The Little Tremors Before the Quake

Something happens to me when I watch crime drama. I’ve always been a fan of all things dark and spooky — crime mystery fits nicely into that. It hits a sweet spot in my interests John Milton called divinest melancholy. It’s also a warning sign I’m falling into depression.

I love crime drama, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It scratches the same itch as puzzles. Crime in fiction is a problem to be thought through and solved; the good guys save the day, the bad guy gets what he had coming. If lives are destroyed—well, they’re not real so it doesn’t count.

Sometimes, though, it’s less scratching an itch and more digging a wound open just a little bit more.

The difference in these two instances is where I am in my depression. We all know the big signs—problems sleeping, withdrawing from friends and family, inability to care for yourself or fulfill your responsibilities. But before you get to that point, there are other indicators, other signs of what’s coming. Things we normally hold important start to slide, and we begin wallowing in the poor coping mechanisms that feel good in all the wrong ways.

Between okay and not getting out of bed for a week, there’s a lot of grey area.

Coping mechanisms are the thoughts or actions we use to mitigate stress. They can be a very good thing, like exercise, spirituality, or mindfulness. Frequently those with mental illness or addictions have bad coping mechanisms as well. For example: when the depression begins to creep in, it’s tempting to stop eating well and opt for quick and easy food. It’s easy to isolate and stay in bed.

If you’re struggling, it can also be a good idea to call off plans for the night to recharge. The important part is knowing yourself—what’s a bad sign for you? Are you recharging, or are you isolating? If you’re isolating, how long until you hit the big warning signs? How long until you’re unable to function, struggling to shower or go to work? How long until you’re thinking about self-harm or suicide? Studies show that those with chronic mood disorders are 10 to 20 times more likely to commit suicide, with a high percentage of suicides coming from those with mental illness who do not seek treatment.

The goal is to never get to that place, and the way to accomplish that is by spotting the tremors before the earthquake.

Knowing yourself, and knowing the warning signs, is something people in high-stress jobs are often taught to look out for. Burnout is very real in professions like nursing, social work, and anything with a big emotional workload. It’s an incredibly helpful skill that we should all learn, like balancing a checkbook or doing your taxes. But so often those emotional management skills are ignored, to our detriment.

One of the most nefarious of the unhelpful coping mechanisms is avoidance. It’s the thing that convinces me to not worry about the bill unpaid while buying something frivolous. It’s the thing that tells me I’m just tired, there’s no need to make a big deal out of it. Sometimes I’m puzzling through a mystery. Sometimes I’m so affected by a true crime documentary that I’m afraid to go outside. The difference between these two things is the difference between managing and falling into the place where people are scary, where nothing is safe, and where I exhibit all the big warning signs that sound the alarms in my loved ones. It’s a bad place to be, and why noticing those little quakes is so important to my—and anyone with mental illness—well-being.