Dear Diary,
I've set a therapeutic writing task for myself. I have to go to the hospital for community mental health and before the first appointment I want to try and explain what I am feeling. I've written the thing just now.
What I've done is attempted to explain the situation. Because much of this comes through my perception I need to explain some concepts. So, there's the explanation, the concepts and then I explain the connections between the concepts.
Then there's the punchline. The punchline is trying to explain what the problem is and what I want. I found what I want to be the hardest thing because I don't normally think about what i want. This writing exercise felt like pulling teeth but it also felt very therapeutic. You know how these days people talk about 'doing the work', this was very much me doing the work. I can be angry and very clever and trip you up and get you fired and I do that shit to people for my job. But my job is separate to my normal life and I want a life separate to who I am at work. I want a life for myself and I want things from my life.
I paused from writing this blog post becuase I suddenly went into a reveries. I don't have the energy or thinking power to talk about that. Anyway I'll just show you what i did for my therapeutic writing/explanation for when i go into the hospital next month.
I am experiencing difficulties with staying outside and situations when I am outside. As a result of continual panic episodes I think there are long term effects on my behaviour, on my mood. I know what anxiety feels like, I know what panic feels like. I refer to ‘panic episodes’ specifically. It seems to be something entirely different.
I have a system where I record difficult emotions (and some good ones) and I have developed an inventory of about 81 different dispositions. Over the course of about 15 years I have created an ontology of moods. Where I record these moods, create definitions for them, establish time stamps and because I am logging different emotions and logging other things like baselines of physical activity, hygiene best practices or good sleep health, I can identify positive patterns between moods and activity and the intensity of difficult experiences and feelings often tend to coincide with specific moods.
I have been reading about correlation co-efficients, because I’m measuring different kinds of operators there is an operationalisation process. As I’m looking at different kinds of measurements (moods against concrete phenomena), I’m aware that there are established distribution patterns and also significance tests. There are methodological issues of false positives or nonsense data. It’s also my view that we can use ML techniques like anomaly detection, clustering and regression. I’m aiming with varying degrees of success to automate the process as well as the ML techniques but I need to continually tweak ranges and definitions.
I want to talk about some of the specific moods. Panic. Panic is often understood as happening up to 20-30 minutes. I make a point of putting a time stamp on when I experience really difficult moods. In recent months and years I have had panic (needs definition) episodes that can last well beyond what is the standard understanding. With this in mind I wish to introduce two concepts:
Panic (putative)
Defined:
An intense set of mental and physical symptoms
Creating distress
Physical symptoms: racing heartbeat, chest pain, chills, dizziness, need to go to the toilet, sweating, physical disorientation, difficulty controlling limbs, feeling of disconnection with the body
Despite the fact that I know these symptoms and have epxerienced it many times before, I am still never prepared when it happens, by its nature it disorients me
I know its not fatal and it will pass, but each time it happens its like the first time I’ve ever had it.
Typically lasts 5-20 minutes and eventually the symptoms begin to subside gradually
Panic’ (panic prime)
Panic prime is very much like the above
What I refer to as the episodes can last well beyond 20-30 minutes. It happens in waves through a number of days. It can last up to 90 minutes or longer.
I have a longest recorded episode (close to a full day) but I don’t believe you’ll accept my report as reliable as a practitioner working within a fixed inventory
I am familiar with the process of a panic attack. But these ‘episodes’ can take a week for things to subside
The epicenter can take up to 3 days,. It gradually but very slowly eases.
The effects of what happened affect my longer term thinking after it happens. My ability to go outside, my ability to keep to my routine.
The panic episodes happen in extremes and the data suggests it happens roughly between 6-12 times a year The distribution is uneven through the year so in a 3 month period I could have 6 episodes while in an 8 month period I could have 3.
Is there something that triggers it?
There are long term effects on my behaviour. The episodes could be months ago but I feel like as a result of what’s happened I’m still acting with the fears around it.
The mood inventory
I revise the ontology every year. THere’s a complete list over over 100 moods but currently I am actively measuring 81 for a dataset and running them through my python functions.
I have currently attempted to group the moods.
Schema 1: moods that affect my immediate behaviour and decision matrix
Anger
Anxiety
Feeling low
Trigger
Upset
Schema 2: These have been shown to have positive relationships with wellbeing measurements
Schema 3: ‘distraction’ schema
Self soothing behaviours which I can misuse and there is a positive relationship with these being high in relation to the presence of Schema 1 and Schema 2 (I have defined threshold patterns)
Distraction schema is not necessarily bad, but I believe its overuse refer to avoidance behaviours
Schema 4: Thinking patterns
When situations affect my ability to make decisions
Ontology: distraction, analysis paralysis
Strong relationship with Schema 2
Weak relationship with Schema 3
Schema 5: ‘Difficult moods’
Productivity (positive life) metrics:
Alpha: pro social behaviours, ontology:
Socialising (Redacted)
(redacted)
Going out (undefined)
Social events (undefined)
Family
Friends
(other pro social phenomena, for the sake of ease I’m artificially putting these together but I don’t pair them together in my 2021 inventory)
Music (i used to be a musician)
‘New and unfamiliar situations’ (measures of neuroplasticity)
‘On this day’
‘Cigar days’
Social eating/ restaurants
Specific situations:
The long term effects of panic
The measured decline of pro-social behaviours
Possible avoidance?
Attempts to control or limit pro social behaviours - I have a fixed limit before anxiety becomes an issue
Problems with travelling that relates to socialising.
Problems with social eating
Problems with group interactions (overwhelmed)
Eventually as the pandemic ends many of my behaviours will be more apparent.
There is a distinct sense in which the things I have gone through have become a long term blight on my life.
What I’d want is to get rid of the episodes or anxiety, the panic (putative) and panic (prime)
In the absence of getting rid of panic prime, I’d like to create ways of reasoning around how its longer term impacts on me take place. I want to engage in the pro social behaviours if I wanted to
I can’t tell if I want to commit to those pro social behaviours anymore because of the pain of all the things I’ve gone through, or if I’m avoiding it
I feel this masks what my real desires are
I can’t tell if I still want to socialise and go back to how things were before. There’s a degree to which I may be able to just adapt and stick to the adapted avoidant behaviours and limit my life opportunities
I’d like some way of being able to look forward. To think about the future in a way that I can be positive and that I can have hopes and concrete expectations - is that too much to ask for? Is that something you can help with?
Talk to practitioner about the situations at work.
Also what I want: I’m not sure if I want to work anymore as a result of the things I’ve gone through
What I want in life is to work a job where I have a conscience and where my unique abilities contribute to something greater than myself and to the wider social good
I also like to punish people for my grievances in ways that are socially acceptable and within the limits of professional and legal best practices.
My views about people’s moral standing or ethics (values) is something I don’t act on and I believe I can separate
