Sunday, January 27, 2013

Mind sick

I have been mind sick since Tuesday evening. It's not quite the mental equivalent of a Windows blue screen, but it came on as suddenly and without warning just like a blue screen. It feels like I am actually sick with the flu, but that I only have the mental symptoms. Since it's happened, I've tried to stay home as much as possible and feed my mind the equivalent of simple and easily digestible food. Even writing this now is taking much longer than it should.

It typically happens at least once or twice a year. One time after I was very sick with the flu, it lasted off and on for several months, although usually it is gone within a week or two. Every time it happens, I am worried that my mind will be gone forever, that I am gone forever. Other than that, it's not all that unpleasant. I don't feel sad, maybe just a little frustrated sometimes when I'm trying to complete a task and can't marshal the correct mental resources. My emotions can have moments of higher volatility initially, but they usually calm down to base levels lower than average. I can be just as happy and susceptible to pleasure by simple things as I am normally. I think this is why I have never thought it was depression.

I have a strong family history of depression. My mother has been medicated off and on and each of my siblings experience it regularly to varying degrees of severity and length. Just last month I was talking to my brother about it. He is a lot like me, always trying to game the system, so when he gets depressed it's always a little surprising to me to see him so weak. It will come every few months or so for a few days. Random things can trigger it like the end of television series he enjoyed or a period of stress, but it just as often seems to have no trigger. I think he gets really sad, despondent even. The last time this happened I remember thinking, it's odd that I am the only one in the family who is not subject to bouts of depression.

And now I feel like this and for the time I wonder, is this my own version of the family depressive model? Seasonal depression? Why does it come and what makes it come?

79 comments:

  1. You have weird reactions to being sick, ME so maybe it is depression? I hope you feel better soon...

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    1. getting sick bums a psychopath.

      if you don't put a lot of attention in relationships, religion or community, then your body, sex, health, the food you eat and the drink and drugs matter to you tremendously.

      getting sick and old is a major blow

      when i have an ache, that matters to more than a million dead kids.

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  2. "Every time it happens, I am worried that my mind will be gone forever, that I am gone forever."

    OMG M.E. the SAME EXACT yhing happens to me when I have the flu or very bad withdrawals from opiates whitch almost feel the same, although the flu isint as bad......

    It's weird that you dont feel the physical effects because here in the USA (and I dont know if you live in the USA) we are having a 48 state outbreak wiith the flu. Some hospitals have even made outdoor tents with cots because there are so many people with the flu this season!!!!!

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  3. I hope you feel better, M.E. You know that you are very loved here, even though many people won't admit it ~

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    Replies
    1. get plenty of rest and lots of tea, and enjoy the down time :-)

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  5. The most beautiful thing about everything is.... it passes. So will your mind flu, so will mine.

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    1. no it won't
      best kill yourself
      get it over with
      tell me what the dark looks like

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    2. I LIKE THE DARK

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    3. Why don't you explore it by yourself?

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  6. The face is looking at me, from up high. I am a tiny dot, under the force of it. I see it in everyone I meet--the eyes, the upward turn of the lip, the downward turn of the nose. I run but that doesn't work. I could scream and never stop, but I know they would take me away. I can't let them have that final glory. Then, they will smile at me with the smirk of the eyes, as they tell me that I made it all up.

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    1. This is terrible feeling, being duped by the self, and only because we are forced to live. You speak to me, Sofa.

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    2. Thank you, Anon. Those comments keep me going!



      If you get betrayed, you want it to be from the neighbor down the street or the old lady who screams at you for walking on her lawn. Every day, at 3 PM, I walked across her lawn. I had few sources of rebellion, let alone one that was that enjoyable.

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  7. I want to do surgery on it. I want to take it's entrails, which are wound around mine in a choke lock, and pull them apart, strand by strand. Then, I would throw them into the deepest ocean, like when you scatter ashes. There is a big ceremony and the ashes are scattered in a place the person loved, like the Grand Canyon. Mine would be scattered over the place where a ship went down or some other catastrophe. Why honor them with a fancy place? Getting them out is all I care about, really.

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    1. Sofa, you should make a tumbler for your writing. I mean post it here too, but it would be great to have a place where it was all collected instead of scattered. It wouldn't have to be fancy. :)

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    2. Thank you, Anon :) :)

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    3. Nice writing, is there a deeper meaning?

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    4. Yes, cutting out a person who has become wound up in your very being and is killing you.

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    5. I agree, Sofa, another great one today. . Tumblr or Livejournal would be a great place to collect all your writings so your fans can read them again more easily. I'm not saying don't post them here. They've become the first thig I look for when checking the blog.

