The Monsters and Willpower

I was travelling on business last week, and I had quite some time for myself, being alone in hotel rooms between various meetings. Also lots of time on the planes, and so I ran many searches on a topic that interested me a lot: the Willpower. I read an interesting book during the flight: Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney.

While I am not going to give you a review here (there is plenty of such reviews on the Internet), I can tell you that it prompted me to think how my willpower works (or does not).

I know that I generally have  a lot of willpower. I managed to quit very heavy smoking, and  I did it cold turkey almost 20 years ago. I managed to get through the challenges of my marriage, in which not everything works perfectly (like in any marriage probably), and after more than 20 years we are actually quite a happy and successfully couple. I have been keeping my job and progressing in it despite the fact that sometimes the processes and people drive me crazy. All that because I can focus more on the future, and where I am going, rather than what is happening right now. For example, I know that in 10 years I will be proud when my children become independent, and I will be proud of being able to support them well in their way there (yes, I am perhaps compensating a little, as my parents divorced, and my formative years were a bit of a mess. I learned a lot of what my kids will not in a "normal" family - however I missed a lot too). So I am can resist a temptation to break my marriage, even though certain aspects of it may not exactly be as I would like. If I do, these things may be better immediately, but in long term I will not achieve what I want.

And while generally things work well, there is a caveat. Sometimes I lose my Willpower. Sometime I am having enough, I just feel I have no more power to withstand all the challenges. All of a sudden, I see the world in a different perspective; the problems which are manageable day after day, grow to the size of dark mountains, standing firm in the view of any green fields and blue oceans that used to be on the horizon. Rather than having to climb over a few hills, which does require some effort, but generally is OK, the mountains do seem impossible to cross. If you have ever been to Denver in Colorado, USA, you probably understand what I am talking about. All of a sudden, the flat prairie turns into peaks which are the height of the Alps (that's for the guys from Europe to be able to compare them to something they know). Today, there are excellent roads through the mountains, but imagine if there were not, and you had to go to the other side. Not easy. One needs a good motivation and a lot of willpower to get to Nevada. And there is California at the end, but you cannot see it from the plains. You can only see the mountains. Very big mountains.

So, let's assume that you are on the plains of central USA, and your dream is to get to California (please feel free to replace it with anything else that may be relevant for you).

You need three things if you want to get to California:
- remember that it is there, it is beautiful, full of flowers, vineyards, great companies to work for, with ocean, the Bay, Redwood forests, beaches, fantastic climate, and many other things you may like
- believe that you can get there; if you continue going westwards you will eventually get to California
- perseverance in your going there; you cannot get there by just thinking of it, you need the action.

The first thing is called motivation, the second is the confidence, and the third is the willpower. You need all three to get anywhere. And the problem with depression is that when it hits, it usually affects all three at the same time.You have not power to persevere, you do not believe that you can get there, and actually you stop seeing any reason to get there - California does not seem to be so attractive anymore.

The challenge seems to be that all three seen to be interdependent. When you have no motivation, you stop doing things, stop seeing the desired outcome, and generally your life turns into a piece of rubbish. As a result, you lose the confidence.

If you have no confidence, you quickly give up on any ideas, anything you might like to achieve. You kill your motivation. You also stop training your willpower, because again you stop doing things.

And if you have no willpower, then again you do not achieve anything. This kills your confidence and restricts your motivation.

So what can you do?

What I find that works for me is going with something small, that will allow me to exercise my willpower and then gain some confidence. Then it will allow me to dream about bigger things because I get the confidence and power to make things happen. There is one big challenge though. When I am depressed, I have difficulty moving with the smallest thing though. There is absolutely no satisfaction coming from doing anything, and thus my motivation is zero, and even if I use my willpower, it is all in vain. So the key for me is to find something small that will eventually give me some pleasure and satisfaction. Finding it sometimes takes me days, sometimes weeks, and sometimes months. Yet when I get into a slightly higher mood, I need to use my willpower to do the next thing. And the next one. And so on. If you go to my previous post and read about breaking the negative loops, this is exactly when the willpower comes handy. But to use it, I first need to find "my corn", as per hyperboleandahalf.

How to spot and kill the depression monster when he is small - which actually means how to prevent the negative thoughts from taking over.

A few days ago I wrote about various things I tried to deal with my mood problems, and I mentioned the interesting finding that alcohol, applied at right time and in appropriate (not too little and not too much) amount, seemed to help break the vicious loops of negative thoughts controlling my mind when I am depressed. It does not seem to work when I am heavily depressed, but it seems to work when I am, let's say, at 3 on a 5-point severity scale.

The concept of loops of negative thoughts is nothing original, I read about it in many places. But it does feel like something I experience when I am depressed, it feels like my thoughts produce the wrong neurotransmitters, which make me feel gloomy and then I think of even more bad things, and then there is more bad stuff flooding my brain, and so on and so on. Of course when I am not depressed (which does happen), all that does not make any sense, and I see the absurdity of my depressive thinking. The challenge is once I am in a loop of negative processing, or explanatory process, or whatever I call it, it is almost impossible to break it. Something must happen to stop it. There are concepts shock therapy (electronconvulsive, and also insulin shocks in the past) work exactly in this way - be resetting the looped processes in the brain. Of course this is a theory only, and there is no proof. But, as I mentioned, a drinking session with a good friend does help from time to time. Perhaps it is an old method of self-therapy? It is very risky though, as it may lead to dependence and all the nightmare of alcohol problems, so I do not recommend it to anyone, especially to people who have a tendency to get hooked on anything. But perhaps this is the sense of so called "civilised drinking".

Coming back to the idea of "negative loops", there is this wonderful blog about depression, a real masterpiece, and I can only wish I were able to create something like that. It is called Hyperbole and a Half, and it is here: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com. This is really a piece of art, not only a blog. If you get to the very end of part II, there is actually something very interesting: the author, desperate, exhausted, and hopeless, is crying on the kitchen floor. And then she sees a piece of corn under the refrigerator, And seeing this piece of corn somehow breaks the loop of negative thinking and triggers an uncontrolled loop of happiness and laughter. How amazing!

Having been severely depressed many times in my life, with the episodes lasting anything from weeks to months, I experienced similar things. For no reason, the depression would go away one day, leaving me in a slightly elated mood, perhaps a bit hypomanic. There would be something allowing me to break the loops of negative thoughts, although I am not sure what that could be. My own piece of corn. I may have seen something, I may have started doing something, I may have spoken to someone about something particular. I had not had the expectation that it would help in any way, and I did not do anything intentionally. It just happened.

And thus it is so important that when I am starting feeling depressed, I keep trying. Trying to look for a piece of corn, instead of locking myself in my depressed mind. I cannot think myself out of depression - actually, the more I think, the worse it gets. But when I force myself to do stuff, interact with people, and watch out for things around me, it does happen to me to find a "piece of corn" that somehow brings my brain to balance. I experienced it yesterday, when I woke up in such mood that I thought it might have been better not to wake up. I also experienced it today, when I had a moment of weakness, having travelled across time zones and being rather out-of-sync with the world around me. Somehow, it does seem to work, and it is good to do something actively for as long as I have the energy and drive to do it. To actively find my piece of corn that will reset my thinking loops and correct the mood.

If I do not kill the monster when it is tiny - it will grow. I know it. And then I will have no energy to look for a piece of corn. I will have to wait until it just happens to be in front of me, and this may take months. A terrifying perspective.

