Sat, 14 Jan 2023
Curiosity Through The Nightmare
Well, it happened. Or perhaps, a better way to phrase it would be to say, I’ve found the rising action of the crescendo I have long feared and known was coming. Because, really, it's not a singular thing that happened, but rather more of a progressive “happening;” an eventuality that manifested its potential some time ago is now taking shape. A variety of factors converged at the same time in the right (or wrong) moment to become a self-perpetuating negative feedback loop. Barring unforeseeable fundamental changes to my internal baseline and external reality, I think it not unlikely that something like this will ultimately become my final undoing.
So what happened? I'll dispense with the ambiguities and allusion.
In sum: I encountered a physical impairment severe enough to impact my ability to safely run without causing longer term damage while—at the same time—I experienced a major depressive episode brought on by a combination of overstimulation, executive dysfunction, and an underdeveloped sense of interoception paired with a classic trigger that always plunges me into a funk.
In this case, though, because of the surrounding circumstances, "funk" cannot begin to adequately describe the mental state that found me a few days ago.
I've always known an outcome like this was possible, but in August I began a process of learning that an outcome like this is also uniquely dangerous for me: running is currently my only reliable form of emotional regulation. I've been looking for backup plans and contingencies, but running is able to stabilize me in a way nothing else can; it brings about perspective, reintroduces joy. I have yet to find anything that comes anywhere close to providing even half as much consistent regulation.
So last week, when a depressive trigger broke my brain whilst overstimulation was putting my body into a state of panicky hyperarousal, I knew shit was going to get fucking rough.
I was not wrong.
***
My ankle has been feeling—for lack of a better word—wrong for the past few weeks. I'm beginning to think that most people would describe the way it feels as painful, but because I have some pretty profound differences in my interoceptive awareness compared to most, I've only ever thought of it as irritating and frustrating. The best I can describe: it feels "crunchy." That's not a word I've ever wanted to use to describe any area of my body at all.
Well, on the day that I fell into acute depression, I just so happened to also see a precipitous decline in my ankle/Achilles condition. For weeks, it had neither worsened nor improved. On this day, though, things took a major turn for the worse—it began to affect my gait, which is always the point at which I register the immediate need to stop.
So I couldn't run home that night. And I desperately needed to run. The vibrational urgency of anxiety pulsated in my chest; the gnawing, miasmatic, aching black hole of depression imploded within my stomach, crushing even the very memory of joy into a single, infinitely dense point, lost beyond the event horizon. After running a few miles, both of those experiences ameliorate significantly (and sometimes, on a really good run, they even dissipate entirely).
But because I couldn't run, I bused home. Every lurching tap of the brakes, every hesitant merge, every sudden injection of gas to make the traffic light, all of it was utter sensory torture. I was close to the point of tears the whole way up the hill.
I also needed to do a little shopping before going home so I hobbled around the grocery store and then had to limp along the remaining mile or so to my apartment. The entire walk home was filled with dark rumination; I had fantasies of getting fatally hit by a car in the intersection, of dragging my knuckles across the wall of a concrete building like a paintbrush dipped in viscous red paint, of punching hard surfaces to shock body back into feeling, or of "falling" down the stairs on my way up to my apartment's front door for the same effect.
I worked from home the next two days to at least mitigate some of the overt sensory stimulation. The anxiety lessened and I stabilized a bit. I was still depressed as all fuck, but I was no longer concerned I would do something dangerous or harmful to myself on an unchecked, panicked impulse.
***
On Friday, after surviving the workweek, I felt extremely cooped up. I knew I couldn't run, but maybe my Achilles had calmed enough for me to walk. I put on some shoes, grabbed my vape pen loaded with a CBD-heavy cartridge, and donned my noise cancelling headphones. I started listening to some music and walked down to Highland where I turned and began to walk what would ordinarily be my running route. After I'd found a rhythm, I toked up and let the cannabis and the tunes distract me while I managed a little slow motion kinesis, AKA walking.
To my immense surprise and delight, I felt good. Like, really good. It was different from running, of course, but it was similarly uplifting and soothing. Even better, though, the weed put me into a state of beginner's mind; I approached each physical sensation with curiosity and a sense of innocence or naïveté that is difficult to achieve during an ordinary and rote activity like walking (at least for me).