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    6. Nice, that makes sense, sometimes it kinda sucks not being able to see the deeper meaning.

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    7. Oh Ellicit, Thank you!

      MyMind, Ask me when you want to know anything. It is kewl!

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    8. For now, I just want to share with my family, which is you <3

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    9. Lets have a barbecue all together! That would be so lovely! Spare ribs, drinks, backstabs and traps wherever you look, just like one big family! Could someone ask for more?

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    10. What happened to your real family? I hope not a barbecue in sociopathworld style. ;P

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    11. My real family lies.

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    12. 1. Why is that bad?^^
      2. So you come here?

      Possible anwser to 2: K, this could really be a more honest environment than your fam, because here "no ones" hiding behind morals

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    13. Yes
      I can't take lies, anymore.

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    14. An detailed example would be awesome, i would like to try to understand that more. :)

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    15. It is hard to pull examples when it was an overall tenor. Read "People of the Lie" by Scott Peck. It was like that

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  8. ME "Why does it come and what makes it come?"

    Could Seratonin be the culprit? A malfunction of the amount of Seratonin.

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    Replies
    1. And what role does our behavior play on the amount of Seratonin levels. Thanks, ME!

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    2. i get mind sickness. but is it really sickness?

      there is the seasonal kind. january thru march my thoughts can get manic if i don't watch it. it's like i get stuck on certain thoughts and the same ones go spinning round and round. i cut back on the caffeine, sleep more, and take it easy mentally, and all is good. it's a brain chemical thing and change in sunlight. you just have to accept that you'll be less productive - this used to stress me out. it's like a seasonal recharging period. i don't think my thoughts are actually faster, but my brain can't handle them if that makes sense.

      normally i'm high energy in every way. so the other "mind sickness" is down time needed after a period of greater than normal activity. i used to get it after exams, as an example. it's debilitating to the point where i can barely move for several days. same as like a real flu. it's not depression, but pure recharging. i actually enjoy it now, but used to go almost into a panic before, thinking that it might be permanent. never is.

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    3. Easy way to tell if it is seratonin. Go to the nearest drug store and get some 5-htp in the vitamin section. It is a seratonin precursor.

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    4. 4:09 AM You're right. 5-htp is also taken for ADD. It works!

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    5. ^^^ 5-htp is not a cure all but it helps.

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  9. thoughts on the fog..

    i posted earlier that my impression of the fog and being forced into it out of a state of conceptual reality was theoretical.

    but i just remembered the other day experiencing something like that driving from trampoline class a few years ago. living solely in a "past-future" reality is how i grew up and a kind of acquired default state for me, if not exactly a natural one. we were a family that sat around and talked, but never did things together. while i like "face to face" bonding, there is also connecting "side by side" which comes from doing. which connects you to others in the present moment. it's more real.

    doing trampoline and other physical activities taught me to reconnect with the present. having others around took my mind off me. but driving home alone, taking the present with me, being left alone with it, was like suddenly being alone in a fog. because i think i didn't know myself at all in the present moment, only as a concept that existed in the past and the future. the trampoline dispersed the concepts within me, which were all i knew of me at the time.

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    1. so, i remember one particular night sitting alone at a red light and going into almost a panic because it was taking longer than normal to change. there i was with myself and only the present, without the usual mental stuff to distract me. each second felt like an hour. it was like reality had stopped, the usual landscape simply gone, and there i was suspended and fully conscious, sitting at this never ending red light, wondering if i had ever actually existed, if i was really real.

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    2. it felt as if i had been sitting there always at this red light.

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    3. It's like my letdown after dance with group. It's a little death, the endorphins having left the body.

      Zoe, I thought your fog was a good thing for you. Here it seems unpleasant. I guess it can be both?

      Idk, when a person has flu in the mind, maybe it feels like what ME describes, probably like a mini depression.

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    4. ^Monica? It certainly sounds like you but why post Anon?

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    5. It isn't the Monica.

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    6. Because she's annoyed with Vegitopath?

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    7. It isn't Monica.

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    8. Shall we call them pseudo-Monica?

