Catatonia versus the twitch

[pegkerr]

I was seriously bent out of shape by the time I got home from work. It wasn't anything that happened at work. Nothing too strenuous was asked of me. Well, the rain didn't help. I was descending into one of those unhelpful moods where I just wanted to crawl into bed and shut the world out. Didn't want to cook, didn't want to eat, didn't want to interact with anybody. I felt tense, as if hunched in a permanent worried crouch. With some difficulty, I talked about it with Rob. Sometimes I get in these states where we know it's important to shake me out of it. This one felt like, well, catatonia.

"You know what you have to do," Rob said. "You need to go to karate."

"I don't want to," I said. I didn't want to do anything.

"It's not a sparring class, so you don't have to deal with people hitting you," Rob said. (That's really hard for me to cope with when I start sliding into bad depression. I've been avoiding sparring classes lately.) "But it'll get you up and moving, and you don't have to think. You just have to follow orders."

"I don't want to go," I said stubbornly. Which just goes to show how bad I was feeling. I love karate class. Me not wanting to go to karate means that my system is seriously in disarray.

"I'll cook dinner AND clean up. You just lie down in bed for awhile, and I'll send the girls up to cuddle with you. But you're going to karate."

Rob can be really bossy sometimes. Fortunately, this was one time I needed him to be.

So the girls came up and cuddled and it was lovely. I ate dinner, and read and watched the clock and sulked a bit. But I put on my gi and went to karate.

I realized afterwards that we were working on exactly the right thing, physically, to snap me out of the catatonia. Sensei worked with us on exercises emphasizing the twitch -- the type of muscular action which goes from total relaxation to explosive lunge: like when you are lounging around and suddenly have to spring up and lunge with your arms outstretched to reach for a falling vase. We started with combinations, and then moved on to short sections of the red belt form, Zhang du Moon.

The catatonia makes me want to curl in a ball, muscles tense. Working on the twitch response means relaxing and then exploding and then relaxing again. Just the perfect way to get my inner hedgehog to uncurl itself and start moving again.

I do feel better. It was the right thing for me, to go.

(All right, Rob. No need to be so smug.)

I think I will go make some Bengal Spice Tea. That will help, too.

Comments

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Yup, the days are getting shorter again. I'm seeing this in a few places all over my flist. Contrary to what we say at work, sometimes I guess knowing a root cause still doesn't make a problem easy to solve. (I suspect, at least for Americans, that election fatigue is another big part of it.)

[corinnethewise.livejournal.com]

It's good when you can actually do what you need to do to help yourself feel better. Having a partner who knows what you need to do and is willing to risk your wrath in order to help you ultimately feel better is also pretty awesome too (my husband is proving himself particularly good at this). ::hugs:: I hate the darkness, and it's so much worse here in CT than in OH, because they are both in the same time zone, yet 700 miles apart. So it gets dark sooooooooooooooooooooo much earlier here, and I'm not up early enough to get the benefit of an earlier dawn.

I'm glad karate helped. I need to find something like that to help me snap back to myself.

[aome.livejournal.com]

I agree that sometimes we just need to be shoved out the door. I'm glad you found something to make you feel better for a little while. (Maybe doing some karate moves in your office/cubicle will break up the day a little bit?)

You've been in my thoughts a lot lately. *hug*

[zencuppa.livejournal.com]

I LOVE the inner hedgehog metaphor, made me chuckle and also relate, because I sometimes feel the same way. My solutions include contra dancing and hiking :- )

And yes, Yay for Rob for being persistent :-)

[nmsunbear.livejournal.com]

My experience is that it is always the case that the less I want to go exercise, the more desperately I need to. :) Yay to Rob for getting you there, and yay to you for letting it do what you needed it to do.

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

Sometimes the only thing that kept me alive was the fear of dying at the gym.

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

Excellent!! I've found that when I really don't feel like going to something but make myself, that I have a great time. Like the not-wanting-to-go is a test or something.

Mmmm Bengal Spice tea. Heavenly!