THE BELLY OF THE BEAST AND HEAVEN'S DOOR - A DISCUSSION OF MANIC DEPRESSIVE ILLNESS------------ HOW TO PREDICT YOUR DANGEROUS TIMES

THE BELLY OF THE BEAST AND HEAVEN'S DOOR - A DISCUSSION OF MANIC DEPRESSIVE ILLNESS------------ HOW TO PREDICT YOUR DANGEROUS TIMES The following article may seem not to apply to tennis. But if something like one out of ten people are affected by this illness, then it becomes significant, RE: "Managing the Mental Part of the Game" - What this Blog is all about. THE BELLY OF THE BEAST AND HEAVEN'S DOOR - A DISCUSSION OF MANIC-DEPRESSIVE ILLNESS;----------HOW TO PREDICT YOUR DANGEROUS TIMES One out of between ten to twenty players will be affected. I've been in the belly of the beast for three weeks now, underwater, in the tunnel. And the worst part of it - I didn't know it. I thought the Doom that I was feeling was permanent: feeling doom was simply reality, just the way it things are. Learn to live with it. Right! That is horrible advice! I feel just fine now. The cycle is moving along in its inexorable way and I don't worry about a thing. I can organize twelve things at once that's what I think in the manic part of my life. And the problem is, at that particular time, I really can do it! So I get twelve projects started, and people agreeing to work with me. I can make million dollar deals. I once put a bid in for a gravel pit. I put in a call to the owner at 7:30 A.M. and he was up. I asked him how much he wanted for his pit trucks, conveyers and loaders. He said 7 million. We phoned each other back and forth. By breakfast I had him down to 4 million.I'm good at that kind of bargaining. Problem was I had about three dollars in the bank. There was the fact that I didn't really want or need a gravel pit to begin with. You might say, "How crazy can you get? Buying something you don't even want." Well I can get a lot crazier than this. Once I get an IDEA and I'm manic, well, I'll follow the idea through rapidly It's all this manic energy running through me. You can make deals that you think you can manage. And maybe you would be able to manage a major enterprise, if you stayed in that manic state. Problem is, next comes depression. And when you are in deep clinical depression, all your ability to follow through is gone and all urges to follow through are extinguished. You are immobilized. And you can be in serious trouble. In deep and ongoing depression, the only creative urge you might have, is the urge to end the utter misery of your worthless life...(you are saying this to yourself. The negative script is a component of depression - and the voice(s) in your head telling yourself how stupid and useless you are, how lazy... And on top of these things, what a prick you are! This continuing script, in my view, has to be attacked. One quarter to one third of manic depressives kill themselves. So obviously it's a dangerous disease. I hadn't been taking my diagnosis seriously. I just thought I was way, way out there. I started plotting out my cycle for the depressed period, way before I knew about any diagnosis, I knew I was subject to a disturbing cycle. There's a short period of time during your depression, I call it "the depressive peak." That's when you have to really watch yourself. You can really go over the top, during the peak ( which might be 3 days or thee hours or three weeks). You have to counter the negative self-talk with positive images, which you have prepared repeatedly. There are ways to train yourself to picture one scene of a place you love, or a person you love with whom you feel grounded, or tender moments with a dog or cat. You find these moments of joy within yourself (And sometimes it takes a week to think up even one such image. Don't worry. Just don't stop. You need the positive image to counteract the ravening beast who is calling you names, deep in your own mind. Press one index finger on one hand against the index finger of the other hand. This becomes a trigger for you. Every time you press the two fingers together, you imagine your beautiful scene. When you have a horrible suicidal thought, you trigger the scene to offset the doom and gloom of the thought , and it helps...truly it does help. But it takes a while and it takes practice. You have to practice. The non-medicinal cure takes work. It works better if you can borrow a hypnotist to help you with your "imagining sessions" and to help you embed your image into your mind so you can call up the scenes of joy and happiness quickly, when you are in desperate straits. When you are under attack... We all get in desperate straits. I used to hit the depressive peak every thirty-four days. I'd map the times of my cycle. I had to, to protect my life, it was a lot better when I knew the timing of each phase my cycle time map. I used to call it my 'psyche map'. At least when you are attacked, when this dark curtain is pulled across your heart and mind, you know when it's coming. You have a calendar of days. You have a map of your own psyche. By writing down notes on each stage of your cycle, as you pass through each cycle, you can nail the time frames down. It will take about three times through, to get a somewhat accurate cycle time map. You know when your depressive peak is coming And more important you know when it's leaving, and you know it IS GOING TO LEAVE. You know this dark beast is leaving. And you have a projection as to how soon it will leave. So you know this terrible darkness will stay for just so long. This way you are dealing with a finite situation. You are no longer facing infinite misery. The feeling of Doom will NOT stay with you for the rest of your life. Just this one little step can make a huge improvement in your life. You are going from passive to active. And that always feels good and helps relieve the feeling of "helpless" and "hopeless" Of course , there are exceptions! I've just come out of a 2 or 3 month depression and I didn't even know I was depressed! Sometimes it comes up on you from behind... And creeps into your being slowly, oh so slowly that you don't feel its presence or it's growing power over you, until you're in a situation that seems impossible to change. (This is starting to sound like a sci-fi movie) . The weird stuff happens. There's no denying this fact. But I'd say the 'psyche cycle',the timing of your cycle, which enables you to project your dangerous time... I'd say this works and will help you 8/10ths of the time. Good luck and happy hunting. Respectfully submitted, R.R.R. (C)2014 by William G. Milne Posted by WILLIAM MILNE at 3:27 PM Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest