State of Me
I've been hinting at this on twitter for a while and thinking about making this post for almost as long. I guess now is as good a time as any to make it and I hope that talking about this might make me feel better.
So, the thing is, I'm depressed right now. It's not a horrible depression, nothing like I got in 2003/2004, or even like in 2006 (for anyone that's been following me that long), but it's always there and it won't go away. /o\ I'm not exactly sure when it started, the end of my semester was so busy; I know I withdrew from the people around me a lot but I don't know if that was the start of depression or just honest stress. But I've been feeling it certainly since school's been out. That's at least 2 months that I've been in this funk. I'm getting so frustrated with it and don't really know what to do.
In the past when I've been depressed it's either been this all consuming thing that has me completely self destructing, something filled with drama and crazy, or it's been something quieter that has me feeling down, maybe crying a bit, but short lived and generally over within a week or two.
This time though, it's like the quieter depression, but it's longevity is wearing on me. And some days I feel perilously close to it turning into the big, dramatic, self destructing kind of depression. Some days I'm so short tempered and get angry or annoyed at nothing. I get angry with friends over nothing. Other days I just can't deal with people and lock myself away. I'm often listless and don't want to do anything (and often don't do anything). I feel like I'm lacking most of my motivation to do anything, even things I love.
I haven't been completely unhappy for the past two months, there have been bright spots, like visiting fangirls in Minnesota, my 5 year podfic anniversary,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
raxhel visiting. I was happy when those things were happening and for a short while after each, I thought I might be over this funk, but no, they were all temporary respites.
I keep thinking that some of this depression is connected to school. The 2004 and 2006 self-destructive depressions resulted in my failing out of school. There was just something about school that aggravated my depression, pushed it to extremes I couldn't get out of and I'd implode all over myself. For a long time I thought I just couldn't do school. I was really good at school win elementary and high school, but post-secondary seemed to be too much for me. I had accepted that.
But then in January 2011 things at work just got to an unacceptable level. I was miserable (there was some depression there, but mostly it was genuine unhappiness and anxiety) and trying to find a job without a degree was proving really difficult. Staying in my job was looking impossible and I didn't want to start from the bottom at another company and work my way up again, so I decided to try school again. I was nervous about imploding again, but I made lists of reasons why this time would be different and clung to them.
Surprisingly, this time was different. A lot of the issues I had had previous times wheren't issues now and I found myself doing well (straight As and everything!). I mean, there were definitely stressful times and I had to sacrifice a lot of my fannish time for school, but this past year went really well. None of my self-destructive behaviour came into play at school.
But it's like I can't quite dodge that bullet and some of the issues I had with school are now coming out in my personal/fannish life. It hasn't reached my previous levels of destructiveness, because I genuinely like fandom and giving up on it just isn't an option for me, but I can see some of previous behaviours coming to play in how I'm interacting with fandom. I was avoiding because I knew we needed to get ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
pod_together up and running. The whole idea of running fannish comms kind of freaks me out right now and has been putting me into hermit mode. I've avoided twitter at times and just not do anything. I find it hard to read fic or listen to podfic, and am cranky with friends.
Luckily fandom, unlike school, is totally ok with you being frozen in uncertainty and will be there, waiting patiently, when you are able to unfreeze. *hugs fandom* I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad I didn't self-destruct with school (again) and that if it was going to happen, that fandom is at least flexible enough to deal with it, but I still hate it. Especially since fandom is supposed to be my happy place, goddamn it! The fact that it's now associated with this negativity in my life is really upsetting to me and I just want it to go away, I want my funtimes back. :(
I think too, I had high fannish expectations for myself once I was out of school and back at work, and I'm disappointed I'm not living up to them. It seemed like when I went back to school my fannish output took a nose dive. I haven't created nearly as many podfics this year as I had last year, I was too busy to participate inamplificathon this year (*sadness*), if it weren't for whatthefuckbenj and inkjunket (*hugs them both*) I don't think podfic_bingo would have gotten off the ground, let alone be going as well as it is this year. But I thought when I was back to a similar schedule as last year I'd suddenly go back to being as productive as I used to be.