A Pact With The Monster

From time to time I am trying something new to see if it would help stabilise my mood. It can be a change in my behaviour, nutrition, the way I speak, and so on. So far, I have tried a number of things, with variable results. Here is a list of what I can remember:

• Quitting smoking. This definitely helped my physical health, and at first made me very happy with my success, but that effect did not last too long. Now I have not smoked for more than 15 years, yet I had several significant periods of depression, as severe as when I smoked. But I am very happy that I did quit.
• Getting into a group of friends instead of being a "lone wolf". This worked for a few days or weeks, after which I had to run so I could be alone and do what I wanted and not what other people wanted that we did. And I wanted to do things on my own and alone!
• Starting a regimen of physical exercise. Same as smoking, it had a significant positive effect on my health, and resulted in elated mood for a while, but not for too long. And when I feel depressed, I have to force myself to exercise, as much as I can. After I force myself to exercise there is perhaps a little mood improvement that keeps me up for a few hours. So I continue it, but it is not a long-term cure.
• Going vegetarian. That was a mistake, I felt horrible, no benefit or fun whatsoever.
• Stopping drinking alcohol. Actually, I do not like just "having a drink". Whenever I have had one or perhaps two drinks, it makes me unable to function. I cannot think straight, I cannot drive, I cannot exercise, I just do not feel right. And I always have something to do. But there is an exception: I like to have a good few drinks on Friday or perhaps another occasion, ideally in a good company of someone I can have a good, deep conversation with. It seems to have a cathartic effect on my mind the next day, I wake up free of running the loops of negative thoughts, and can start the new week fresh. Strictly no overdosing though - hangover is not welcome. And so I thought one day that perhaps that was wrong - perhaps I should not rely on the purgative effect of alcohol, and just let the thoughts turn into action. After a few weeks (eight or so) I was extremely tired with myself, but there was no action. Actually, I noticed that I am more likely to take some little positive actions when I do allow myself to enjoy some nice wine on Friday night; I am still not sure about this being just masking the need for a "big change". Perhaps I am not yet ready for a "big change", or I just do not know what this could be.
• Stopping eating any wheat. Bread, cookies, pastas, dumplings, etc. I read lots of stuff about the problems wheat may be causing, some of them make sense to me, but others sound like a paranoic belief. A very true thing though is that wheat is a very "unnatural" type of food for a human (same as all grains though), we cannot eat wheat unprocessed. We need to do many things to it to make it edible, it is actually one of the oldest processed foods. But does it mean that it is bad? I am not sure. I stopped eating it, and initially there was one effect: I ate less, I did not have the bout of hunger. But soon I compensated with other things - meat, cheese, fruit, nuts, chocolate, all these can be overeaten and give me quite a lot of pleasure. I am still trying to stay away from wheat, as I see it as pure energy without much other nutritional value, but I cannot say abstaining from wheat has had a dramatic effect on my life.
•  There must have been other things but all that would still be boring.

Now I am entering a pact with the monster: I decided that I will stop smiling.

Why stop smiling?  I have a great sense of humour, but sometimes I feel that I am abusing it. Whenever I should be serious and strong, I use my humour, jokes, and I think I am perceived as goofy, unreliable, and not respected. I thought about it for a while, and the trigger was when I read about a recent that showed that for a male smiling is not necessarily a great idea. You can read it here: http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Happy-Guys...in-pres-Emotion.pdf

Of course a study is a study, it is just an observation under specific experimental conditions and drawing conclusions from the "calculation of the unlikeness that what we saw was just a coincidence". If you are not a scientist, this is my way to explain to you what most research studies are about. What it means is that the results of any studies are unlikely to be a coincidence, but still can be a coincidence. In real life, scientists usually accept that the likelihood less than 1:20 or 5% are good enough to assume that things are not a coincidence. So the study may be wrong.

But I will try for myself. This is my pact with the monster. He does not want me to smile? Fine. I will not. In a controlled way, and on my own terms. I will tell you the outcome in a few weeks.

The Logic of Depresssion

I knew it would be coming again. And it did. Very familiar feeling, very familiar thoughts. I got back from work yesterday, and it was all inside me. The perception that everything has no sense, that I have not achieved anything significant, that I am no one, and that I am defective because i have no concept how anything could be achieved, and so on. I was only looking forward to the night coming, and being able to go to sleep and not think about it.

 And thinking is a major problem when one is depressed. This is because the more I think, the more I get depressed. I know there is no point speaking about being depressed to anyone who is not depressed and is trying to rationally explain to you that there is no reason to be depressed. It just does not work, because when I am depressed everything seems perfectly logical. The world sucks, work sucks, family sucks, people suck, I suck, nothing can be done perfectly. And the fact that I have to accept the world and the life "as is" sucks too!

The way out, at least for me, is to stop thinking. Have a good rest of sleep, and then force myself to doing something that prevents me from thinking and perhaps can give a little pleasure. I know I have to do it very early before the dark thoughts take over. When they do, there is practically no pleasure possible, and the depressive thoughts run at full speed. But the good news is that the depression does go away one day. Sooner or later. Even if I do not do anything.

Yesterday I managed to switch off the thinking; I practised a realtively hard piece of music, than read a book in another language. These are quite difficult things and I can do them without expecting an immediate result; I can do them with focus on the process (e.g. the perfection of playing or the understanding of words and phrases), so I cannot really fail. And every time I do them, they do get better. It did help a bit.

I can see that today I am again in a mood that makes me take everything as a personal attack. I had some emails from work colleagues overnight, and it is actually interesting to see my first emotional reaction, and then by delaying the action I can see the emotions fade out and the reason kick in. That's my way to manage myself today.

Trogotor and the overwhelming feeling of non-performing

Do you know what a trogotor is? I do not know either, so it is good. It s good because I used this name to call a strange creature that appeared in my dream today. It was a very simple dream. I lived with my wife somewhere in a big city, in an apartment in a building dating back to the early 60s (I am not sure why this is relevant, but here you go). It was quite nice and comfortable. The only challenge was that somehow we were getting various little animals as unwanted guests. Usually small frogs, or crickets. But this time, it was different. It was something bigger, about the size of a small sub bun. It was black, hairy, and had colourful shiny dots of various sizes, arranged in regular lines of various colours, along its body. As if may daughter covered it with little marbles. One could not say where was the front and where was the back, and one could not see any legs. I did not know what it was. I went to bring my wife to ask if she had ever seen one like this, but when she came there, it had been gone. She spotted it in the other room. That thing must have been moving incredibly fast! We looked at it, and it was sitting there still again. We were wondering what sort an animal it was - a small reptile (but reptiles usually are not hairy), a large caterpillar, or a small mammal? We could not tell. One thing we could say was that it was quite beautiful, but also quite frightening. We decided to get rid of it, and when we looked back to find a tissue or a paper towel to grab it with, it ran away again.

We finally found it behind a bookcase, running on the wall. I grabbed it with a large tissue, and I could feel it wiggle in my hand. I went to the balcony and I wandered where to leave it - on the balcony (we had some plants there), or perhaps ... one of the neighbours (it would not be too nice). My wife asked me to drop it onto the lawn underneath. So I did, but I was not sure if it would survive. And it fell to the ground with quite a visible yellow explosion.

We called it 'trogotor' afterwards. The word was rattling throughout my mind until I woke up in the morning.

I was not sure what to think about that dream until this very moment when I finished writing it down. I think now that it shows that I do run away from beautiful and fascinating things out of fear. Or perhaps other people are too frightened and not curious. And then I lose them. Like we lost the trogodor without even knowing what it was.

I am almost 50 know and every day ends with a feeling that I have not done anything great. Anything great for the society, for the humanity, for the nature. An idea, a product, a service, something useful. I did many some small things for my family and myself. For some reason, these are not enough to keep me satisfied. I am not going to give up trying, still have some time.

My internal monster

I often feel that I am fighting against myself. Or "my self" fights another "my self".

I decide in the morning that I will do this and that during the day. I decide the schedule, how much I will eat, what I will do when I have some time at work, what I will read, how much I will practise playing musical instruments after work, and so on. I am happy with the plan, energised, and look forward to the day.

A few hours later, completely different thoughts emerge in my brain. I am getting very unhappy having to stick to my plan, because I realise that I will lose something else. If I stick to the schedule, I may miss something important that has just emerged. If I stick to my meal plan, I will be extreme hungry, weak, and angry. If I practise playing piano for 2 hours after work, I miss contact with my daughter.

And slowly I will depart from my original plan.

Then I am angry that I did not follow my plan. But on the other hand, I would be equally angry if I did.

Which part of me is the true self?

Why The Boy Who (once) Wanted suddenly did not want anymore?

This is a follow-up to my yesterday's post. I am trying to answer my own question, why we get enthusiastic about something, and all of a sudden we abandon it. Remember the boy who was a great performer? He stopped when he realised that he may have not appeared to the public in the same was as he appeared to himself. In other words, his self-image was shattered. Destroyed. Nullified.

He used to perform because that fed his self-image, he liked it, he was motivated and he was happy. Yes, it was all tinted by the filters of his own perception, and the public perception. And the tinting was colourful and positive, the public loved him and he loved himself too.

The so-called "objective" perception software showed him the way he appeared without the filters. The challenge bit was that it did not represent the way the public perceived him. The public had the filtering spectacles on their glasses, and they loved him too. But he trusted the "objective" critic.

The big paradox that I see in life is that we seem to run on things that boost our self-image. As long as we are happy with that, the people around us are happy with that, and we follow a set of sensible values, is there a need to correct it?

