As I wrote about on HealthyPlace this week, right now, I’m recovering from a depression after a hypomania. It’s been 11 days and I haven’t returned to my (admittedly, rather sucky) baseline. My point in that piece was that the depression after a hypomania is so much worse than an average depression. My point here, though, is that the time it takes to recover from a depression after a hypomania never passes quickly enough and I tend to beat myself up about it.
Beating Myself Up About Depression Recovery after Hypomania
I am very hard on myself. I know it. I find that being hard on myself is important for a reasonable level of functioning. And so, when I have a depression after a hypomania, I beat myself up about not being able to recover more quickly. I’m upset that I have to recover at all and I’m really upset that I can’t just do it though inner-strength alone. I, essentially, have no tolerance to being any sicker than I already tend to be.
How Long Does It Take to Recover from Depression After Hypomania?
And the thing is, no one knows how long it will take to recover during a depression after a hypomania. So, the pain and the suffering and the insanity of a broken and cemented brain has no end point. There’s no way to say to myself, “just one more day” and have it be realistic at all. If there was, at least, an end point, I feel like I could aim for it and accept it. But there isn’t. Like pretty much everything else in bipolar disorder, we’re all different and the way we experience bipolar disorder is different and you never know what bipolar is going to bring until you, unfortunately, have to experience it.
Frustration of Waiting During Recovery In a Depression After Hypomania
And so, what I feel is the ultimate in frustration. I’m not being productive, I’m behind in my work because I can’t accomplish anything and I’m’ dodging what I need to do by bobbing and weaving because my brain and my body just isn’t capable of doing it. And I can’t tell you how mad I am that I can’t just power through it.
And I know that expecting myself to power through any aspect of bipolar disorder isn’t reasonable. I know it. I know that if someone came to me and said that they were beating themselves up by not “picking themselves up by their bootstraps” I would correct them and tell them that’s just not possible. I would tell them that no matter how hard they fight the bipolar, they won’t always win. I would tell them that the fight is important, but realizing that the fight isn’t enough to beat a sick brain is also important. I would tell them to give themselves a break.
But, of course, this is me we’re talking about and I don’t give myself a break. As a contractor, I only get paid when I work and if I’m incapacitated by a nasty depression following a hypomania, I’m not working and thus not making the money I need to survive. There are no such thing as sick days when you’re a contractor. So forcing myself to do things is the only way I survive – even often on “good” days.
So all I can think is, “hurry up already, I have shit to do.” But recovery doesn’t care about that. Depression doesn’t care about that. Bipolar doesn’t care about that. It’s unfortunate that I, the body that hosts all of that, really does.
This was such a good article – i really haven’t been able to understand it myself until now. There are still things i am getting to grips with and find frustrating and confusing, 8 years after diagnosis. I used to just think that i was going crazy, literally but reading your articles i feel that i am ‘normal’ for me and most of the time i try to remember that everything is ultimately temporary although as you know that’s bloody difficult to do at the time.
11 days of severe depression is nothing . Start complaining at 6 months.
Hi Truth,
I’m not sure who you’re addressing that to, but I can tell you for me, it’s been years.
Nonetheless, I think it’s important to respect everyone’s experience and a severe depression that lasts 11 days can feel like an eternity.
– Natasha Tracy
Been hypomanic now for weeks and today all my excitement is GONE GONE GONE. I don’t feel as weak as I did one other time but today feels awful. I just want to lay in bed. I couldn’t MAKE myself go to bed for weeks and now this ugh.
I am just coming off a hypomania and I understand where you are coming from. i just feel limp and useless and like I am letting the people down who need me. I teach (well, taught…lost the job a few weeks ago and am just finishing out the year) and the overwhelming workload became unbearable. I also do the “dodge” and avoid what needs doing because I just can’t. Now I deal with the kids coming in to school for exams and looking sad. THAT doesn’t help.
I am looking for a position for next year, but I don’t know if I can start again.
Hi Natasha,
The normal way of ‘powering through’ things has been taken from us. What we need is to find the power that remains to us. This is the power that will pick up and embrace the depressed Natasha and carry her through. This is the power that makes a cup of tea and feeds the cats. The power that will call for help. The power that will remind you to get a blanket while you are sitting and working. The power that wrote this article. The power that once again will take you to your doctor in the face of repeated failure and keep trying. The power that will let you break down and cry while it pats you on the shoulder.