But I haven't, and I feel like a failure for that.
Which is stupid. I think part of the reason my productivity is so much lower is because of twitter; I got so many new twitter friends because ofpod_aware in November and the podfic network over there, that I now spend a lot more of my fannish time hanging out on twitter. I don't have as much time to create, because I'm hanging out and talking with friends, which isn't something I can regret.
It's also stupid to use May and June as examples of productive times. These past two months have just been so busy, I think this past weekend was the first weekend I had all to myself (and not even, really, because I did Father's Day stuff) since March (excluding the one I cancelled family plans because I was flat on my back in pain). I am an introvert, I need my alone time and it's been a struggle at times to get a happy balance of it.
And this funk is definitely spilling over into work. I don't want to do anything. I spend a lot of time being distracted and getting nothing done. I hate being here and am constantly watching the clock, wanting to leave. I was fine doing this work throughout the school year when I was here part time, but I just can't right now. Part of it is that this work is a lot more boring doing it every day instead of just once or twice a week. Another part is that I'm taking on some of the stress of the girl who took over my job when I left. She's so insanely busy right now, she's so stressed, and 1) I feel guilty that it's her and not me (which doesn't even make sense) and 2) I feel like if I had left my work in better shape she wouldn't be as stressed (even though right now it's mostly a tender and the # of accounts she has that's making her work so hard, not anything I did). And maybe it's also causing flashbacks to how stressed and unhappy I was when I had the job. /o\ Gah, everyone keeps asking me if I'll move to the IT department at this company when I'm finished school but I hope to hell I don't. I think it'll be best for my mental health to just get out of here.
And the last thing I'm going to bring up is that my body and I have not been having a good relationship lately. At the end of May/beginning of June I was having some real back problems that went on for 2-3 weeks. I just couldn't get comfortable and not even drugs were really helping. /o\
Also, I noticed probably over 6 months ago now that my lactose tolerance seemed to have dropped. My sister is violently lactose intolerant (it seems every time I see her she's throwing up and/or spending hours in the bathroom because she accidentally ate something with some form of dairy in it) and I so didn't want to be like her, that I was trying to live in denial land. I kept eating things with dairy in it and then feeling sick. It got to the point where I was just normalizing the pain and discomfort I was going though, which I hadn't realized till last week when I finally gave in and went off dairy to see if that was it. The lack of pain was sort of a revelation. I spoke to my dr., but she said I shouldn't just stop eating dairy and she instead experiment with lactaid, which I'm doing now. Hopefully something will come of it, and I'll figure out what I can and can't eat and what kind of doses work best, but until I get to that point, this experimentation can be pretty uncomfortable.
So I have all this physical discomfort that's making me sort of miserable, just adding to my general depression.
I just really want this all to go away so I can get back to living my life. Why is that too much to ask? /o\
And if you made it through this long-ass post, you deserve a cookie or something.
So, the thing is, I'm depressed right now. It's not a horrible depression, nothing like I got in 2003/2004, or even like in 2006 (for anyone that's been following me that long), but it's always there and it won't go away. /o\ I'm not exactly sure when it started, the end of my semester was so busy; I know I withdrew from the people around me a lot but I don't know if that was the start of depression or just honest stress. But I've been feeling it certainly since school's been out. That's at least 2 months that I've been in this funk. I'm getting so frustrated with it and don't really know what to do.
In the past when I've been depressed it's either been this all consuming thing that has me completely self destructing, something filled with drama and crazy, or it's been something quieter that has me feeling down, maybe crying a bit, but short lived and generally over within a week or two.
