The holiday month slump

[SeekingAfrica]

I'm starting to hit that time of year when even being functional is really hard and all I want to do is hide in a corner. It's a cycle I've been in, which unfortunately makes it easy to fall in again. It's like this headache at the back of my head that is almost un-noticable at first, and then by the time you know it's there you can barely do anything. I have some important administration stuff to deal with at the end of the year, so I can't fall apart. And by any known evidence things should go okay.

BUT there is that feeling. It starts unnoticeable, and I use the new things I've learned, the strategies and medications to fight it and at first I do well. But the closer new year is getting the worse that feeling is. I start having unsettling dreams and dreading the start of my day. I start counting days and hours until important things. Doing anything and sticking to schedules gets harder and harder. My mind jumps between really depressed and really anxious. I miss alarms and take more breaks, because it's the only way I keep moving forward, because I have less and less resistance to that feeling.
The longer the feeling stays around, the more I want to go to bed early. Every TV show starts to blend into every other and they all start to seem pointless, no longer bringing joy or release from the pain. The pain rumbles at the back of my head and slowly grows, worse and worse every day. I start feeling like I will fail at work or at whatever important thing comes soon. Everything starts taking me longer to do. I recheck details and it looks like for once I may not need to worry if I stick to my schedule. But the feeling grows and every day I manage just slightly less tasks than the day prior, go to bed a little earlier. More and more things seem pointless and my world starts revolving around deadlines that I am sure I will somehow miss and all my carefully build defences start to melt under the pressure. Everything starts to seem painful and it just doesn't ease until some time has passed. Like, mid-way through January. I am not sure how I'll get through the month feeling like this. I know it always passes but it sucks. I know I'll figure it out, but right now I can't even figure out how to do my work today, but in the meantime it starts to seem that my work today is the END-all and one day can sink my life somehow...like I need a life-raft but at this time of year I have less options than usual, less things that help me...

 

[InsertCoinsHere]

That sounds stressful, try to be kind to yourself this is a difficult time of year and far more difficult if you have relational trauma and then there’s the symptoms that increase and need managing.. it truly is a battle to get through this time of year.

Could you reward yourself with something each day? Maybe set a reward in the morning and then enjoy it later in the day? Maybe food yo enjoy?

Can you take active steps of self care? What self care activities do you enjoy? I know it feels redundant given the levels of stress but looking after ourselves is the best thing we can do to look after everything that needs to be done..

 

[hithere]

you have desribed very well how I feel. I don't think I could have described this, but you have used words that really explain what is going on with me. I do have pain in my head that moves around, my thoughts jump around, I can't make a simple to do list, I think I'm hungry but I'm not, then I think I'm not hungry but I am, deadlines approach, I can manage the deadlines just one step at a time, but this low sinking low, I feel like I can't make it through. I know it will pass, it has before, so hang in there. all I can say is you are not alone.

 

[SeekingAfrica]

@InsertCoinsHere @hithere Thank you both for commenting. It's nice knowing I'm not alone (although of course I wish no one ever felt this way). I know it will pass but it still feels endless.

I managed some good things yesterday, but today I still woke up in dread. I managed to cook for myself yesterday, more than just fried eggs or sandwiches. I made potato hash with peppers and onion and more veggies and it felt like a good self-care thing. But today, all I do is slower and no matter how much I've slept I still feel sleepy. I feel my brain wanting to just slide out of the situation, out of reality, wanting to sleep through next week, which of course I can't do. I do have triggering memories around this time of year, which yes, makes this month harder. But I also have deadlines and I need food, so I need income. But this state is like a haze and it's like I am daydreaming and I just can't snap out of it. And the more important a task is, the harder it feels to do in this state. If I start thinking it's essential, I freeze and can't do anything.

I don't have a solution for getting out of this, so for now I'm trying to work with it. I can't think of anything else to do.
So I'm trying to work 15-20min at a time, and do mini-rewards and self care things throughout. And no thinking more than 3 tasks and 3 rewards ahead. Planning for a full day just cannot happen this week. So I'm going with 3 x 15 min tasks and rewards for now, and then I'll try to keep repeating that until the evening. I don't know if it will work, but I can hope. Some of the rewards are self-indulgent (hot coffee) and some I will be happy for once I'm out of this slump(reorganizing pictures on my computer, playing 3 songs I love loud and cleaning for their duration).

