Fleeting moments of utter despair or terror

[bertha katzenengel]

I don't understand why my psychiatrist keeps asking me to promise I'll tell someone if I start getting suicidal thoughts. And my therapist has now given me her home phone number, in addition to her cell & office numbers.

I don't have suicidal thoughts. I just have insistent moments where I say, there's nothing good, or fleeting moments of despondency. On some level, I know EGBOK,* I really do. I'm deeply loved by my partner and family. I love where I live, and look forward to moving home when Mrs. V. retires. I'm surrounded by feline adoration, having warm cats ready anytime I need one. I enjoy my reading, my CD books, my guilty pleasures such as shows like "Most Shocking" shows.

And now it's baseball season. This is a BIG good thing. We have "season" tix to my local minor league team, because we host a player (giving him a home for the summer) and he gets us tickets.

OTOH, I have no social life, no friends here on the east coast that I can do things with at a moment's notice or talk to on the phone. I'm thinking of joining a chorus - finally, since moving out here almost eight years ago, so that could remedy the social isolation. I have a new job that pays significantly more than the one I was just laid off from, but I HATE HATE HATE the working conditions. As for other things I love, I haven't played my guitar since moving out here. Yes, my guitars have been in the closet for eight years. WTF is wrong with me re: that?!

Worst of all, despite meds that work well otherwise, I still get moments of horrible desperation when I think of hurt animals. I anthropomorphize and that gets me into loads of emotional trouble.

I promise, you guys, absolutely promise that I do not feel suicidal at all. I know I have too much to live for. With the noted exceptions, I love my life. So what's with these fleeting but powerfully concentrated moments of despair?

Can anyone relate?

* everything's gonna be OK

[Pharaoh]

1. I can relate...................

It is not so much my life in particular, but when looks at the state of the world and the horrors that go on daily, and the collapse of the eco system/ economy, and the slimy corruption that passes for capitalism and democracy these days it can be a bit disheartening.

But for that, there is always beer and dope:toast:

I do have hope that humanity will wake up and realize the predicament we are in and a massive shift in consciousness will occur.........theres always hope....and beer :party:

[hunter]

2. I anthropomorphize all of the time.

I don't think that's a bad thing. Nobody's going to convince me that animals don't have souls.

The personalities we see in animals arise from the same stuff our own personalities do.

There's not much personality that will fit into the nervous system of something like a goldfish, but they do have an essential presence.

Dogs, cats, parrots and other bright animals have abundant personalities, and many of them are very good companions.

[bertha katzenengel]

3. I'm with you. Animals are sentient beings.

But when I ascribe huge terror, the kind a human would feel, to a bird snatched in flight by a hawk (as I saw the other day), I get hysterical. Pull-off-the-road, break-down-and-cry-hysterically-for-five-minutes, pound-the-steering-wheel hysterical.

I need desperately to find where to draw the line between sentient being and capacity for emotion. Edit: got any thoughts?

Hi, my friend :pals:

[hunter]

4. In my own case it's one of the more certain signs my meds are off...

:hug:

When I'm on a more steady footing I can say to myself it's the circle of life and that's the way it's always been on earth. Hawks get hungry too, and that's what they eat. I also have this sense that there are patterns to things that are not defined by life and death, or even time.

But the random stuff like cars and other accidents still get to me. I saw a goose and her babies crossing a busy street the other day and I tensed all up, but people stopped their cars and the goose family all hurried across safely.

A big part of this kind of distress is obsessive in me, I'll see one thing, and everything bad like it I've ever seen starts bouncing around in my head and won't stop, but when my other obsessions are not spinning out of control, that one isn't either.

[DemExpat]

5. I have this as well when I see or read about animals in danger.

I've learned to live with it, without becoming a cynic or "heartless".
I take peaceful breaths to keep myself from freaking out and move on - if I can't safely help out at the time - knowing I cannot rescue the world.

Most of my super-sensitivities I have learned to accept, and not let myself go into a spiral of negative thoughts about these feelings. This has been a major learned survival tool for me!

:hug:

DemEx

[EFerrari]

6. I can. My brain did this to me for most of 2007 and even still now

three or four times a week. For me, it was about clinical depression more than anything else.

I use thought stopping (telling me to "stop it" out loud). That helps some. Focusing on breathing to the exclusion of everything else is also effective. Trying to stay in touch with others every day, mindfully, also helps.

Not beating myself up for any of it but instead embracing the experience is difficult most of the time. I keep at it, though.

Take good care of you.

:hug:
:grouphug: