing and turning, waking up in the middle of the night, have problems falling asleep. overall i'd get not more than 4 hours of good sleep. i also remember being a severly moody and depressed teenager. it never occured to me then that my insomnia had anything to do with it. insomnia just was the way i was, that was what normal sleep was. then at some point in my twenties i started sleeping. (lots of factors on how i actually managed to overcome insomnia) i started getting a full nights sleep. (for me a full nights sleep still means getting up at least once in the middle of the night, but still manage to go straight back to sleep). i think i can count on my fingers the number of times i've actaully slept straight for more than 4 or 5 hours at a stretch. For the past 4 or 5 years i've been rejoicing the fact that i can sleep. and now its gone. i cant sleep anymore.
the past 4 or 5 years I've started paying more attention to my environment and the things that impact my moods. this is not self indulgence. this is survival. i try and avoid conflict. i try and avoid people who are mean. i hate when someone disapproves of me... it bothers me to no end, so i strive to please people. i avoid thinking about whats wrong in the world. i dont think about the past, i adapt to the situation around me so that i have no longings / regrets about what is lost or what cant be. living in the moment and being happy in that moment. thats not to say that i havent learnt from my past or i dont think about the future. or that i care only about myself. i cant have people around me be unhappy because that makes me unhappy. so i try and make them happy.
i finally had some measure of control in my life and over my depression. i've lost that control. eating is fine most of the time. god bless asif and his cooking skills. god bless my parents for getting me a huge fridge and a microwave. sleep is a problem. i've stopped sleeping - and by that i mean my sleeping pattern is mostly sleep for an hour or two, wake up, sometimes manage to go back to sleep, sometimes not. cant sleep for more than 2 hours at a stretch now. have to take a pill to sleep - and even with that at the most i sleep for 4 hours at a stretch. im in a situation where i cant avoid dissaproval - no matter how much i try to ignore it, it still effects me.
i digress - we were talking about eating and sleeping. not eating = crankiness. not sleeping = depression. mix that up and include a throat infection and medicine with horrible side effects that make my body hurt all over, and makes me nauseous and makes my mouth taste like crap and hence not eating much. sigh well you can just imagine.
im hungry - i think i'll go eat something. damn gotta take the damn medicine. damn damn damn.
you know sometimes in the middle of the night when i cant sleep for a while, and i start feeling hungry - i then start dreaming of eggs and toast.
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