A Boy Who Wanted

Joshua was in his late teen years, and he had already been extremely successful. It all started when he was twelve, and when he discovered in himself a passion to perform on the stage. Just perform pop music, nothing sophisticated, just the stuff most teenagers love, even though the music itself was not the one that would have been remembered twenty years later. He was happy and proud of himself, and perhaps a bit self-indulgent, but never arrogant. He gave shows all around, and recently just got his first contract for a tour abroad. He could not be more satisfied. He loved the image he created, and the public loved it too. And he really enjoyed watching the videos from his shows, full of sound, light, sparkle and dazzle - a fairy tale world that he created, and for so many people this world was an inspiration to escape from daily routines.

One day, while browsing the internet, he came across an interesting piece of software. The software was advertised as "revealing the truth abut you". Joshua read the full description, and realised that it allowed to process a video in a way that it would remove any cues that make one subjectively assess what one sees; instead, one would see oneself "as one really is".  He thought it might be great, as it could help him with the stage image.

So he downloaded a trial version. It was enough to process a 2-minute video. And he did load one of his recent concerts. A red warning appeared on the screen: "Are you sure you want to proceed? You may not like what you will see in a moment. Yes/No". He clicked 'yes'.

The screen went black for a few seconds, and then he saw two pictures, next to each other. On the left side, he was seeing the 'normal' video. And on the right side he saw a fat, short kid, with an ugly face, horrible haircut, attempting to sing and dance in a way that was just pathetic. His mouth opened wide, and he did not say a word until the video finished.

He never went on the stage again. He works in one of the places in town, doing  a days job, which is not too stimulating or enjoyable, but brings him enough money to support his family.

What has happened to Joshua?

The answer will come tomorrow. I still need to think about it.

Useless stuff does become useful form time to time.

I had an exhausting day yesterday, lots of things at work, plus change of contact lenses to new ones causing me see everything in triplicate (until I get used to them), and apparently a little contusion of my knee, as I was unable to run in the evening. But interestingly, all that followed by a very nice dream at night; going back to my high school, and a huge scouting hike I took part in (does anyone organise such events these days? I doubt it). It was set up in a beautiful countryside, in the area of very old mountains in Europe. We chose a very intriguing route for the hike - it was called "blind route". The idea was that we would not know until the morning where we would be going, and we would only be getting a cue (a rebus, or a quote, etc.) and we had to work out the destination and the route of the day. It was quite fund actually.

On that day, we got a map - or rather a sketch of a map. It had a number of points marked on it, the destination point, and the angles between the lines going from the destination to the points. That was it. And I did work it out immediately, my passion for studying maps came very handy in that situation, as I could immediately visualise that the points were the peaks of the mountains in the area.

It was a great feeling.

I get this great feeling these days too. I know that my interests and thoughts are not mainstream, but they sometimes work. Especially when the mainstream ones do not.

So I have a choice. Either be myself, and feel happy from time to time when what I am and what I know comes useful, is needed and appreciated. But this means that for most of the time I am seen as an odd, eccentric, useless person.

Or I can force myself to join the mainstream. Pretend that I am happy, and people will like me.

Or be somewhere in between?

Shark Attack

Yesterday evening, it must have been 9 pm or so, I got an email from someone in The Management. I mean real management, in my company, in the real world, nothing to do with the monsters. The email was asking about the project I have in my team. There is some risk of project delay, despite of everyone's efforts, and one of the bosses was asking what we could have done differently, and what else we can do differently going forward.

As I often do, I took it very personally. First, a whole bunch of people were copied on it (the email was a "reply all", so it could have just happened). Second, I took it as personal criticism of me and the team. I probably should not, but I did. I immediately jumped into a defensive mode, and even wanted to reply immediately to say that I cannot see anything else we could have done, and so on. But then I stopped. I know that in all situations like that my thinking is strongly biased by the emotions, so I decided to let these emotions die away first. I do not need to reply immediately at 9 pm. So I went to sleep.

I dreamt about sharks that were attacking me. The dream appeared immediately upon falling asleep, not at 4 am. I managed to run away, but the sharks are very much symbolic of that event. Sharks are very quick, they attack by surprise, and the worst thing one can do is to panic. One needs to thing about the way to deal with them.

I had another dream at 4 am - quite pleasant though, although not until the end. It fits the ones I wrote earlier about, see "The Monsters of Unachievement."

James Bond style fight after a good weekend?

I had a reasonable weekend, mostly on the good side, however I can feel that my mood is ready to swing in the "down" direction, this will likely happen at a stress overload. Therefore, I am trying to avoid overloading myself with stress - I need to balance it carefully, as I may appear withdrawn at work, and also I may get into the procrastinating mode. And the latter will only add to the stress, and then the monsters will be well fed on it.... so, I need to be very diligent in balancing the stress level, the capacity, and the performance expectation. I am not James Bond, who could handle everything.

Interestingly,  I had a James Bond kind of dream today - there were three of us. I, a beautiful woman, and another guy, and we got into a trap, surrounded by hundreds of soldiers of The Bad Guy. We had to fight against them all. The other guy was killed during the fight, but I and the girl manage to escape - at least this is as much as I can remember.

I have no idea whatsoever what meaning I could attribute to that dream. Just no immediate and sensible associations. Any comments welcome.

The Monster Beauty Itself

I promised yesterday to give you my artistic vision - so here it is. This is what the Depression Monster could look like:

It is strong and shiny. It does not need eyes, it does not need eyes. All it needs is legs to come over to the victim, and the triangle-shape sucker. The sucker is used to suck the life out of the victim, as we all know.

It really sucks.

Good start to a weekend

Somehow, it is not too bad today. Actually I feel quite OK. After a typical Friday, with last bits of work to complete before the weekend, I had a few good games in the evening, and then a couple of beautiful pints of lager. I slept quite well, had quite funny dream (I do not remember it now, but I remember that it was funny). No spells of bad mood, and I can cope with the ongoing physicial rejection by my partner (not that I am happy about it at all , but I think to a large degree it is iher problem, and I have done all I could think of so far). I very much look forward to the weekend, I have several interesting things lined up, mostly to do alone, and this is OK.

I did not tell you - I started playing with my computer to create an "artistic vision" of a depression monster. I am planning to post it tomorrow, when I have finished it.

The monster are around

They are around, and they look for a good moment to hit and suck the joy out of me. Yesterday I had some stress with my credit card being subject of fraud, some challenges on another one just because I did not use it (!), and then the bank messing up and cancelling a wrong one, plus some usual stuff at work - and before I went to bed, I was exhausted and without any drive to do anything, or any ability to enjoy anything in my life. A very familiar (but unwelcome) feeling.

At night, I had a very strange dream. I had a tooth problem, and I went to a dental surgeon. One of my molars "stuck in" the gum, and was annoying and causing pain. The surgeon did the most unusual thing: he set up an X-ray to show the jaw and the tooth (it was one that continuously shows the picture on the screen, so who know how much radiation I must have received .... it was on for a good 10 minutes - but in a dream it is probably OK....). Then he put long tool that looked like a thin metal stick "from the other side" of  the jaw - of course I do not have any opening in my skin/tissues under my chin, but again, everything gets possible in ones dream. He put one end next to the root of the tooth (I could see it on the X-ray), and tapped on the other end, pushing the tooth out of its socket. Then he just took the tooth out with his hand. I could not feel any pain whatsoever.

I asked him to show me the tooth - it looked healthy, i.e. there were no cavities, but obviously it was dead - no blood vessels or nerves, etc.

Not sure what it means for me. That one can get of problems in the most unusual way, and without much suffering? Need to think of it.

Under attack again

Yesterday evening, I got that feeling of the lack of sense again. "What is the use of getting up every day, going to work that is perhaps OK but really not something that gives me real enjoyment, living in a large home with my family that are OK but nor exactly what I would like, accepting myself when I am, again, OK, but I have no idea how to change it and live really a live I would like to live?" Of course I thought about all the people who struggle materially every day, and to them my thoughts would be an obvious heresy and nonsense, because - from their perspective - I have everything they lack. Well, we know that material things are deceiving, once one has them, once wants more. So material things are not the answer. It is about who I am and what I do, and not what I have (although the latter is important too, if one does not have the basics, one cannot dream. One has to eat. I have been there before, and I know it is not a nice place.).

A dream about failure came again. We were playing with a band at a show, and the public paid for their tickets. And after the first piece, we realised that we do not know how to play anything else; we tried, but it simply did not work. So the public was pissed off, what else would one expect?