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    9. Call me anything you like, just don't call me ~

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    10. Zoe, I thought your fog was a good thing for you. Here it seems unpleasant. I guess it can be both?

      exactly, thanks for that. that's the point i was trying to slap together haha. the fog was me waking up and going where am i? this is creeeeepy! i could have pushed it back, gone back to sleep, but better to face things. i hate it when something unhinges me.

      and there are always new fogs. so when i started posting here back in 2010 i had a similar experience but very empowering and not at all creepy. or rather i was connecting with my inner creepy. the world faded a bit into the background. it was the realization that i could choose not to go with the feelings, and choose not to feel them, including guilt, empathy etc. so all the sociopathic identity discussions were really interesting and very relevant to me at the time.

      i don't mean choosing to go numb, but choosing to not be tethered to feelings and getting dragged willy nilly. it was like a part of me suddenly woke up and stepped back, just stopped, while the world kept going. it felt good not to be dragged along with it. i LOVED that.

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    11. It's like my letdown after dance with group. It's a little death, the endorphins having left the body.

      so it's not just me

      Delete
  10. For ME and Rich and the listlessJanuary 27, 2013 at 2:42 PM

    http://www.dvo.com/newsletter/monthly/2010/december/jest1.html

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  11. Replies
    1. For MEdusa and her next preyJanuary 27, 2013 at 3:50 PM

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etzVmxbC8fI


      start at 130

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  12. Cryptic tweet: Wear what like armor?

    Also, is being a badass really anathema to sociopathy? How so?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Wear anything out front and no one can hurt you with it.

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    Replies
    1. I think if you wear something like sociopathy out front people can totally hurt you with it.

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    2. This was more about someone who can laugh at themselves or accept their warts, so no one can hurt them because they have faced themselves.

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    3. Okay, thanks.

      But what about being too charming to be a badass? Who can resist occasional displays of awesomeness?

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    4. you cant wear your badassity on your sleeve anymore than you can wear your cute little smiles hanging off you. You wear your dignified self and pretend you're the queen of england when you know someone just slashed your face. ..You smile and say come a little closer and then you stab them good. Then you have a cocktail and ask your date how it is they are so wonderful conversationalist. It isn't fucking brain surgery,

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    5. Yes, yes, I'm gonna go out with you again after I witness you stab some innocent face slasher.

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    6. Everyone one wants to die a little, my pet. Kiss me.

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    7. It isn't always appropriate, but I think you can occasionally. It would be sad not to throw a drink at someone at least once in your life and unfortunately, someone will deserve it. How can you not relish that?

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  14. With the mention of depression, I'd like to ask you a question, M.E.

    Do you think about suicide often without intent? What I mean by that is do you think about what it would be like to kill yourself and how it would effect the people around you but you would never actually do it.

    So I'm a sociopath and I would never ever actually kill myself, but I think about suicide often. I am not at all depressed.. It seems impossible for me to ever get depressed (I just get more dissociated than normal and feel like I'm living in a dream whenever I'm not mentally up to par). However, I find it funny to think about what other people would do if I were to kill myself. It amuses me to think about what they would have to go through.

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    1. If I killed myself they'd blame themselves and I'd be happy about it. It's the truth. I 'd never give them that satisfaction. Never.

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    2. No that isnt quite right.

      I am so angry.

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  15. Maybe bouts of depersonalization?

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    1. That's what I would say too, Anon 11:35.

      M.E.: I have times where I go through depersonalized/derealized states. I agree that it isn't unpleasant, but it's more numb than usual and you cannot motivate yourself to do much or to keep up appearances that you usually do. Does it kind of feel like you're in a dream?

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    2. M Brig,

      is there a reason you said my anon 10:39 comment isn't quite right(11:35 comment --same as your feeling) and that part ME'as comment you posted directly after??

      If you see a connection between them, please tell how. I don't see it. thank you.

      Delete
    3. Oh scratch that.. I'm drugged up and thought when you wrote:

      " M.E. : " that you were quoting him/her from his post.

      Entirely different topic,and your words dhuuuuh..

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    4. I agree. Much of what is described on today's blog sounds like depersonalization/derealization. Especially what Zoe talks about.

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    5. Oh sorry. I meant to say that I agreed withAnon 9:46

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  16. Anyone have any advice on how to deal with derealization/depersonalization? It happens to me sometimes and I'd like to know if anyone has a way to make yourself snap out of it.

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  17. Maybe yoga or other forms of meditation?

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  18. I'll have to try that, thanks for the input

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  19. You're welcome. I just had an idea.

    If you think of derealization as a kind of insensitivity, it could be possible to sharpen your perception by taking a drug. It wouldn't have to be anything "hard". One dose of THC would probably be enough.

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  20. Not exactly. It will just feel like I'm in a dream, not fully mentally present or able to focus. Not necessarily insensitive to my surroundings. Weed has similar effects..I feel like it would only exacerbate a derealized state.

    ReplyDelete

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