See mood (sort-of OK)

[mdlbear]

Woke up in fair shape this morning, going rapidly downhill when Colleen got up and while I took her to a doctor's appointment to check on her fistula site, which appears to have become re-infected. She was on the edge of panic, I think. We both calmed down after getting a prescription for (a different) oral antibiotic; the infection started up after her week on the previous prescription ran out.

Note: positive feedback is bad. When Colleen is panicking, I get weird and either panicked or depressed. Or both; I have no idea what to call that state.

After Kaiser we went out for a longish drive: quality time is always good for both of us. We're now back at home waiting for a pain pill to kick in so I can change her wound dressing. After that I'll go out for my walk.

Comments

[aerowolf.livejournal.com]

If I were to make a guess... "panicked and depressed" would be a sort of 'terror'?

My thought is that you likely panic because something's going wrong, and you're attuned to her so that if she thinks something's going wrong, you trust her to make that determination.

I also think you possibly get depressed because you feel there's nothing that you can do to resolve the panic-inducement, either because you've run up against a wall in trying to resolve that kind of problem in the past, or you're physically or mentally exhausted enough that you can't take steps necessary to resolve it (including being able to think about it.)

It sucks, and I'm sorry it sucks. I don't really have any suggestions on how to make the situations more comfortable in surviving them. :(

[mdlbear]

The mechanism is pretty obvious: it's a simple feedback loop, and it has a gain of >1 whenever both of us are sufficiently low on cope to be unable to stay calm or to calm down the other.

As you say, it sucks.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

My husband and I have an actual, formal agreement that we have to take turns panicking - one of us must be rational at all times. Sounds a little silly, but formally stating it seems to make it stick better.

[mdlbear]

*nod* We seem to take turns informally; I don't think a formal agreement would help, and might cause problems.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

Whatever works for you - lately I've been saying to my husband, "Hey, calm down, it's my turn to have hysterics now!".