G'day everybody, my name is Elliot Waters and you're listening to the Disregulated Podcast. As always, thank you for tuning in. Alright, so a bit of context. At the moment, I am sitting in my car. I'm in the centre of Newcastle and it is absolutely belting down rain. So if you can hear raindrops, that would be raindrops on the roof of my car as I sit here in the passenger seat trying to record this podcast episode. Because I tell you, I've got the shits. And I've got the shits more than I usually do. Yes, there's always a degree of that with me, unfortunately. But at the moment, it's definitely more intense than it has been. So more context to this episode. This week in Newcastle, for the last six days, it's just been grey. It's been raining. It's been cold. It's been very, very miserable and grim. And my mood has tracked the weather just about perfectly. It's been a real difficult week. Don't get me wrong, I like the rain. I like the rain. I like how it's melancholic and grey. I'm sort of attracted to those sorts of sad, blue sort of feelings you know but this week i don't know i just haven't enjoyed it like maybe i would have in the past and it's been um it's been hard it's been the 5 a.m shifts at work so i've been getting up in the rain sitting on a forklift unloading trucks well before the sun comes up getting drenched while unloading trucks which usually though that's the thing usually i would thrive in that environment and i would be like yes this is living as it's meant to be lived right on the edge extreme you know look at me go i'm so tough World's Hardest Worker, but this week I've just been so irritable and grumpy and I don't know, it's just been a write-off, a complete write-off, and it's really bugging me, especially today. Today's been quite brutal. The reason I'm out here at the moment in the rain driving around Newcastle is because like I said I've got the shits and one of my best coping strategies one of my most adaptive coping strategies is to go for drives and sing songs and that's what I've been doing I'm amazed the voice is still up to it because I was belting out some ACDC classics just then it was unbelievable but you know that's why I'm here so that's why I'm out here at the moment it's um it's just on dinner time because I'm just fed up with feeling like garbage so i thought you know what it won't make things worse i'll go for a drive i'll record a potty episode tell everyone how i'm going um because that usually makes things feel a little bit better um as the rain is starting to really come down now this is this is actually i'm enjoying this this is good thank you for sharing in this moment with me everybody um But today, well, this week has been the same, but today has been even more so, which is these constant mood swings, constant mood swings from, you know, not exactly 10 out of 10 happiness, but I'd say, you know, middle of the road, sort of, you know, that's the peak has been middle of the road, pretty good. And then I will swing violently to this depressed state. anxious version um which doesn't usually last very long because then i'll swing back up again to that reasonable level then i'll swing back down again to this really deep low and here's a very deep low you know this is the stuff where i'm thinking about death all the time what's the point of even trying we're going to die anyway who cares you know that sort of stuff but these mood swings as the week has gone on has got have gotten shorter and shorter and shorter now when i say rapid cycling people would probably think oh rapid cycling like in bipolar But I'm talking rapid cycling of moods, as in BPD, ADHD. This happened, honestly, today, it was like every 10 seconds, every 20 seconds, boom, shift in mood, boom, shift in mood, boom, shift in mood. And it's so... taxing and so tiring having to keep going through that over and over again, the ups and downs, ups and downs. It just wears you out. You're being pulled from pillar to post. It's terrible. And this has become a real feature. It's been a feature of the last week, but also a little bit more than that. And this is why I want to do this sort of rejig of the medications, because I'm not happy with the fact that I'm having these brutal mood swings. Don't get me wrong, they haven't been every 10, 20 seconds for the whole week. But today, I'm telling you, today, I was going to say on this episode, like here, there's a mood swing. There's one there. There's another one there. But what's the point? Just assume that during this time that I'm talking, and this is what's been happening, I've been doing the whole swing thing. Literally just then, just then, I almost stopped recording and almost deleted what I just recorded then because of this feeling that I got all of a sudden that this was rubbish and it was a complete waste of time. I've now snapped out of that and we're still going. I'm still trucking, but that is the sort of mood swings that I've had to contend with and that's some of the mood swings that are happening here in real time if you are listening to this episode that must mean that I was able to push through which is good if you don't well then obviously I couldn't that makes sense as the rain starts again the rains but the rain and I have been totally in sync on and off on and off you know it's been freezing today but then the sun come out be real warm through it but then the rain had hit again it'd be freezing again the jump The jumper was on, the jumper was off. I've just been totally out of whack. Even little things. So like me fluoro vests that I wear at work, you know, some cheap fluoro vest, who cares? But I cared this morning because I left it in the car. So I went into work and I work at Bunnings Warehouse, you know, we sell these vests. So I just grabbed one, wrote it off and I, hey, look, I've got a new yellow vest. But all day it's been bugging me that it wasn't me old yellow vest, the greasy, grimy one that I'm used to wearing. And it just felt off. It felt weird all day that I had this crisp high-vis yellow vest on. Honestly, who cares? But I'll tell you who cares, me, in a big way. I don't know if this is some sort of autistic thing. Maybe, you know, just, you know, feeling a bit off. But man, I was almost on the brink of meltdown already. constantly today. And when I say meltdown, I'm not talking like crying and stuff. I'm like talking punching walls and kicking doors and that sort of stuff. So agitated, so irritable. I had been all week, but today especially so. And it all started at 5 a.m. this morning when I walked into work and I was like, God damn it. I forgot my yellow vest. Holy jeez, the world's about to end. I probably could have walked over back to my car and grabbed my old yellow vest and then put it on and walked back in. But no, no, I didn't. I didn't do that. All I did was just stew on