Then there was another dream, I was a medical student and we had some classes in a hospital, we were a group of students in a large doctor's office with two or three doctors who were supposed to teach us on that day. One of the doctors asked everyone to introduce themselves to start with, everyone was speaking in an engaged way, who they are, their interests in the subject (I cannot remember what speciality that was), and so on. I could not give a damn. I just said my name.

Now that I have written than I am getting some ideas. The sky is clearing up.

No monsters

No monsters yesterday. I was busy and distracted with some new exciting things, and it was enough to keep the negative thoughts away. Such busy days usually work well, unfortunately they are not very much sustainable. Let's see what happens next.

The siege is over - at least for now

The siege is over - for now. I woke up this morning, and I feel like I am born again. I am quite happy just because I do not feel the way I felt yesterday, and it was incredibly quick. I cannot understand what caused yesterday's gloom, and I can only tell you one thing:

It was awful.

I hardly got through the day, unable to focus on anything at work, feeling hopeless, and not seeing any sense in anything. The work sucked, the friends sucked, my family sucked, I sucked. I saw myself as worthless, my past life as full of mistakes, the presence being the consequence of my faults, and no hopes for the future either. At home, I could hardly force myself to do anything (I did, at the end of the day, play some sad music at the end on the piano, and I read two pages of a book in foreign language).  I was relieved when I could go to bed - and escape into the night. The only good thing I did yesterday was that I did not do anything stupid, like a bad decision at work, etc. But this is because I did not do anything at all.

There were no monsters at night. There was a strange dream - and quite disgusting. Basically I soiled the floor at home, and not only one spot, but a long stretch. And I slipped on it, and got soiled myself. My wife saw it. Then I got up, and said "So what? I am just sick." or something like that. I cleaned the floor, washed myself, and all was fine.

And then I got up, and I am fine too.

(Until the next time. One day was nothing, compared to feeling like that for many months. This is what I need to beware of)

Under siege

Today, they got me. I mean the "monsters". I do not know how, I do not know why today, and I do not know when exactly. All I know is that I woke up today, and I feel like in the middle of the "down" period. I could hardly get out of bed, I had not reason to make my morning coffee or take the shower. I looked at my iphone to check the morning batch of my work emails (generated mostly in a different timezone), and each of them was making me feel angry, guilty, pointing out to something I had not done right. At least in my perception. Also see no real reason in work, no real reason in getting through the day, no real reason to do my hobbies. No real reason to live, except for providing for my family. Nothing for me in it.

I am guessing that there must be something chemical going in my brain, as nothing serious happened yesterday, I did not drink too much, I did not have any new or different problems or challenges (on the contrary, I managed to fix a few things that had been bothering me for a while), I had a pretty nice amount of exercise at day and sleep at night. Without any nightmare dreams.

The monsters must have sucked something out of me.

The Monsters of Unachievement

This morning, there were two of them.

The first one took me to my holidays, with my wife and her sister. We were somewhere on the coast in my home country, close to the two places I used to go for holidays as a student (actually now I realise that I used to go to only one of those places; the other was nearby but I never really stayed there. But it was nice too.) These places were like paradise for me at that time, completely different from the mainstream way of spending the vacations, with all the nature, freedom, depth of experience, humanity, and very little focus on money and material aspects of life. Beautiful, although might appear a bit uncomfortable by the standards of my life today. Never mind.

First, I was alone, trying to park the car. I ended up somehow in a large multistorey car park, close to a town nearby. It was all dirty, run down, rough concrete, with steep thresholds between the levels (about a 30 cm or a foot if you prefer), therefore I was not sure ho anyone could drive there. It was smelly, reminding me of some dodgy places I saw and smelled in some countries which I will not mention here, as I do not want to offend anyone.  I was almost unable to park the car, there were plenty of strange people. Finally, I found a place, and exited through a very suspicious place, a kind of a financial shop that offered a quick-rich scheme, not sure how. Anyway, I had a long way to get somewhere. Then I was with my wife and her sister; the latter was very keen on seeing all the places, and I wanted to fit everything in one day, especially the place where I actually used to stay for holidays first, and then take her to the other place. And my wife insisted that we only go to the other place, because we had no time. I did not like that.

At the end, we somehow ran around, as everything seemed very far from the parking. And we did not have time to see anything. I was quite unhappy and frustrated.

The second one was about my wife making herself extremely attractive (I will not tell you the details, use your imagination), and obviously me wanting to have some intimacy with her, and then many things coming in the way. Somehow some children appeared, that had to be sent to school (I do not even know if these were my children), and also there was a voice saying that there was no way our intimacy could happen, because there were so many things that I had to look after at that time. And of course there was no intimacy.

I woke up quite angry and frustrated. I can see a common theme in both dreams, wanting something that I cannot have. Wanting too much in terms of volume that cannot be fit into reality, or too much in terms of the other person's engagement, that cannot fit into that person's agenda. These themes have been running through all my life.

It is very hard for me to give up what I want though.

Testing day

I am keeping myself together, despite of a challenging day yesterday. I spent the whole day jumping between my work and some emergencies at home, one of my children had a problem at school, and my wife's car seems to be "developing a problem." Well, somehow I survived all these, mainly by appreciating that these are real problems, but not the end of the world. Also that I have the right to be worried and concerned, but it does not mean that things are a disaster. And it does not mean that I am a disaster. Actually, all these are an opportunity to show that I can cope.

However weird the above may seem, it has successfully kept the monsters away. So far.

They are gone

No major monsters today.

Some thoughts today - a little of beating myself on my head. I was working on a device and bricked it; did not do anything wrong but still - some thoughts popping up that I am guilty of a significant wrongdoing, etc. A nonsense, just a problem to solve, need to acknowledge their existence, meet them, and convince them that it is not the case (my first instinct was to catch them and lock them in a jar - but then realised that it is my typical depression pattern. I put all my troubles away, try not think about them. And then when they form an army and attack me, I am unable to fight them. Better deal with each of them alone, when they are weak).

The 'Good' Monster

Today, I was woken up by a different monster.

It all started at 4am, more or less as usual. I woke up with thoughts about what was going at work, some decisions taken affecting my department, and taking possibly best people out of my team. Al for business priorities. Well, I can accept it, but I am not jumping happy about it. So it all started with mulling over of what I should do, shall I stand in the way and protect my team (but jeopardise perhaps more important company goals), or let things go (will I appear weak? Or will it be taken against me later on, when the performance of my department goes down?), and so on.

And then something positive happened. I thought that if there is a business need, there may be an opportunity for me. It may be the ocean wave I have been waiting for, so perhaps I should jump on it and have a ride. I remained awake until at least 5 am, putting together the contents of the email to my boss, being very enthusiastic and optimistic. I am going to send it today.

There is of course a warning light that I may be getting a bit hyper. Well, it does happen from time to time, and it makes the life beautiful and worth living. I just need work through the disappointment in case my plan does not work. But let's not start with negative assumption.

I need to keep the good monster in a cage though. Or at least on a strong leash. I can use his energy, and need to steer at the same time so he drags me where I really want to get.

The Monster of Doubt

It all happened on Christmas Eve. Last moment preparations, with shops closing early. My wife went shopping, I and I stayed with my family (or her family - my wife's sister with her husband, and their children). My job was to do some cleaning and also to borrow a small type of mixer/food processor for drinks or I am not sure exactly for what. So I went to the neighbour to ask her for it; she was very happy to let us have it over Christmas, however she wasrather worried about the condition it might have been in, as she had not used it for a while. She took it out of the box, and it was covered with something that look like mould (but started disappearing in daylight). She called the stuff "burn", and she assured us that it would get cleaned easily.

My brother in law looked at it in horror. We said we would think of it. On the way back to our home, my brother in law suggested that I buy one myself before the shops close.

And here it all started. 

Shall I give in to his advice and buy it?
Or shall I resist and remain strong and in control?
But if I stay in control, I will not have the mixer (or a clean and hygienic mixer)?
And if I go and buy it, I will do what he said and not what I decided to do.

Or maybe I shall thank him for the advice and say that I accept it?

Going out for the hunt for monsters

It is the second night without monsters (my nightmare dreams). Of course, I had some bad and unpleasant elements in my dreams, but these were just random, not related too much the main themes that have bothered me for a long time, and not caused too much disruption.

