mood swings.

[shoeless]

so you're going along with your day, and life is fuckin' awesome. it couldn't be better. you love your friends, you love your boyfriend/girlfriend, you just had an awesome egg sandwich that blew your mind and you got a free yo-yo and everything just kicks ass. EVERYTHING. you can't imagine a better day in your life, and you feel like it'll be this way forever.

and then: something happens. nothing specific -- there's just some kind of change, maybe in your body chemistry, who knows, and you crash. hard. you become sad, angry, irritable. you can't stand the sound of your friends' voices. the smell of egg sandwich makes you want to vomit. yo-yos are suddenly the stupidest thing ever. you didn't even do anything -- you just had a mood swing, out of nowhere.

or maybe not nowhere.

aside from the obvious PMS/male PMS, which totally exists by the way -- what do you think might cause this? mood swings, in general. for yourself. everyone experiences them, some more than others, and there's a thousand things it could be. but what is it?

la de da emotional bullshit. discuss.

 

[Dormouse]

Usually something subtle. Some worry creeps up, I'm cued in by somebody's sorta upset looking facial expression or whatever, and I manage to convince myself I'm ruining everyone's day and they secretly hate me/want to throw me into a volcano.

So basically I'm doing fine until I realize that it's more than likely I'm unwanted in the premises, which is basically just a lot of pressure to leave. So it's worse if I can't oblige, if I'm in school or something.

Anyhow, my mood swings aren't that bad. They happen quite often but don't last long at all. Stress doesn't help, of course, I'm pretty sure it cultivates the paranoia.

This is just me. I'm sure people who aren't universally despised will have different reasons.

 

[ckm]

Male PMS exists? I feel so validated, thank you.


Anyway, I relate very much. I try to embrace this unpredictable nature to my moods, but that's much easier said than done.

 

[Cavallier]

Usually I can pin point a reason if I'm honest with myself. Other times I just have to accept that I'm feeling crummy and try to relax and not let my crummy mood ruin my day. I have to remind myself that I do actually have a little control over that. I really hate it when one of my friends is having a mood swing and she decides that everything is out of her hands and has a piss party. Gah.

Also, I've come to fear really good days because for every high comes a low. I like average days where the good things slightly outweigh the bad things.

 

[Melkor]

Forget my purpose, lose all motives, get sick of everything.

I cling to broken moments long since past, savouring, hoping, praying for even a ghost of a mirror.

It is moments like this when I am most of a danger to myself.

 

[Sparrow]

Male PMS? hahahahhahahhahahahahhahahahhahahahhahahahaahahhahahhahahahhahahaahahahhahh

Such a thing exists? No. Thank you.

 

[Lobstrich]

Everybody get's mood swings..
If people didn't get mood swings and were happy or sad all the time. They would wither.

 

[Crazythinker1]

Melkor obviously has PMS.

For the most part I'm a fairly even temperd guy. I don't have really high high's or really low low's. Sure I have days where I am higher or lower than other days, but those are due to whatever is going on in my life, but even then I can control how much those outside events affect me.

 

[Sparrow]

Melkor obviously has PMS.

For the most part I'm a fairly even temperd guy. I don't have really high high's or really low low's. Sure I have days where I am higher or lower than other days, but those are due to whatever is going on in my life, but even then I can control how much those outside events affect me.

Yeah. For the past 7 months....I've been under the impression that Melkor is in fact female. Two weeks ago...I found out he was actually male. I was shocked.

 

[Melkor]

Bwahahahaha.

Gender is mostly perception anyway.

I mean, if we judged gender solely on sexual organs we'd have all these poofters making claims to manliness when they can't even lift a muddy barrel for fear of breaking a nail!

 

[shadowdrums4]

Male PMS exists! I knew it!

For me, mood swings go in the opposite direction. I start out thinking about all the crummy stuff in my life and worrying about what I'm going to do about them, then I see my friends and I'm awesome again. If I do start feeling low, I tend to keep it to myself.
Things that make me go up: My friends, my music, awesome food, music theory class
Things that make me go down: realizing I'm worthless, fear that those friends don't care what I'm saying, some kind of worry or fear or realization usually causes a crappy mood and I'm bad about continuing to think about them. Then I take something that gets me up. Oh and if something crummy happens to someone I care about, I am ready to kick the ass of anyone who caused it . Kicking ass brings me up too

 

[Cogwulf]

Self-perpetuating negative thoughts.

I get terrible depressive moods that can stick with me for anything from a couple of hours, to the end of the day or weeks. Although if it lasts more than a few days it's probably an actual depression rather than just a bad mood.
They appear out of nowhere but always start with thinking an unhappy thought, and spending to much time alone without much to do is fertile ground for the appearance of such thoughts.
I also have infrequent positive mood swings, where I feel more creative and energised than usual.

Interestingly, whether it's a cause or effect, my Si is much more active during bad mood swings, to the extent that I'd call it dominant over my Ne. And my Ne is more active during good mood swings

 

[TLiOmSeT]

when you see a negative thought starting to brim inside your head, use your voice to talk to your mind. convince your mood, mind and body that its just a memory. it worked for me this morning.

 

[RedLoki]

I look at my family and friends I notice their moods hardly change. When I look at myself, I have the most unstable moods. I usually lead it back to not caring about myself, something or someone and a lack of motivation, then I start to care that I don't care. The lack of motivation stems from the fact that there isn't much that makes me happy; a longing for a source of happiness. Then I either try to care and do something positive about it or laziness sets in and I eventually forget about it.

 

[EditorOne]

Everyone has moods. Repeated severe swings without any apparent cause need attention from a clinical psychologist -- someone who can check out the physical possibilities and consider mental ones as well.

It doesn't need to be something involving mental stress or a lack of lithium or something requiring treatment. Sometimes it's just low blood sugar. Every now and then I'm glum and when I take the time to think back it's like "Oh, yeah, I forgot to eat today." Something with carbs usually produces good results in 30 minutes.

That's different, btw, from "eating because it makes me feel good." I never did that so I don't know quite how it works, but it seems to be quite a trap for some folks. If they do muster the will power to change basic habits like eating more than they need, they can move into the low-blood-sugar glums.

Our bodies are not always our friends. (mood swings visualized)