This time though, it's like the quieter depression, but it's longevity is wearing on me. And some days I feel perilously close to it turning into the big, dramatic, self destructing kind of depression. Some days I'm so short tempered and get angry or annoyed at nothing. I get angry with friends over nothing. Other days I just can't deal with people and lock myself away. I'm often listless and don't want to do anything (and often don't do anything). I feel like I'm lacking most of my motivation to do anything, even things I love.
I haven't been completely unhappy for the past two months, there have been bright spots, like visiting fangirls in Minnesota, my 5 year podfic anniversary,
raxhel visiting. I was happy when those things were happening and for a short while after each, I thought I might be over this funk, but no, they were all temporary respites. I keep thinking that some of this depression is connected to school. The 2004 and 2006 self-destructive depressions resulted in my failing out of school. There was just something about school that aggravated my depression, pushed it to extremes I couldn't get out of and I'd implode all over myself. For a long time I thought I just couldn't do school. I was really good at school win elementary and high school, but post-secondary seemed to be too much for me. I had accepted that.
But then in January 2011 things at work just got to an unacceptable level. I was miserable (there was some depression there, but mostly it was genuine unhappiness and anxiety) and trying to find a job without a degree was proving really difficult. Staying in my job was looking impossible and I didn't want to start from the bottom at another company and work my way up again, so I decided to try school again. I was nervous about imploding again, but I made lists of reasons why this time would be different and clung to them.
Surprisingly, this time was different. A lot of the issues I had had previous times wheren't issues now and I found myself doing well (straight As and everything!). I mean, there were definitely stressful times and I had to sacrifice a lot of my fannish time for school, but this past year went really well. None of my self-destructive behaviour came into play at school.
But it's like I can't quite dodge that bullet and some of the issues I had with school are now coming out in my personal/fannish life. It hasn't reached my previous levels of destructiveness, because I genuinely like fandom and giving up on it just isn't an option for me, but I can see some of previous behaviours coming to play in how I'm interacting with fandom. I was avoiding
pod_together up and running. The whole idea of running fannish comms kind of freaks me out right now and has been putting me into hermit mode. I've avoided twitter at times and just not do anything. I find it hard to read fic or listen to podfic, and am cranky with friends.Luckily fandom, unlike school, is totally ok with you being frozen in uncertainty and will be there, waiting patiently, when you are able to unfreeze. *hugs fandom* I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm glad I didn't self-destruct with school (again) and that if it was going to happen, that fandom is at least flexible enough to deal with it, but I still hate it. Especially since fandom is supposed to be my happy place, goddamn it! The fact that it's now associated with this negativity in my life is really upsetting to me and I just want it to go away, I want my funtimes back. :(
I think too, I had high fannish expectations for myself once I was out of school and back at work, and I'm disappointed I'm not living up to them. It seemed like when I went back to school my fannish output took a nose dive. I haven't created nearly as many podfics this year as I had last year, I was too busy to participate in
amplificathon this year (*sadness*), if it weren't for whatthefuckbenj and inkjunket (*hugs them both*) I don't think podfic_bingo would have gotten off the ground, let alone be going as well as it is this year. But I thought when I was back to a similar schedule as last year I'd suddenly go back to being as productive as I used to be. But I haven't, and I feel like a failure for that.
Which is stupid. I think part of the reason my productivity is so much lower is because of twitter; I got so many new twitter friends because of
pod_aware in November and the podfic network over there, that I now spend a lot more of my fannish time hanging out on twitter. I don't have as much time to create, because I'm hanging out and talking with friends, which isn't something I can regret. It's also stupid to use May and June as examples of productive times. These past two months have just been so busy, I think this past weekend was the first weekend I had all to myself (and not even, really, because I did Father's Day stuff) since March (excluding the one I cancelled family plans because I was flat on my back in pain). I am an introvert, I need my alone time and it's been a struggle at times to get a happy balance of it.