Therefore, I have enough energy to hunt them at day. My "day monsters" take the form of negative emotions that kick in, apparently a bit easier in my mind and the minds of people who suffer from similar forms of depression, compared to most people. I gave you an example before; a single criticism at work, or bad service received, or lack of success on my own undertaking (e.g. learning to play a tune, or trying to fix a leaking tap) can trigger a spiral and a belief that the world is horrible, the life is horrible, and I am worthless as I cannot cope with all these. Once these feelings add up, I get overwhelmed, and - after a while - coming back to balance is almost impossible (however I have found that some stuff can help in a relatively harmless way - for example, some analgesics like ibuprofen seem to ease my mental pain. Not sure why, and apparently there is not much science on this around, but I found it accidentally, having had some minor surgical procedures earlier this year. I found that some people report it too, but I could not find any proper research on this. Probably no one has conducted any).

I am going to write down each of these negative emotions and perhaps that will help. I need to recognise and catch them early, this is the hardest bit.

Can you kill a real poisonous snake?

There were no nightmare monsters this morning. There was a strange dream though.

I was there with my wife and also my friend from England. We were explaining to him that there are poisonous snakes where we live currently, and getting rid of them is not always easy. And He (the friend of mine) said very confidently that a snake is not a problem, one just needs and axe to chop its head off.

I immediately imagined a large and quick snake, hissing and attempting to attack. I presented the thought to him, and asked if he would be comfortable to come near the snake and chop the head off with an axe. He denied.

And then all of a sudden a dog appeared next to us. It was not a normal dog. It had alligator's skin.
Not that we wanted to stroke that dog.

I think now that the dream nicely represents my perception of people who appear overconfident outside.

The Pleasure Monster

I did not post anything yesterday - and this is because I had lost my freedom. Interestingly, I lost my freedom had been taken away from me by The Pleasure Monster.

The Freedom Monster is a stealth one. This monster has always been appearing in my life, from time to time causing some problems - only temporary though. I can see this monster in many other people as well. This is monster that deceives me by giving me a feeling of enormous pleasure, and my engaging with this monster deeper and deeper, there is more and more pleasure, and more and more need for more pleasure. Until it brings destruction.

Last Saturday this monster caught me with drinking and fun. I had visitors, and we were spending some nice time drinking, listening to great music, playing music. How it all finished - you can probably imagine. Drank a but too much, went to sleep too late, felt horrible the next morning (and most of the day in fact). As I do not drink too often (I quite like good drinking and fun, but I just hate the horrible consequences). So, the monster needs to find something else to amuse himself. His other favourite area is food. Basically, I have also been very difficult to satiate. I can go without food all day, but when I start, it is very hard for me to stop. Every piece I swallow gives me such incredible pleasure, that I go for more. Another area is sex - perhaps less now, but more when I was younger.

I see the same stuff with other people who engage into things for pleasure. Shopping, trading, watching TV, clubbing, gossipping, cleaning the house .... go for anything you like. Even ... hating people! Don't most religions call this monster "the Devil", and the deeds "sins"?

Some people say that "our weaknesses are our strength". I sometimes catch myself getting in a similar state with work or hobbies. I start something and just doing it gives me such enormous pleasure that I cannot stop. It can exhaust me, keep me without sleep, but I will keep doing it. I see lots of people at my work who are like that, they usually get quite far with their career, because they do lots of stuff and seem to be extremely enthusiastic about it. One thing I am not sure about is if such people are happy; they must have very little time for their families, and I can see similar patterns with drinking. eating, etc. Once they start, they cannot stop.

Anyway, I can see several ways to deal with this monster:

• let him go and control my life. Just treat him as an integral part of myself, and enjoy the pleasures. There is only one life. Well, yes, but I do not want to end up fat, sick, and mess everything up.
• keep him away - limit the exposure to all the Great Pleasures That Wake him up. Can it work in long term? I can (and actually tried) not eating all day, then starting only late in the evening, so there is not much time left. The benefit of this approach is that it is easy; the difficulty is that ones the exposure happens, the Monster strikes with all his energy.
• control the monster - this is contrary, engage into what triggers the monster, and then strengthen my will and control myself. Eat a little in the morning, and then control myself not to eat anything until lunch time, an then tea or dinner. Limit myself to 2-3 drinks at a time. Working on something engaging - plan the time and stop accordingly. It takes a lot of effort, and the thing to learn is to tolerate craving. It is also very sad life, I tied it for a few years, and at the end I felt that I was missing all the enjoyment of life.
• use the monster - learn to recognise the pattern, and use it for a good purpose. For example, not let him go with food or drink, but let him drive, within defined limits, things that are very important and can bring benefit. For example, if I could feel like that studying? Reading? Working? Playing music? Doing everything that I want to do, but often lose enthusiasm shortly after I start. This sounds like the best approach, yet I am not sure how to achieve it. Somehow, my Pleasure Monster often does not like the stuff my reason would like to do.

Perhaps a mix of everything, in a sensible way, is the answer?

A Dirt Monster

Yesterday was not-so-bad-day. A bit hectic morning at work (but could be worse), then came back home knowing that there would be visitors at home. My wife took them out for a moment, which was great as it gave me some time to play music. I then went to the gym, but could not stay long - I had eaten too much upon return from work (and of course blames myself for the lack of control, and I sustain these accusations, I need to lose some weight, I have been trying for several years now and I can not. I do not understand why, 5 years ago I lost 20kg/40lbs in a year and it was great). So came back home, we had some wine, talks etc. Well, wine is not good on a weekday, as my mind is never too fresh on the next day, but it was not too much so I am sort of OK.

The monster dream was earlier, approx. 2 am (this may have been because of the wine). Basically, not going into too much detail, I made a very disgusting mess in a way that was impossible to control, and then I had to clean it all in a way that no one noticed. And I did. But it was a lot of work and not very pleasant.

The analogy to yesterday is all too obvious - having eaten too much and drinking on a wrong day, today need to make sure I function through the day properly, and it will come at a bit more effort than usual. I know I will make it, but still.

A surprisingly good morning

Today I am enjoying an exceptional morning - I slept well, woke up one or twice at night just because I was thirsty, it was around 1-2 am. Then absolutely no bad dreams, and no waking up in the early morning - I remained fast asleep until approx. 5:40 am, which is my normal time to get up any way. Quite 'neutral' mood, perhaps even slightly on the upside, looking forward to the challenges of the night at work. I also have an objective sign - I can see that I am reacting rather differently to problems - usually when I check my emails in the morning, and there are ones related to difficulties or challenges, I react very nervously, starting blaming myself or seeing the world around me as dark and hopeless (you may have seen that pattern in my previous post). Today, I am looking at these emails with some distance, and I am just planning in my head how to approach the challenges and solve them best I (we) can. This is nice.

I also look forward to going to the  gym in the evening. This again is different from the last few weeks (or months), because gym was a sort of mandatory routine, or set of deliberately applied tortures aimed at keeping me fit and healthy. Today, the gym in the evening appears as challenge and fun.

This is a great feeling, and it is quite surprising, as I cannot remember doing anything special (well, the only unusual thing was that I played drums for a while yesterday, which I never do on weekdays. And I did quite well - learned quite a complex rhythm, I was happy with myself).

Also it is not the season for feeling great - autumn usually affects me in the opposite way. Let's see how long it lasts.

The monsters attack again

Today, the monsters attacked in a stealth way. Everything was fine when I woke up at 4 am, and I could continue sleeping well, in hope of a good morning.

But then I woke up at 5:20 am, following the strategic attack of my monsters. The dream was about a guy fixing my central heating boiler (I think this is called 'furnace' in some parts of the world). Basically, the gas or oil fired thing that heats water for your radiators. It needs maintenance and repairs, like most things. And a guy came to fix a problem with it, one of the inexpensive handyman (but probably with appropriate license to work on such appliances). He was a hopeless, he could not work out how the system was set-up. When he had gone away, the boiler starting displaying strange messages, low level of some coolant (? - it does not make sense, boilers do not have coolant), and requiring "urgent care to prevent a very costly damage, the burning out of... (something I do not remember."

So I switched the boiler off woke up in terror, my brain on high emotions of despair, anger, worry, knowing that I will need to take care of it myself, or get someone (probably someone else). And all that having no time, because I would need to get up n a moment and go to work (this was the bad part of it, the monsters left me no time to get over the worry, as they attacked shortly before my getting up time). I knew that with time I could fix it, but I had no time.

A few minutes later came back to reality, and there was no problem because I am currently living in warm climate, and do not have a boiler! But the whole stuff drained me a bit, and I am sure it must be a game of my emotions that I am somehow suppressing at day.

I need to be careful. If the monsters move to daytime, the depression will come back. This is how it works for me.