But it's impossibly hard time. I'm journaling through and when it's over, I'm putting a goal that I am more prepared for it next year. Making a list of what could help. In the mean time, I'm going with 15min tasks, and as long as that keeps me going, it HAS to be enough. Because I just don't have more in me.

 

[InsertCoinsHere]

@InsertCoinsHere @hithere Thank you both for commenting. It's nice knowing I'm not alone (although of course I wish no one ever felt this way). I know it will pass but it still feels endless.

I managed some good things yesterday, but today I still woke up in dread. I managed to cook for myself yesterday, more than just fried eggs or sandwiches. I made potato hash with peppers and onion and more veggies and it felt like a good self-care thing. But today, all I do is slower and no matter how much I've slept I still feel sleepy. I feel my brain wanting to just slide out of the situation, out of reality, wanting to sleep through next week, which of course I can't do. I do have triggering memories around this time of year, which yes, makes this month harder. But I also have deadlines and I need food, so I need income. But this state is like a haze and it's like I am daydreaming and I just can't snap out of it. And the more important a task is, the harder it feels to do in this state. If I start thinking it's essential, I freeze and can't do anything.

I don't have a solution for getting out of this, so for now I'm trying to work with it. I can't think of anything else to do.
So I'm trying to work 15-20min at a time, and do mini-rewards and self care things throughout. And no thinking more than 3 tasks and 3 rewards ahead. Planning for a full day just cannot happen this week. So I'm going with 3 x 15 min tasks and rewards for now, and then I'll try to keep repeating that until the evening. I don't know if it will work, but I can hope. Some of the rewards are self-indulgent (hot coffee) and some I will be happy for once I'm out of this slump(reorganizing pictures on my computer, playing 3 songs I love loud and cleaning for their duration).

But it's impossibly hard time. I'm journaling through and when it's over, I'm putting a goal that I am more prepared for it next year. Making a list of what could help. In the mean time, I'm going with 15min tasks, and as long as that keeps me going, it HAS to be enough. Because I just don't have more in me.

Sounds like a great plan, I like the strategy of mini rewards, I’m more and more feeling hypoaroused, dissociated and frozen.. and I know what you mean it’s a difficult situation to ‘come back to centre’.. I’m currently in a fog of haze and my grounding skills aren’t really helping.. I know bottom up approach techniques are best during intense dissociation periods.. I’m just going to list them out so I can remember them..

5 in 5 out purposeful intense breathing (imagine blowing up a beach ball , even better actually blow one up and play with it), simply notice body sensations while walking, repeatedly stamping my feet on the ground, finely observing a physical object by focusing in with my eyes and then describing it, playing ball and passing it from one hand to the other (even better if there’s someone around to gently play with) and then describe what the ball or object feels like, how it looks, what I like about it, and what it reminds me of.., Engaging with others through conversation can also help if they are patient and only ask simple questions.. light exercise to get the heart rate up can also help..

Do others have techniques they use that they find actually help during prolonged periods of hypoarousal?

All I want to do is sleep but I know I only end up waking up feeling dissociated or I become easily dissociated soon after a brief period of stress.

 

[SeekingAfrica]

@InsertCoinsHere Adding that to the list. I am in a brief calm period. I think it's because I got a cold and my brain has decided that I can't be falling apart both physically and mentally, so it's taking a break from the mental anguish for a moment. In any case, I'm making use of it to get some rest(well that is needed for the cold too).

When I was reading DBT, they had these grounding sentences to say to yourself, like a mantra. These things never work for me otherwise, but they had a list, and I have found one of them- 2 actually - helpful a bit in grounding. Like when I am trying to go run an errand and I am hyperventilating and my mind is racing with thoughts and my heart is racing and I am almost dissociating... When I get like this usually my eyes un-focus and I can't even see properly...

But I started trying to repeat these sentences and sometimes it gets my eyes to focus, it gets me to briefly calm down. I don't know why, but sometimes it helps. Of course there are times when nothing helps...But in the meantime, the sentences I liked were:

1. Everything is perfect the way it is right now. (not sure why, but I have lots of anxiety about unfinished tasks or things coming up, and a lot of pain about the past...this somehow helps me for a moment.)
2. I release my past and I forgive myself.