A realization about relative incapacitating effects of disabilities.

[xiphias]

At the moment, I've got an extremely painful toothache, recurrent insomnia, arthritis such that one of my thumbs doesn't bend, blisters on my feet, and back pain.

With that, I'm vastly less incapacitated than when I'm having a mild depressive episode.

Comments

[ex-serenejo.livejournal.com]

wow, I still hope this stuff clears up, too. *hugs* if you want them.

[jehanna.livejournal.com]

Hope the physical stuff gets better soon. And I know what you mean. Somehow, the kind of physical ailments that are hurty but not unlivably so aren't as bad--you can still have energy and kind of muddle through them. Depression just saps the lot, no matter how the body is doing.

[yehoshua.livejournal.com]

I actually find that some physical pain helps ground me during depressive episodes. I may be prone to wallow in self-loathing, but I'm far more concerned with saying "ouch" a lot as I bang $wounded_body_part into doorways and chairs and such. As coping mechanisms go, I don't recommend slamming your hand into a 1957 Steelcase desk drawer, but it is effective for me.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

That's very interesting.

I've never gone down into chemical depression, despite circumstances and so on, I start going down but I don't ever get to the point a lot of my friends do where they can't remember which way is up. I have wondered why this is, other than just sheer luck with brain chemistry, and I now wonder whether the pain helps.

Jo, who seems to have read Pollyanna too early.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i am assuming that you are referring to your chronic pain, not a heretofore unknown to me habit of slamming your hands in desk drawers, but i don't think it does. i get episodes of (if you'll pardon me throwing long words at it) recurrent situational dysthymia, and the chronic pain doesn't seem to matter one way or the other.

also, she says, carefully filing off serial numbers, i am close to someone who has quite a bit of chronic pain due to arthritis-type-diseases, and one of the reasons that i think zie is depressed is because of the chronic pain, or more specifically, the inability to affect it.

[navrins]

Sure. When you're motivated, you can ignore or work around pain and disability. When you're not motivated, it doesn't matter what your capabilities are.

Good luck with the doing stuff.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Interesting point. Shall endeavor to remember this while dealing with Mom; sometimes it's easy to forget.