No monsters today

They must have gone somewhere elese. Perhaps they will stay there for a while. I must have scared them away with my writing. This is a good outcome.

Mosters defeated (and some smelly stuff)

This morning I defeated the monster!

Here goes the story:

It started - as usual - around 4am. I was in the airport. It was a strange airport, because one would leave the baggage, they would tag it, and then one would have lots of time before the departure. So I had a lot of time. I was going to a client meeting, together with several other people from my company, from various countries. 

Just before the departure, we were supposed to grab the bags and carry them onto the aircraft (a very strange boarding procedure... wasn't it?). And apparently they had problems storing the bags, because they were everywhere. Many halls in the airport were filled with bags, bags on the shelves, bags under the chairs in the waiting areas. Many bags that looked similar to mine. But my bag ... guess what ... was not there.

That was my monster of the morning on the 5th October. I woke up, soaked with swept, horrified that I would arrive at an important client meeting without my suit, shirts, ties, shoes ... and will have to attend in a pair of jeans.

But then there was part 2 of the dream. I got back to sleep.

I arrived at the offices of the client. Our team was there, and we had a strange challenge: we had to get to the 5th floor, carrying our case with meeting materials. This was a strange case, like an old suitcase, with hard leather sides, reinforced on the edges with special patches. I am sure you know what I mean.  But the weirdest thing was the lift (US: elevator) that we had to use. It was nothing like a normal lift, more like a single rail, with a little platform (perhaps the size of 50 x 50 cm = 20 x 20"). The rail was sloped, the platform would upwards and downwards, and there was a little opening in the floor, through which one would get transported to the next floor. To make things more challenging, the platform was quite wobbly.

My colleague, who was very ambitious and a little pushy, grabbed the case with the materials and tired first. He lost balance and fell down though; I remember looking for an emergency switch, but luckily he was OK.

So I took the case and decided to use the stairs. The stairs were weird too - they looked like a very dense ladder, slanted too, and I had to crawl up that strange thing, pushing the case in front of me. Slowly, I made it. I pushed the case through a hole at the top of the "stairs", and the guys on the other side (client company staff) took it from me. Interestingly, the opening was too small for me to get through (it did not make sense, because the case was much fatter than I was, but everything is possible in a dream).

So I had to go all way down, and take the wobbly, dangerous lift. And I made it, the first time, no problems. Upstairs, there were the people from the client company, and .... my own suitcase was there! It had arrived somehow. And, for some reason, the client company staff opened it. And what they found in a plastic bag on the top? My smelly polo shirt and dirty socks. The ones in which I had travelled.

I could remember ever changing after the trip (and how, if I had no suitcase?). 

But I did not care.

(Over)using humour - it can be a Patronus

I used to live for many years on the other side of the iron curtain. To give you a picture of what it was like, imagine your life with basic needs satisfied, no risk of dying of hunger, no homeless people, and always something to wear. On the other hand, you know that you are limited to everything being very basic, and in order to get something better, you need to violate your own values (i.e. join the comrades, or cheat or steal ... yuck!). That was quite gloomy life if you think about it first, but we learned to cope with this. We studied and acquired lots of encyclopaedic knowledge. We had lots of time to cherish the relationships (we had plenty of time for that, because there was not much to do anyway). We perfectioned whatever we could perfection (your house, your bicycle, your car, your summer house if you had one). And then there was the most powerful one.

We joked. And we laughed.

Joking and laughing was extremely powerful. It was immediately lifting the cloud of gloom and enabling us to survive the day-to-day struggle. There were millions of jokes in circulation (today is not even close to that) - I must have been hearing at least 10 new jokes every day. Some of them had a flavour of being 'illegal', for touching the political scene or the realism of the life in the Superior System of Social Justice, but I cannot remember anyone ever getting into trouble because of a joke. Yes, they (the police equivalent) could use it as a precedence to arrest you, but usually it meant that they saw you as a more serious trouble maker. Actually, the authorities supported quite substantial level of laughing at the system itself, with very sharp satiric shows aired on public TV and radio (non-public was illegal, so it did not exist... at least formally). So we joked and laughed.

Why am I telling you all that? Because this is the strategy that I am using when I am depressed. Until I get down to extremely bad mood, this is what helps me throughout the day. I joke with everyone, I can be a bit sarcastic, I can be self-deprecating, in every situation I am looking for a way to say something funny or to reframe the problem so it appears lighter than it is.

Does it work? Yes, in approximately 60% of situations. It allows me to get through the day, the week, the month, without falling into the black hole of worrying. It is my Patronus, if I am to use J.K. Rowling's language; it provides food for the Dementor (so the latter does not feed on my mood).
Unfortunately, many people expect me to be serious rather than turning things into humour. This is the challenge. They think that when they state a problem, I am ignoring it or that I am not taking it seriously.

Nothing more wrong. Usually when I am reframing a problem to humour, it means that I am taking it very seriously. So seriously that being serious does not allow me to think about the solution, think out of the box. When I can turn a problem to something that appears lighthearted, it immediately breaks the spiral of worry, and usually I can very quickly address the challenge.

And now my challenge is that very few people understand it. Some do though!

Monsters getting wild

My monsters are getting wild, so I need to fight them more actively. Yesterday I had my eyes re-checked, and the optometrist found that the refraction measurement I had had a week before may have been incorrect. Anyway, he gave me a reasonably good service (within the limits of what one can expect - unfortunately, I always look to receive a very warm and personal service, while for some reason most doctors prefer being "professional". Perhaps most people prefer them this way? I do not know). And this was enough for me to start worrying - that now the spectacles that will come this weekend (based on the old prescription) will be bad, and I will need to correct them, that I will spend a lot of money (additional visits and re-work not covered by insurance), that all that is taking so much time, and of course, that it is all my fault!

(I am good at it, am I not?)

I managed to get through the evening doing some pleasant things -  I played piano, but my performance was not too good. Then I played badminton in the club, and I was no good either. There was a beautiful lady there playing with us, the type that I just cannot resist staring at, and I could not get rid of the questions in my head - why my wife does not take so good care of herself, probably I am not worth it. In the evening, I read some stuff, had some wine, which did not taste good (and the same wine 4 weeks ago was just perfect). Well, at least I managed to go to sleep.

The monsters got their feast and moved on to dance around me. The dementors came over at 4 am again, woke me up, and sucked all positive feelings out of me. I was tossing in bed, seeing everything in dark colours, and could only see the failure, hopelessness, problems, unhappiness, and no sense of living whatsover. By 5:30 they must have had enough, because they left me alone, and I could "finish" my night.

I did some reading about and found that actually many people and therapist saw a perfect description of depression in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books - what dementors do to a person, is exactly what it feels like.

So now I need to find some Patronus charm.

Spotting the monster at daylight

Today I will present you an example of how the depression monster can come to life. I learned that it is important to be able to smell the monster as soon as he gets in your way, and "shoot him dead" immediately.

I have been working with the team on an urgent and quite important problem in one of the projects, and I led the team to put together a few options on how the problem could be handled. I gave my comments and got them addressed, and then I was checking with my boss - one of us needed to present it to senior management for consideration. She asked me to do it, but also remarked that site management would like to see certain detail (which I had not thought about).

An average person would probably just arrange for another correction, and not be bothered. But my monsters immediately jumped on me, with their ugly smile straight into my face: "See? You ARE stupid! You should have noticed that, and not let your boss point it out to you. What do you look like in her eyes now? You are not reliable, not responsible, you cannot take care of important things. One must lead you by the hand with everything!....."  and so on, and so on.

The above is my very typical way of thinking when I am heavily depressed. Luckily I am not now, so I need to counter it. Something I learned recently (and it comes from explanatory style theory, which I learned about and not invented myself) is that I can apply certain shields by thinking of this as a specific and temporary issue, and avoid generalisation:

• I specifically did not think about it here, in this particular situation. It does not mean that I am generally stupid (and I can do many other things - in fact most of them - well).
• It happened at this particular time, and it does not mean that it happens always (and in fact it does not - I am usually good at breaking things to pieces)
• Not take it personally. There were many people working on this, and no one except for one person pointed to this. That may be because she knows from her experience that it is what the senior management would be asking about.

Having reframed it as above, I can think of it as a learning experience. The monster is gone (to sleep - he will wake up again some time).

Hope this can help you fight your monsters. It works when there is just one or not more than a few of them. Once you allow an army of monsters to surround you, it gets more difficult.

