Good Day, Bad Day

Friday 20.11.09

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a Facebook status saying that I was having a 'proper good day'. A friend and I got talking about it and on that day, I realised that I was in the middle of a period of feeling a 'normal' degree of all-rightness. Normal in that I was experiencing the all-rightness that I remembered being used to in former times. I wasn't euphoric, or over excited, but was happily productive. It had been stable for a few weeks. It was a good feeling. My friend asked me if I would be blogging about it and although I told her I would, I didn't. There's not much that can be said about a feeling of non-specific contentment, I told myself. To be truthful though, I didn't want to jinx it.

If you ever develop depression, you will almost certainly be told that it is 'reactive'. That is to say that you've reacted to unpleasant stimuli such as loss of a job. Most people recover spontaneously or with a bit of pharmacology in under a year. Mine has gone on with waves of better and worse periods, but I've never fully recovered. It has been over six years now. In fact, I thought I had forgotten what normal feels like. I've developed a new normal for me. Like setting a printer to lowest quality and leaving it there, I've got used to it. Then came 'proper good day'. After 'proper good day' came more good days. By last week, I got to thinking I would take off the sentence on my blog header about my depression. After all, I hadn't written about depression for a month and since the end of August, things had been on the up. I didn't change the header though. Just in case.

If you're depressed enough to get a therapist, you get asked to identify what triggers the depression. It's not megga helpful as the major triggers like relationship problems, job losses, bereavement and physical illness you would have avoided if you could. If you've held on to your depression long after the original trigger is passed, then the mini triggers that make depression worsen (like breaking something, or having a quarrel) tend in my opinion to be symptoms - if you weren't depressed, you would be able to cope, it would make for a bad day but not for err depression.

In the light of noticing my change in depressive fortune, I set about looking to see if I could find the triggers for the improvement. For the record, I've concluded that there weren't any. The 'proper good day' followed a week of good luck and small home-grown success. First off: both Nina and H made some strides in sorting out how they see their future studies going. I was pleased to see them re-energised and proud of their efforts. Secondly, my pension company sent me some free money. I still don't understand it, and don't believe it happened but I ticked a 'please send me free money' box and a cheque turned up. We've been short of money and the cheque meant that H could have the camera that she needed. Thirdly, I got a good score in a college test. All of these things are, of course, enough to give a non-depressed person a boost. I think though, that had I been depressed, they wouldn't have lifted the clouds. I had been feeling better since August, but hadn't noticed.

Then yesterday came. I felt the tingle of badness in the morning, but got myself together to go out. I tried to work through a chapter of college work with no success. My ability to concentrate had gone. The people in the cafe around me were too loud, their emotions too strident to deal with. In the supermarket, I wondered up and down the rows of meat searching for the perfect size pack of diced chicken. when it didn't appear, I couldn't work out what alternative to opt for because I couldn't overcome the crushing disappointment of having to chop the chicken myself. Then it was a rushed evening to pick everyone up in time for parents' evening at school. The traffic felt too much, I got angry and panicky, unable to judge the reactions of other drivers, missing turnings. I slept poorly.

Today was a 'proper bad day'. I painted on a smile for the errands I had to run, but, catching up with a good friend, I was weepy and lost. In depression, the third day pays for all. One or two 'off days' is normal, beyond three you're supposed to seek help. What I'm keen to know is: when tomorrow comes, which normal will I be back to?