A thought occurred to me: what if I simply need to find an alternative way to activate and stimulate the endocannabinoid system? That's what gives you a runner's high, that's what cannabis interacts with. It's common for a workout to release endorphins and boost mood, and it's thought that the endocannabinoid system that makes this possible.
And here I was, feeling the kinetic movement of walking while slightly high in the same (ish) way I feel the kinetic sensation of running while entirely sober.
Today, I decided to experiment. I went for another walk—sans mary jane—to see how long it would take (or whether it would be aerobically exertive enough) to activate the endocannabinoid system by itself. It took about an hour or hour and a half, but I did manage to get to the point of feeling somewhat close to how I felt during my initial observation.
Obviously, the weed shortcuts the process, but it's far too cloudy for regular use and can disrupt healthy sleeping patterns, which introduces additional problems in the long-term. Walking isn't ideal, either, because it takes so much time to reach something that comes close to parody with running. I walked for about two and a half hours in sum today; I don't always have that kind of time available.
That said, it did make a marked difference. It's not perfect, but it's progress.
***
Another thing I noticed is that I found myself singing a lot during the workweek since I was working from home. Whenever I was doing something rote, like manipulating calendar events or repeating a monotonous task, I was singing along to the albums Sympathetic Magic or Underground Complex No. 1 by Typhoon, both of which were virtually the only thing I listened to outside of Hammock's latest release. Singing has always affected me in a way that is very similar to running, which made me wonder: does singing activate or stimulate the endocannabinoid system?
I googled whether this might be the case, but only found one small study (like really small, way too small for me to trust any overbroad implications). Even so, that study indicated that, yes, singing might potentially have a noticeable effect on the endocannabinoid system, potentially even more so than dancing or cycling. And if that's the case, that could be fucking huge.
I’ve always loved singing. I love the way it feels in the lungs and diaphragm, I love the way it feels coming out of the mouth and filling the head, I love modulating the voice and altering the pitch to match the accompanying instruments or music, and I especially love singing in falsetto. Note that I'm not a great performer, but I'm a pretty decent singer and it is probably my second favorite somatic sensation behind running.
If it is the case that singing interacts with the endocannabinoid system, that could be a game changer for me, assuming, of course, that stimulation of that system is what keeps me from wanting to die or craving certain kinds of pain.
***
I'm still developing my understanding of my interoceptive and executive functioning differences. I will be for a long time (probably the rest of my life, if I'm being honest). I'm still depressed; I'll get better—and then all of this will happen again. Because that's the thing: this nightmare scenario is probabilistically inevitable. Until I've changed the underlying factors at play, it's going to keep happening until it eventually does me in.
Historically, though, when I would find myself in this depressive state, everything would feel foreclosed to me. This time, because I am cultivating a different relationship with the elements at play, I am approaching this particular nightmare scenario with a sense of (albeit at times morbid) curiosity.
All of this is horrible, so don't think I'm trying to spin what's going on in my mind and body as anything but unequivocally terrible. At the same time, however, I've never been able to be curious in such states before. I'm still exploring, even though I'm feeling my way through the grim pitch dark of a depressive fog.
This moment, as savage and brutal as it is, is also an opportunity. I can't run, so I'm forced to find a backup plan; I literally can't put it off any more. And when I can run again, I'll resume that. The next time I find myself here, I'll know better what I can do.
All I've ever wanted or needed has always been very simple: context. I don't need much else. I don't need the absence of suffering or the presence of joy; I just need to know why. Well, I know a lot more of the why now, and the cool thing about knowing the why is it implies the what—both the “what brought me to this point?” and the “what do I do now?”
I've never been all that intuitive in matters of emotional regulation, but damn it if I'm not one of the most self-aware and dogged people I know. I'm still alive right now, in part, because I have this compulsive need to see how far I can make it.
It's not different from an ultramarathon. My only goal at this point is to avoid a DNF, and I'm not confident I will, but I'm confident I can, which is one hell of an improvement from a few months ago.