Countdown to freedom

It is just two days to the weekend - two days to freedom. Part of what impacts my mood is that I have so little time every day to do the stuff I love; after 10 hours spent at work (including commuting), there is really very little left. Then I try to fit everything into the weekend, as much as possible. Of course there is not enough time on the weekend to do everything, and some of the stuff I like doing cannot be done just "when I have some time." For example, I get great ideas for music when I am at meetings at work, but not necessarily on Saturday afternoons.

I need to do something about it.

Monsters have gone away

They were not here this morning. I did get my morning wake-ups at 4, 4:30, 5 am, and so on, but I cannot remember any disturbing dreams. Got up tired though, with burning eyes (I have been trying contct lenses for a few days, probably I need a day of break - I gave my eyes some hard time learning put them on (or in?), or taking them off (out?).

And in my mind - feeling rather empty today, not too enthusiastic about another day at work.

10-day perspective

I have been posting for the last 10 days, so time for a little recap. Basically, recording my key emotions of each day helped me see that in a period like the current one - i.e. swinging between normal mood outside, and depressive bouts inside - I can manage myself reasonable well during the day, but there is an underlying layer of anxiety (?), fear (?), doubt (?), self-hatred (?) which manifests itself at night - these are my "night monters".

I need to do something about it. First thing, as usual, will be searching for information and similar experience on the web.

A reasonably good day, and what to watch out for...

Yesterday, I had a very reasonable day. I almost fixed a significant computer problem, I completed a long distance run (for the first time for a while), I played a good amount of music, seeing significant improvements, and I learned a new important piece - surprisingly easy.

And then something happened that made the following thoughts appear:
- OK, you completed the 10k, but you should have done 11.5, and much faster. You used to be able to do that. So you are rubbish in fact!
- OK, you found what may have been a problem with this laptop, but you have not fixed it yet, and it took you several weeks. Nothing to be proud of!
- You are ridiculous with this music, it takes you so much time, and you could be doing something sensible in that time. You are too old to become a musician, you should have been thinking of it when you were 14.

I managed to control these thoughts throughout the day. I m still not sure what triggered them yesterday, but I managed to make them silent.

But the monsters reappeared at 4 am. I cannot remember what the dreams were about, the key theme was failure though.

So, I will start a new day, to see if I can fight them better.

Emotional adventures of just one day

I am going to tell you know what can happen with my emotions in just one day, these seems to present my "hot buttons" perfectly.

I went to to an optician yesterday, for the first time in 15 years. (I have always had some problems with my sight, but it was OK to cope without any corrective glasses; only recently my age has added to that challenge and I though that it may be good to do something about it). So I went to a "posh" eye care centre, because my family used to go there before. It was a nicely presenting practice, with convenient waiting area, I was being offered coffee while waiting. The reception ladies were a bit earnest, but I managed to disarm them with some humour interwoven in the conversation while they were registering me as a patient. My nose smelled something potentially wrong there, but my reason told my intuition to shut up, as there was no evidence, and I may have been getting paranoic.

Then a lovely young lady came to ask some details, and took me to a dark room to check the basic eyesight, intraocular pressure, photos of the fundus, etc. I connected to her right away, and it was a pleasure (so far).

And then I was taken to the doctor's office. He appeared a few minutes later, and that was the end of the nice day. First, the way he looked was disgusting. He was not dirty, but just the way he dressed and groomed - I am not sure if I can describe it properly, but he looked as if he did not care. Everything was in brownish-beige colour, and looked as if unpressed and worn out. His hair was uncut recently, and overall he gave me an impression of a man that had no control or vision of himself (do not get me wrong - I am completely not into trends or labels, or excessive grooming, I would not mind him not being shaved as long as it all as it was a part of his style). So I thought, well, maybe it is his style, let's see. He may be a great person.

And then he started speaking to me. He spoke to be as if I were a complete idiot, using his standard script, and explaining things as one would perhaps to a 5-year old child (even that could be done better). He spoke about a few options, and I said I wanted to try one, so he went somewhere, brought a pair of contact lenses, put them in my eyes. My distant vision was perfect, but my near vision became horrible. He said that I needed reading glasses. When I told him that I would prefer progressive contact lenses, because I do not want to be bothered with glasses, he said they did not have them. I knew they were available, but he apparently did not care. I felt unconvinced. I felt ignored, and that no one wanted to really listen to my needs and help me there. Then he clearly wanted to go, because he asked if I had any other questions in such way that left me no doubt. I told that to the ladies who were teaching me how to put the lenses into my eyes and how to take them out, they tried to remedy that by not charging me for the lenses. Of course, it helped, but I was so angry - I wasted several hours of time and did not get what I wanted.

I checked once again on line, and the progressive lenses I wanted seemed to be available. On the way back home, my wife had an idea that we go to Costco, as they had very nice optical department there with good prices. So we did.

Of course, at Costco one does not get the luxuries of the 'posh' opticians. But when I explained what I was interested in, the lady who was helping me asked the manager. And that was a fantastic experience. The lady checked their catalogues, explained to me in detail what can be available, that they have to order the lenses for fitting, etc. She was friendly, nice, connecting personally to me and my wife, genuinly interested. A whole different approach to customer service. I was so glad about going there. I ordered a pair of glasses too.

I do not need to tell you who my optician will most likely be going forward.

The reason I am writing about it here is to show you how my emotions went through a full swing, from being disappointed, angry and desperate, to being happy and satisfied. I have been through similar situations many times in my life, and I was always trying to ignore any emotions underneath and just suck it up and stay with my initial choice, especially when it was based on some logic and reason. After a while, my emotions would explode. Yesterday I did something simple and different - I did not express my anger and did not expect others to change, but I just managed it myself by actively changing the circumstances.

It also showed me how important it is for me to interact in a personal way that suits me. The ability to connect personally to the staff at Costco, receiving their full attention and quality information, is worth 100x more than the velvet sofas of the waiting area at the posh eye care centre.

But there must be people who value the latter more - otherwise that business would have no customers? I would be curious to listen to your views.

Brilliant afternoon

Yesterday I had a fantastic afternoon. Something I had been working on, in my own way, somewhat against the normal work flow in my company, brought a great result. All the work was done in a way which was very much consistent with my values - in a quiet, respectful, persistent, creative, personal, customised process, without the pushy, aggressive, bullying troglodyte style that so many people present. That made me really proud, and must have impacted me profoundly - I went to play badminton games in a local club, same as each Friday, and I was gobsmacked with my own great performance.

I need more of these.

(P.S. The night monsters came at approx. 5 am, but I do not remember what they wanted).

The Paradox

There are days like today, when I wake up (after dealing with the night monsters - they did not leave me alone to night), and I feel just great. My mind is clear, I feel energetic, and I am look forward to both what I have planned for the day, and to what will come as a surprise. I am now in a 'transitional' phase, trying to prevent (or delay), if possible, the return of a longer period of the Gloom. I would say I get perhaps one or two mornings like that every week.

So what is the paradox? The paradox is that I somehow do not feel like the same person as I used to be yesterday. I may have started a train of thought, I may have started writing about something, I may have started engaging into something (in order not to think about the bad mood), and it turned out quite interesting. But today, I do not seem to care about that stuff anymore, so I will probably leave those things unattended, and perhaps pick them up again when I am in a mood similar to the one I was when I started them. In the meantime, I will enjoy a brighter day and focus on something else, something that appears more important, and I had no energy yesterday to undertake.

To others, it may look like instability, but this is the paradox of my life. There are activities for cloudy days, and there are activities for sunny days. I wish the weather was the same every day.

But it is not.

Laughing at my own expectations

As I am not in too bad mood now (compared to several episodes I had in my life), I am able to take some distance to myself and my expectations. The expectations are very important, as they form the base for the negative thinking I experience when the bad mood kicks in. If I am not in the middle of severe episode, I can - to a degree - control them. For example, I can wake up in the morning with my head full of accusations against myself, but once I have taken a shower, have a cup of coffee, and can sit outside beathing in the fragrant air and listening to the music of light rain in concert with the crickets and morning birds, these self-destructive thouhgts seem to fade away a bit. This is exactly what is going on today.

But when I am in the middle of a fully blown bad mood episode, lasting for months, things are not so easy. Neither he birds, the rain, the crickets, nor anything else like thinking of my loving family or all the (little?) successes I did have in life, can suppress these thoughts.