Hi Natasha,
I really hate that you have to go through this, but I thank you for sharing your struggle. You say the words that I cannot. For this I am thankful that someone can put the words out there for others like me. I know your struggle. For me everyday seems like a fight that I look to pull myself up from and I just don’t have the strength on many days. I agree with lifeconquering.org. I know God has me in His hands. I just wish sometimes that others could know the the position depression puts you in.
I too am a contracted worker and don’t get paid when I can’t work. Just this last Friday, I showered etc., went downtown to have coffee before work, and completely broke down crying. I am so grateful that my employment understands, and that I can call up an hour before work. But then I don’t get paid, and that makes a really hard situation even worse. Sometimes I just really hate having mental illness. How it hijacks my brain, my mood, my everything ! Not in the best mood today, Natasha. The good news is that I have been mood monitoring for the last few months with eMood app and I am hoping to gain more insight and change my meds. Oh well, had to vent. As always, can totally relate. Thank you, Natasha <3
I also beat myself up and get frustrated after hypomania/mania. I get mad that I wait too long to have meds adjusted, because I know exactly what I will deal with when I come down from that high, and I hate it. This spring we (my doctor, husband and I) took a preemmptive strike at the hypomania (and my eventual resistance to raising my medication when I’m in the throes of a fabulous hypomania) by raising both the antipyschotic and mood stabilizer in February. It worked, and for the first time in my life, I did not have hypomania in the spring. Yes, it made me a zombie, put 20 pounds on me, and gave me side effects, we all hate the meds that keep us stable (and is why I loathe raising the medication when I’m hypomanic), but for once, I’ve found that all that is better than dealing with a frenzied hypomania/mania, only to crash for months into a black depression. I don’t know if it would work for anyone else, but it worked for me, so it’s just one more weapon in my arsenal against this miserable illness.
Interesting… Depression after a “up”.
When younger I had “ups” and I had “downs”; oh did I have “downs” and it wasn’t really until 2006 when a psychiatrist actually asked “so, what is your ups like?” That is when I found out; I have Bipolar and you know, a big major lid lifted and a light lit up, in my spirit. That is how I knew, I knew it right.
Yet, I also had already developed a sense of survival, if you will… I knew that when I had “up” periods that I needed to gain as much ground as I could possibly gain and use that window of time as productively as I could because I knew the “down” was to be coming and I’d not be able to function.
What I didn’t realize is that I also was not functioning all that well in the “up” periods neither because I *knew* and *felt* I could do all and every and hell to any and all that stood in my way… and my way was right and just and I was the only one to accomplish it or it just wasn’t to be done. Can outwork, outpace and out produce anyone and my brain tends to light up more. I developed this quiet desperation to gain ground.
So.. for several years, prior to diagnosis of Bipolar… I’d work myself into a squirrel frenzy during my “up” periods to then drown and cling desperately to the nearest piece of seaweed hoping and praying….
I still do that – the trying to gain ground thing and organize things and catch up on things.. I still do. Yet, I do not beat myself up as badly when the depression hits because I know inevitably it’s going to come. I do not know how bad it will be or as quickly as the suicidal shadow will appear with bags in hand for however long, but, I know it will come. I just do not beat myself up as badly, as I once did.
Nowadays, due to help from a online Bipolar forum that has literally saved my spirit more times than I can ever count… I look at my depressive episodes as what they are: Sad Sickness. A very very very severe bout of sad sickness and like anyone that has a flare up of MS or Parkinson’s symptoms or Fibromylgia or Depression… you try to recognize the symptoms manifesting and you either fight them or you roll with them until they dissipate..
sometimes, you literally fight for your literal survival, every 15 minutes.
Oh and well… you cling desperately to any piece of seaweed, pharma med, mineral/supplement, street drug/alcohol spirit – or spiritual figure you believe in.
Although, as I get older and the fight gets longer… I do often wonder… when will it all just be over?
Thank you for this post. I’m sorry you are going through it, as am I, but by reading this I feel a sense of permission to ease up on myself. I am unable to give myself a break around this. I am recovering from a major psychotic episode. It is very frustrating how long it takes to recover. I always always underestimate it. I keep thinking surely I can go back to work full time BY NOW. But, I just can’t. I can barely get through 4 hours. Not knowing when I will return to baseline functioning is brutal. Hang in there. Thanks for your honesty!!!