it all day and it just bugged me. Man, it bugged me. Even my socks. My socks today annoyed me too. I had different socks on than I normally wear and they felt looser and all day I'm just fixated on this idea that these socks, they don't feel right. So I'm in this crisp high-vis vest, which I don't like. I've got these loose-fitting socks on. I don't know. I didn't know they were loose-fitting. I thought they were just socks. But today I was like, nah, they've lost their elasticity. I'm not liking them. So I've just been real off. I've been real flushed in the face all day, real red in the face too. I've been having some of those brain zaps, which is weird because brain zaps usually happens if you're drawing off a medication, in particular antidepressants, which I'm not doing. So I don't know where the brain zaps come from, but boom, all day they've been there too. It's amazing though how all these things correlate. I think there's probably more than just a correlation there. I'd say they are related in some way. I just haven't quite figured out what the linkage is between all these things but you know add to the list terrible sleep last night has been poor sleep all week and that's the thing you know one of these sorts of things on their own is just one thing on its own but when they start the multiply you know All of a sudden you get exponential growth of my rage and agitation. So the bad sleep is then feeding into more anxiety, which is then feeding into, I don't know, being on edge and being agitated, which is then feeding into, I don't know, thoughts that aren't maybe based in logic and even some awarenesses of mine, which aren't based in logic. All of a sudden this vest thing just absolutely gave me the shits all day. This loose socks thing, you know, like if I'd had good sleep and I was in a good mood, and all that sort of stuff, maybe those two things wouldn't have mattered. You know, that sort of sensory idea of what was going on today. But add it to the list of all those other little incremental things. But as I said, you pull them together, there's this... effect it's not just one plus one equals two it's one plus one equals three you know what i mean is that exponential growth of my disgust in the world and today has been a big one for that and again as i just did my little rant there i sort of felt all right you know doing a little rant talking about how agitated i've been all day but then right then just then bang swung back and i got on negative again and i'm on the verge of deleting this episode and not publishing it but i'm going to I'm going to publish it because it's very important because these days are becoming more and more common. And unfortunately... I do not know how to put the brakes on these days when this is happening. I think part of it too is the stimulant medication. It is like adding fuel to the fire. There is no two ways about it. The dexamphetamine, the Vyvanse, the caffeine, all that sort of stuff definitely accelerates these mood swings and then adds intensity to them as well. But that's the trade-off for being productive and being awake. So I was like, God, what do I do? Either I don't have those meds and I can't concentrate at work and can barely even make it to work because I've got all this fatigue, can't do anything. Or I slam the meds as I'm meant to, but that fuels these mood swings, these violent, brutal mood swings, fuels the intensity and the frequency of them. Like, what do you do? And then that in itself, that thought, the what do you do thought, oh, that's agitating in itself and anxiety provoking because it's like, yeah, well, what do we do? And I don't have the answer. I can't answer myself with that one just here I don't know I don't know what to do and this is why it's going to be important moving forward that hopefully I get this medication reset because Very quickly, although this goes down sort of a different avenue and I want to pull it up here in a minute before I delete, so make sure I upload it. But before I do, I just want to say too how the medication reset will be important because the amphetamine medication, there's no two ways about it. The stimulant medication, first and foremost, is being used to keep me awake. Definitely. Attention is maybe coming second, maybe. But it's a long way, way behind the amphetamine being used to keep me awake. And the reason I think I'm having so much trouble staying awake is Because of some of the other medications on, the chlamypramine, the tricyclic antidepressant is sedative. The ceracol, quetiapine, of course, the antipsychotic, it's well known for being sedative. That's why I have it. And these medications are working against each other. And I can feel it. I'm telling you, I can feel it. like in my head, chemically, I can feel that there's this to-ing and fro-ing, this pull-push sort of feeling. And I think it's adding to the agitation and I think it's adding to the elasticity of my moods at the moment and these swings that I'm getting, these oscillations between sort of happy and, oh my God, I'm going to die, the world's going to end, who gives a crap anyway. So yeah, so that's what I've been dealing with today. And I'm annoyed too, because this week I really wanted to do the next, which I'm going to do any day now, maybe tomorrow, hopefully. Tomorrow's Friday. Tomorrow might be a good day. If it is, I'm going to get this DBT skills episode done on opposite action because opposite action is so important to my story and I know it can help so many other people as well and want to get out there. So I've got this great episode all ready to go. I've just got to record it, just got to be in the mood to get it down, you know, pen on paper sort of stuff, voice on recording, just got to get it happening. But for those sorts of episodes, you know, I've got to be in a good sort of headspace to do them. And I just haven't been for the last week, last six days, you know, I've been just like the weather, on and off, cold, dreary, terrible stuff. But anyway, that's the latest from me, navigating these very fatigue-inducing mood swings. And of course, the more these mood swings happen, the more fatigued I get, the more fatigued I get, the more the mood swings happen. You know how this works. A lot of you guys go through this as well. It ain't just me that goes through this, but man, have I been going through it today. All right. Thank you for listening, everybody. If you're enjoying the show, feel free to like, subscribe, give the show a great five-star rating. That'd be good for the algorithm. And you can always share it around with your mates and you can follow me on Instagram at elliott.t.waters. Now I need to get home because the rain is pummeling down and I've got to get home. I've got to get to bed early start tomorrow. Wish me luck. I'll talk to you soon. See you later. Goodbye.