Here is an example of the charges my internal plantiff will typically throw at me:

I have not graduated from Cambridge or Harvard or another great school, my son is not at Cambridge or Harvard or another great school, my son is not even at the best state school, my daughter gave up a musical instrument she was great at, my wife is fat, my wife does not want sex, I am too fat and have not managed to lose as much weight as I want, I drink a bottle of wine every Friday, I have not got a beautiful Victorian house in the UK, I have not got a beautiful house on the ocean, I do not leave in a great city that would allow me to go to concerts, opera or ballet shows, my wife does not run any business, I do not run any sensible business, I do work which is not my heart’s desire, I do not drive an Aston Martin, I cannot afford buying my wife a blue Ford Thunderbird for her birthday, I do not speak French, I do not speak Spanish, I do not speak Japanese, I did not learn Russian very well and now have problems reading in Russian, I do not play guitar perfectly, I do not play piano well, I do not play violin or cello or saxophone or clarinet or trombone at all, I forgot most of the calculus from school, I do not know statistics by heart and I need to put a lot of effort to understand some of it (with variable outcome), I cannot make probability calculations quickly in my mind, I do not have many friends, I do not care about my Mum the way I think I should and the way she expects it, I cannot ride a motorcycle (and do not own one), I have not learned how to fight with my fists or mastered any martial arts, I cannot play any sport really well, my swimming is just enough to survice but generally pathetic and I cannot do diving properly, I have not invented anything, I have not created anything that would sell well, I am not financially independent, I am not using my background education fully, I do not have a PhD, I am not in the C-suite of my company, I am not even if the second tier management, I cannot afford to take my family to dine out every weekend, I do not have a boat, I cannot afford to hire a boat whenever I like to, I have not read all classical literature that I would like to, I have not written a book, I have not written a poem, I have not created a popular website, I do not have James Bond personality, I am not controlling my eating 100%, I get tired in the afternoons, I get headaches, I get stomach aches, I am getting old, I get bored at (boring) meetings instead of showing enthusiasm and attention, I have no been born in a richh family, I have not married into a rich family, I have not been born in upper class in England, I have not married into upper class in England, I have not been knighted by the Queen...

I can probably continue adding the same amount every day. Ridiculuous, isn't it?

Looking at the above, there are things that I probaby could have achieved, and there are things I could not, and there are things I still can achieve. But even for the latter, I cannot achieve all of them.

So why am I beating myself on the head?

Giving myself some space

As you may  hve read, I was exhausted yesterday (actually, so exhausted that the monsters did not dare to come in the morning). All day was a pain, I was running at 15% of my capacity, came back home tired, empty, bored, and actually wanted to do nothing. My plan had been to go the gym, but I completely did not feel there would be any use exercising, so it became one of these rare ocassions when I do not follow my routine.

And so the day monsters appeared: They all gathered around my head and started pumping the negative thoughts: "you are rubbish, you cannot follow your routine!","you will never get to what you want if you cannot follow your plans!", "that's why you are weak!". Gosh, there was a whole choir of them, rapping these verses of condemnation!

I came out to the porch, had a meal, and told them to leave me alone. They did not want to listen, so I told them "Fine, go ahead. Ramble on. I am just too tired to care. This is a specific day, I have a reason to be tired, and I will be fine tomorrow or so."

They were going on and on for a while, but an hour later they were quiet. I talked to my wife, saw a great photo of my son in his team sports gear at the university, played music, read a book. Went to sleep, got up today feeling fresh and strong.

(But the night monsters were back. They got me in the morning, with a fine for a traffic offense, which I had commited so reluctantly in my dream. I managed to talk myself out of it though, but it took until almost 6 am).

How to starve the monsters

Yesterday I had to get up very early to attend a meeting. Acually some interviews for a potential job change, but this is only of limited relevance here. The key is that I also had to come back home very late, and as you may already guess, I loss a lot of sleep on both nights. I usually sleep at least 7-8 hours per night, this time I slept less than six on both nights. Perhaps it does not seem to be a big loss is leep time, but combined with the impact of all day travel, it does make me feel like an old rag.

There has been some research many years ago, showing that sleep deprivation may boost the mood. In my case, it definitely does one thing: it starves the monsters. Not enough sleep, not enough food for the night monsters. The challenge is that my brain is working on 25% of its capacity - no monsters, the mood is neutral - becuase my brain is too exhausted to think and to produce any strong emotions. But this means no productive thinking either. I know I will have a challenging day at work. I also know that I need to recover quickly - sleep properly over the next few days, discipline myself to do my gym routines, no alcohol, good nutrition. This will bring my brain back to power.

And the monsters will probably return to their green pastures.

So, in summary, I getting my mood elevated by sleep deprivation is a bit like getting rid of the pain in my foot by numbing it completely. No pain, but no walking at the same time. May work occassionally, but not long term. At least for me.

Monsters that come at night

"Hi there, I am your personal night monster! I am the brother of the day one, the one that you managed to keep away, behind the defences of brick walls, barbed wire fences and moats filled with water (you sometime use acid instead of water - dont't you?). I am here to scare you at night, because at night your defences just do not work. Do you understand? They do not work at night, and I am free to come and do my job. And my job is to scare you! I will wake you up at 3 or 4 am, and nothing will stop me. I will give you a dream of your son dying, or yourself drowning, or a terrible disease. You will wake up in fear, and then the moment you try to fall a sleep again, I will continue my show. Your car will be stolen, your house will be burgled, you will be thrown out of your job without money, and your stocks will sink. Then you will wake up again, more terrified, and I will continue until 5 am or so. Then I will let you sleep for a short while, and you will wake up exhausted, to start your new beautiful day. And I will hide in my retreat and laugh at you.

 I have a friend, who is a bit more kind to you. And he sometimes substitutes for me. He will not scare you; instead he will send something or someone you would love. Great sex, success at work, children getting to Harvard, stocks going up 100x, or just the kind of happiness that is beyond anything earthly. It will be in your reach, just at the stretch of your arm. And when you want to reach for it, he will make sure you cannot get it. He will wake you up, grinning his teeth silently. And then repeat it again, until all your confidence is shattered to pieces. Then you are ready to go for the challenges of the day.

We are your monsters. Very personal ones. We have been with you when you were 4 (remember that dream about the broken bridge and how you desperately pulled the bus to make sure it does not fall down into the river - your Grandma was inside?!), when you were 20 (remember all these beautiful girls in your dreams...?), when you were 30 (remember what happened to your children in some of these dreams?).

We are a part of you"

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Does anyone here have such nightly monsters? How do we best handle them?

Slipped disc getting in the way - like many other things

As I mentioned yesterday, the ugly monster of depression is trying to get back to me.

I got a slipped disc (the little jelly thing in my spine) on Friday. My normal routine would be to run up to 7 miles on Sunday, but the pain is significant and I do not want to hurt myself. I know then if I do not run, this will feed the depression monster; his ugly face will be laughing at me "you are rubbish!"

If I run, I will probably not make the 7 miles, and the injury may got worse. This may feed the depression monster in the long run....

This happens throughout my life from time to time. Either I do what I feel like doing (i.e. not running due to pain), and then I will not achieve what I want to achieve (fitness level), or I force myself to to stuff I do not feel like doing (i.e. run today), and then come out bruised and injured. And this applies to everything - career, study, learning to play music, socializing.

Today I will try a middle approach - will go to the gym, and do the exercise I am comfortable with, perhaps force myself just a little, but be careful. Perhaps this is the way to go.

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In the end, it was not too bad. Once I got to the gym, I found out I was unable to run - the vertebrae in my spine were producing some noises that sounded rather ominous, so I decided not to force it. But I spent 40 minutes on a stationary cycle, and then I was able to complete almost all elements of my routine. Again, this is a pattern I see quite often, I worry about trying to start something, yet once I do start it, it goes quite well. Of course as long as it is something I care about.

Depression is a bitch

Yes, depression is a bitch. Depression has been in my life for as long as I can remember, sometimes more, sometimes less visible. She (I will use a female pronoun to describe her, it just sounds right to me, please do not take any offence) is like a monster, sometimes controlling my life for several months. Surrounding me on each side, and making me either bang my head on its invisible walls, hurting myself and getting nowhere, or hide myself in a "hole in the ground", where there is hardly any light, and where there is nowhere to go.

Then she goes away for a few months, and for a moment I feel like a normal man. I feel free, happy, I can do things, I can enjoy things. I can love others and I can love myself.

And when I forget her existence, she is back. The monster exhales the dark cloud all over me, then it gets thick so I cannot move. I am trapped again.

But now, after all these years, I have learned something: I know the monster will come back. And therefore I am getting ready.  I will fight.

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I am just at the moment when I feel it coming back. This blog is to tell you how I am going to fight. Let's see if I succeed.