Session four: bumps in the road

This week has been hard for me. I found myself over the weekend beginning to feel depressed and anxious in a way that I had not in a long time. By Monday I spent the evening in tears and Tuesday I was a disaster. Try as I might, I could not quite put my finger on the cause of the sudden low mood and sadness I was experiencing and I was feeling desperate by my Thursday therapy session.

The Greenlight program is structured for sure, so I was not sure how my therapist would react to my needing more emotional support than education. She was great. I explained that I was feeling depressed, having a lot of difficulty seeing things clearly, and that I felt out of control.

Here was her perspective (which helped me immediately):
People who are "thinkers" have a tendency to think their mood down. I had this general idea of when my mood took a turn for the worse - it was after a conversation that left me feeling insecure - but because my depression seemed more severe than would result form that conversation, I sort of disregarded it as the possible source. Instead, I kept subconsciously thinking through all of these sad things trying to figure out which of them was the cause of my sadness. As a result, I became more upset.

My therapist asked me to picture my mood as the elevator in a building that is ten stories. If you are on the top five floors you are more likely to have the ability to think clearly. If you have sunk below floor five you have lost some of that ability. Her suggestion: when you get to those lower levels get up and do something that will make you feel physically better. Take a walk. Listen to good music. Call a friend. Do something nice for someone. Get a cup of coffee. The physical act lifts your mood enough to allow you some perspective.

I also realized through this exercise that I have used food as the physical thing I do to make myself feel better for years. Not having that crutch anymore made me more vulnerable and I did not know how to operate in that environment.

There was a whole other part of this session about super glue words that I will write about soon, but this part was important enough that it deserved it's own post.