waving and/or drowning

[jazzfish]

Okay well that was extremely not fun and I am gonna vote for not doing it again, as soon as I figure out what it was and how to not do it.

Three weeks? Two and a half. Whatever. I spent another week or so recovering from covid. I honestly don't know if I'm fully recovered even yet: Shortness Of Breath is still a thing. As is Tires Easily, but, well. I spent the entirety of last week and probably a little more in a depressive episode. Bit of chicken and egg there, or vicious cycle maybe. Lots of sitting on the couch not doing anything, including classwork (finished the assignment by yelling at myself a lot, and I'm not particularly happy with it but at least it's done).

Putting Myself Out There is, it turns out, a reliable depression trigger. Dating, brand-new social situations, writing submissions... and jobhunting is perhaps the worst case for this. Against my best efforts I absorbed a lot of "if you don't support yourself then no one will ever love you" messages growning up. So jobhunting is just a desperate quest for external validation with extra steps. Jobhunting while not having a job, and in a brand-new-to-me field while the economy circles the drain, is just depression-fuel icing on the depression-fuel cake.

I try the normal things and mostly they're just more difficult and less fulfilling. Got a little sun, until it started clouding and raining in the middle of the week. Staying on top of ishes / apartment-tidying was more or less a lost cause. I went out to role-playing on Saturday but that didn't shake it either. It lifted, more or less, Saturday night or Sunday, and on Sunday I went over to Noel's for a full day of boardgaming and that was actually quite good.

My depression is very clearly situational and triggered, so I keep thinking I can manage it by managing my situations. That's of course not possible, not fully. And when it hits me it knocks me out -so- hard. Once job etc is sorted I am gonna have to look into pharmaceutical intervention.

Need to take my last midterm tomorrow; been reviewing notes etc today EDIT or I could just knock it out right now, that was not too terrible /EDIT. Need to wrap up the practicum stuff as well but there's no huge rush on that. Maybe this coming week.

Bah.

Comments

[sartorias]

I hope you continue to get stronger and shake the plague.

And yeah, a hearty vote for the Good Drugs as needed.

[jazzfish]

Thank you. It's... I had (have?) a longstanding aversion to antidepressants, stemming partly from a bad experience in late high school / early college and partly from a conviction that my depression is situational. But a) drugs are better now, b) I'm better able to advocate for better drugs now, and c) as noted, if the depression is knocking me out this much it doesn't matter if it's situational, I need some help dealing with those situations. Will see what a psych has to say, once job and living situation are sorted.

[sartorias]

I can understand that...my son refuses to take any, due to horrific high school experience. We have been very worried--but that's not your worry.

Wishing things better for you!

[jazzfish]

I can sympathize, though. Both with your son, and (now) with everyone else's worry/frustration.

[sorcyress]

Your edit made me happy. Just doing the fucking thing is so hard but it's nice when it can happen.

Wishing you steadiness. <3

~Sor

[jazzfish]

Thank you <3 Much appreciated on all counts.

It -is- nice to be able to just Do The Thing. And nice to have it done. Now if I could just hold on to the memory of that feeling.

[reedrover]

I really hate it when I know the problem and yet can’t avoid the problem. Why life?

I’m glad you climbed out of it with good social. And that you got the midterms beat.

[jazzfish]

WHY IS KNOWING THE PATH DIFFERENT FROM WALKING THE PATH, WHOSE STUPID IDEA WAS THIS SYSTEM

(Thank you.)

[reedrover]

To quote Arashinomoui, “the simple things are not easy.” Or, to borrow from Sondheim, “nice doesn’t always mean good.”

Grrrrrr