308- Daily Impacts- Mood swings and alterations

This is my 5th entry in daily impacts of mental illnesses. The first was for emeto & 3 other phobias. This series is inspired by Jodie's "what it feels like series" on her blog.

Mood swings and alterations are probably my most permanent and repeated symptoms of cptsd. I alternate between opposite extremes, such as emotional numbing, or hyper-emotional outbursts, or moments of rage switching to total apathy ; and have lived with chronic depression all my life. 



Mood swings can mean that I feel ok one moment but sad, depressed the next, or raging with anger yet another moment. 

Mood swings can mean that I change once in a week; or, in most cases, 20 times a day. At worse, I even get 50 changes in the same day, but those are now more rare than they used to be. 

As my moods shift, I may also change the music I listen to, and sometimes I would also change a book if my mood for it was over - especially in the past. Now, I'm just more selective in my choices. On the other hand, music and activities are still highly bound to my moods, and any alterations in them can disrupt my continuous listening of an album. I may swap cd's a bunch of times before I settle on one that my brain doesn't get tired of after a few seconds or minutes. 

I interrupt activities when my moods shifts from wanting to do them, to boredom or anger or flat emotions. 

Mood swings mean that my emotions are unstable, and shift, sometimes slowly, sometimes very fast, over a long period of time, or, in most cases, over a very short lapse of time.

Emotional numbing is when I am incapable of feeling emotions. I become flat, like one or all of my sensors went offline/standby mode. In those moments, I can't even find words to describe what I may be feeling, because it's like anti-feeling ; and thus becomes far too vague to discern and impossible to explain.

I distinguish hyper-emotional outbursts from mood swings, in the sense that for me, these moments I feel so hyper-emotional, it's like my sensors are on overload. I am a fragile crystal, or that delicate flower flowing in the wind ; my brain is like an amplifier where all emotions are not under the surface anymore and I feel like erupting, for good or for ill. I cry, I weep, at the slightest thing, be it happy or sad. I cannot deal with watching sad or tragic movies / shows endings in those moments, as I'm already on the verge of constant tears, even with no apparent causes, and those fictional or biographical pieces of art where emotions are at stake, mine just overflow.

During my school years, I was bullied for my differences, and classmates guessed my feelings toward some of the girls ; I hate that in turn, it created such hyper-emotional outburst of rage that I had turned into a bully, and would lash out due to those mood swings, anger, and frustrations at them. For a while, this resulted also in inability to cope with frustrations and I lashed out years after school, and it took a lot of work to manage my anger into words instead of screams and acts. Most of the time, these words were only to explain that I'm unable to find other words to describe what am going through. 

Hyper-emotional outbursts as part of mood swings can alternate from absolute eruptions, to cave-ins of emotions. From the highs, I fall flat on my emotional belly, and sometimes, like cartoons, I feel like I've left an imprint of my body shape in the soil, on my way to a deep chasm. 

Frustrations or missed opportunities - especially the ones due to my mental illnesses- can create, but aren't the sole factors, in those moments of rage. I may scream and break things (at least I used to), but can sometimes switch to total apathy in a split second, or over a long period of time. As I said, however, rage and apathy aren't the sole fruits of frustration, as I can experience either or both in a row or, worse, simultaneously, from other causes, or with no apparent source.

I have lived with chronic depression all my life. This in turn shall have its own entry, but suffice to say here that most of my daily impact moods are under any normal emotional level. 

I dislike mood swings, as they are so outrageously varied and can happen too fast, with no warning. Before I can even explain one mood, I'm already 1...2... or 3 shifts away from it! 
I've experienced mood swings since my teens, and that's many years of shifts, on daily to weekly, to monthly basis. There are always several concurrent currents, and for a while, I thought I had specific cycles, and that they were all part of cyclothymia. 

However, upon research that I did after my wife was reading on the topic, it appears I probably don't have it, as explained in this entry, and a possible un-diagnosis to come in 6 weeks, when I go back to psychotherapy. 

I also dislike during some of my mood swings, I'd lashed out at people, when it was their fault at all. 

During stressful periods, mood swings and depression both can, and do tend, to flare up, adding anxiety and even more stress-  the one caused by these emotional shifts, and having to cope with them. 

As the goal of the daily impacts blog posts is only to show how each of the mental illnesses impact me on  a daily, or at least regular basis, I'll discuss any possible positive and coping tools in other post/s.