Day Twenty-four (a bit late): Patterns and a Fever Induced Delirium

Note: This entry is the second part of a two part entry. If you missed the first part, just click here to read it. 

The other thing I have noticed is that when I have a few days in a row like this, it either starts to lift a little bit by the third or fourth day or it gets even worse. When it gets worse, the depression increases to a solid 9 or 10 and nothing in the world seems right to me. I become pretty much non-functional, don't want to eat at all (and have gone days without eating in that state), start actively considering suicide as a possible option, and struggle to put words to what I am feeling even with Gray or Pendragon. In fact, when I get that bad, I often wind up meeting with Pendragon for a crisis appointment (I really hate that it's called that) and he has to work very hard to draw me out. It's not that I am actively trying to not talk, it's just that when the depression is so heavy that I can hardly breathe, it fights with me and tries to keep me silent. I don't know why this is, only that it is so.

I had a particularly intense period of about six consecutive days this past July (2014) where I was at a good 10 almost every single day from the moment I woke up until I wound up nearly passing out from exhaustion. It was bad enough that during that six days, I had the equivalent of about two and a half meals in total. I wound up nearly passing out from low blood sugar and was sleeping so little because of the depression that I was averaging just barely 3 hours a night. I saw Pendragon twice in that six day period and I know one of those times I was not only withdrawn but once he finally got me talking, I was close to incoherent from lack of food, sleep, and just all the fighting with my mood and the intense thoughts of suicide. Eventually, on the night of the sixth day, I finally laid down to go to sleep, fell asleep almost instantly, and was out cold for a good six or seven hours. When I finally woke up, it felt as though I was coming out of some sort of delirium sickness brought on by a severely high fever that had finally broken. It was as though the world had come back into a more proper focus. I remember feeling physically weak and still very tired, but my breathing was easier and the fog that had obscured reality and choked my tongue into silence had started to dissipate. It took a couple of days before I felt more like I had before the onset of this intense period, very much in the same way that it usually takes someone a few days to fully return to health once they have gotten past the most severe symptoms of an illness.

What I realised once I felt a little less depressed and weak was that I have had numerous periods like that before throughout the past 21 months. When I went back and looked at my records, I was able to see certain patterns in how these periods of fever delirium depression work. They begin at around an 8 or so mood and then the fight with my appetite and sleep begins. If I can force myself to eat, the level of depression stays lower longer. If, for whatever reason, I can't make myself eat, it worsens. That sounds like a logical thing when I type it all out like that, but when you're in the thick of this and have it happen to you so often, it's sometimes hard to piece things together logically. There are of course times when I force myself to eat and it still gets worse. That's why I said at the beginning of this that my depression mutates and changes. It follows certain patterns sometimes, but other times, it misbehaves.

So where am I right now? As of the writing of this, I am sitting at a solid 8. I had a snack earlier today and a rather gluttonously big dinner of Chinese food with Gray and GB while our big girls were at youth group. I slept for about six and a half hours from 4:30am until 11:00am this morning and it was the kind of sleep where you fall asleep and sleep so hard you don't move at all. I say all of this to say that I'm not sure where I'm at really. I have this odd feeling that the intensity of the past few days isn't over yet. I would really love for it to be over, because the next few days are going to be insanely busy and I need as much energy and emotional wherewithal as I can summon.

Finally, I want to thank those of you who have been thinking of me and keeping me in your prayers these past few days. I appreciate every prayer and every one of you.