Depression foll-owing a nearly year-long hypo-manic episode led me to the brink for the last time, I hope. [moderated] one day in a dark rehearsal for suicide. A new anti-depressant saved the day along with a good therapist who helped me through the recovery just in time to meet my new grandson. I would have lost so much. .
What I found from my long experience with depression was that trying to think through or fight against that depression was the substance of that depression. It’s like a revolving door. The more desperate you are to get out of it, the more you end up being trapped in it. The more one can learn to accept the negative feelings, the lack of energy, etc., and not fight against them, the sooner they pass. Unconditional acceptance is a warm blanket and a hot cup of soup to us when we are not well. It helps our strength to return.
Beating oneself up never helped anyone. We justify it the way an alcoholic justifies drinking. It is simply a bad habit that, in the long term if not the short, makes us unwell. A beaten dog may do the job we want done today, but its stamina will be low, and it will die an early death. If we beat ourselves up emotionally, we are condemning ourselves to the same fate as that dog.
Joe Blow
Great post .. ANything in particular you can share about getting out of it.
Hi Michael,
I’ve put my thoughts on the topic (along with a broader philosophy) into a free ebook, which you can find here :
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/88690
I use some examples from my own experience, and also try to distill from them some principles which may be useful more broadly, but, of course, everyone’s experience is different.
When I’m not feeling depressed I find it hard to remember clearly what it was like and what worked, but I tried to write down what I would tell my 16-year-old self if I could go back in time, what approaches to thinking about life have lead to pain and which have lead to relief.
One thing I would clarify on the whole “fighting against depression” thing is that it is also important not to give in to depression. Curling up in bed and pulling the sheets over my head didn’t help. Sometimes you have to force yourself to do things. What I mean by “fighting against depression” is basically things like thinking “I’m depressed. What am I going to do about being depressed?” Over-thnking was always a problem for me. And also worrying myself into a deeper depression. I would think : “Oh, no! Here I go again! I hope this isn’t the beginning of a really bad depression.” It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There is a principle which is used for dealing with anxiety : “Feel the fear and do it anyway.” I think that “Feel the depression and do what you know you need to do anyway” is a good principle. It’s a bit like “turning the other cheek” to depression. You don’t let the pain of the slap make you cower, but you don’t fight back either by trying to think your way out.”
When it comes to mood-swings I found that the concept of the rodeo rider is a useful one. A successful rodeo rider doesn’t fight the horse, he gives it its head, but still keeps his hands tightly on the reigns. I found that talking my way through things helped : “O.K. You are on a high at the moment. You’re mind is going to be racy. Don’t let things get totally out of control, but allow your mind to have its way as much as is practical. What has to come out, has to come out and when it has things will settle down.’ And likewise with depression : “You’ve been here before. It hurts. It isn’t easy. But you know from experience that it will pass.”
I can relate so much, as I’m sure all people with bipolar disorder can. The depression so frustrating following hypomania is so frustrating. Even though I know it will eventually end, it can’t end soon enough. And you’re exactly right, I have shit to do… like be a parent & take care of my mom, & oh yeah, I have a husband & a blog to keep up with. But bipolar doesn’t care about any of those things. It’s comforting to read posts like this one, it reassures me that I’m not alone.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. Great post!
-Krista
Your article is exactly what I needed to read! I have been beating up on myself because I have no motivation to do anything after a hypo mania episode. Thanks for sharing!
I wish I could come off a depressive state.. Seems to be getting worse. Have had depression since childhood and now the anxiety on top of the depression is also difficult. I now consider my brain as a differnt being within my body. It makes the rules and no matter how I fight it , it still makes the rules. My career has been destroyed by this. Nothing I can do. Natasha. I have to give it to you, you keep on pressing on and that takes an amazing amount of effort. I understand you are a contractor which in a way makes it easier for you becuase if you were an employee would they put up with it no matter what the laws are. Hard to sue a company when one has very little funds and no lawyer would take a case on contingency. You have figured out a way to feed yourself and thats admirable. I wish you, Natasha all the strength you can muster so people like us are given hope by you setting an example for so many of us. . I wish all of us peace
I just came off a five month depressive state. It got so bad that I was suicidal. I thought everyday THIS is the day the clouds will part. I was hard on myself, too. I know it does not sound like a long stretch to be depressed for some, but I am more used to rapid cycling where the deep despair does not last that long. I used to think getting through this was about my strength. I have come to rely on Jesus for His strength. He walks beside me during the ups and downs of the bipolar. I knew I was not alone those five months either.