And this funk is definitely spilling over into work. I don't want to do anything. I spend a lot of time being distracted and getting nothing done. I hate being here and am constantly watching the clock, wanting to leave. I was fine doing this work throughout the school year when I was here part time, but I just can't right now. Part of it is that this work is a lot more boring doing it every day instead of just once or twice a week. Another part is that I'm taking on some of the stress of the girl who took over my job when I left. She's so insanely busy right now, she's so stressed, and 1) I feel guilty that it's her and not me (which doesn't even make sense) and 2) I feel like if I had left my work in better shape she wouldn't be as stressed (even though right now it's mostly a tender and the # of accounts she has that's making her work so hard, not anything I did). And maybe it's also causing flashbacks to how stressed and unhappy I was when I had the job. /o\ Gah, everyone keeps asking me if I'll move to the IT department at this company when I'm finished school but I hope to hell I don't. I think it'll be best for my mental health to just get out of here.
And the last thing I'm going to bring up is that my body and I have not been having a good relationship lately. At the end of May/beginning of June I was having some real back problems that went on for 2-3 weeks. I just couldn't get comfortable and not even drugs were really helping. /o\
Also, I noticed probably over 6 months ago now that my lactose tolerance seemed to have dropped. My sister is violently lactose intolerant (it seems every time I see her she's throwing up and/or spending hours in the bathroom because she accidentally ate something with some form of dairy in it) and I so didn't want to be like her, that I was trying to live in denial land. I kept eating things with dairy in it and then feeling sick. It got to the point where I was just normalizing the pain and discomfort I was going though, which I hadn't realized till last week when I finally gave in and went off dairy to see if that was it. The lack of pain was sort of a revelation. I spoke to my dr., but she said I shouldn't just stop eating dairy and she instead experiment with lactaid, which I'm doing now. Hopefully something will come of it, and I'll figure out what I can and can't eat and what kind of doses work best, but until I get to that point, this experimentation can be pretty uncomfortable.
So I have all this physical discomfort that's making me sort of miserable, just adding to my general depression.
I just really want this all to go away so I can get back to living my life. Why is that too much to ask? /o\
And if you made it through this long-ass post, you deserve a cookie or something.
no subject
That sounds like a lot of stuff adding up.
The thing is, sometimes just everyday things are achievements. So getting through work, talking to people, all of that.
Do you think there's anyway to take the negativity away from your happy space? Because if there's stuff on your plate which you don't feel able to cope with right now, I'm willing to try and help.
I view my depression and mood as a kind of line graph? So there are blips where things go down and troughs where things feel down for much longer. So I tell myself that, yes, whilst things are down right now, they'll go up again too.
So, I'm not sure how much of that made sense because I haven't proof read it, but if there's anything I can do let me know. And you most definitely deserve a cookie for yourself. <3
no subject
I don't know how to/if I could even really begin to help with the depression stuff. I'm just getting a handle on the fact that I even suffer from anxiety/depression and my ability to function has pretty much been eliminating anything negative from my fannish circles (even good critiques have been too much for me until super recently) and giving myself all the kudos I can for getting through the day. Lots and lots of gold stars for Danielle is what I'm saying.
But the lactose intolerance thing? If dairy doesn't make you feel good don't eat dairy? I mean, I can understand your doctor wanting you to try lactaid but dairy is not a requirement for proper nutrition, it's just a way that some people can get specific macro and micro nutrients. There is nothing in dairy that you can't get in other yummy foods and through supplements if your really worried about it.
no subject
I found that cutting out the big stuff (soft cheese, ice cream *sob*) and just having a small exposure (as in the odd square of Dairy Milk Chocolate) worked ok, and my insides didn't completely freak when someone put butter on my vegetables. And after 10 years of that plan (also with gluten) my insides are fully recovered and I'm eating what the heck I like again!
Also, much sympathy for the depression. I'm afraid I can't offer much practical advice (my depression was entirely situational) so I will pass on e-hugs instead. And a icon with cute cats.