Re: Moodswings - how to cope? ----- From: Bernd - Date: 12 Nov 1997

I define depression as an allergy to dysfunction. Sorta like having hay fever - the body reacts when there’s pollen in the air. Similarly, when shit has been done to us, and we haven’t dealt with it in healthy ways (allowing us to transform it or release it), our body reacts. Each of us have a different threshold, i.e., I know people who don’t get depressed unless a major crisis hits them, while others sink down when someone calls them names. The threshold is - in my opinion - the part that biology determines.

Anti-depressants shift that threshold, like taking medicine to make a hay fever sufferer less sensitive to pollen.

I felt animosity towards Lynda, certainly. More accurately, it was anger. Her reaction to my depression - anger, pain, and attempts to control - were painful to me, because I felt caught in a no-win situation. Unless I took the time I needed alone to process my struggles, it would get worse. No matter how much she tried to convince me she could HELP me, intuitively I knew that - if she had real empathy with what I was dealing with - she’d understand why I need my alone time. We can’t really help someone else unless we HAVE such empathy.

In comparison, imagine yourself having the flu, and your partner taking your need to rest and sleep as a rejection of him. Imagine the anger you’d feel if he expected you to be as attentive, and take care of HIS needs, while you were feeling so miserable. The advantage with the flu is that the visible symptoms are easy to spot. Where you coped with depression differently than him, his symptoms - withdrawing - were foreign to you. If he had the flu, but only had a slight cough, you’d likely be just a perplexed when he spent the day on the couch resting. And HE’D be perplexed too, because he wouldn’t know why the hell he was feeling so lousy, and he’d likely feel guilty about it.

I’ll write more later. Those are some of my thoughts.

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