I’ve got a little touch of depression now. I think there are a bunch of reasons: the time change, too much free time with a lull in work, not having enough social interaction, not seeing my nieces and nephew as often as I’d like, and who knows what else. It’s not unexpected — the time change alone always gets me — but it’s always extremely unwanted. And very discouraging.
I haven’t totally succumbed. I haven’t been crying all the time, and I’ve only been staying in bed a little more than I should, not all the time. Nobody has noticed anything. I haven’t had a full breakdown. I’m able to keep up an appearance, but I’m not feeling good.
When I was in college and I was really depressed, I would sit and write in my journal all the time. Frantically writing, like if I wrote fast enough, I could outrun, or outwrite, the feelings. I would write during movies and class, and anywhere I could. I don’t think it even mattered what I was writing, as long as I wrote quickly enough so that the feelings couldn’t catch up with me.
It’s not journaling anymore, although it is blogging sometimes, but I have other ways I’ve been trying to outrun the feelings. This week it’s been reading, sleeping, watching TV, baking cookies, and wishing for work. It’s not working. I’m not in crisis – and I don’t think I will be any time soon – but I’m really sad and I can’t seem to stop it.
It’s so frustrating when this happens just because of the stupid brain chemicals. Everything’s fine. I normally love living alone. I have enough money. I have friends, even if they’re busy, and I usually really like having time alone. When I’m working a lot, I want free time. But my brain is wrong. It hasn’t caught up with things being fine, even though things have been fine for a long time.
If something terrible happened, I have so many people who would be there for me, and I’m incredibly lucky. But nothing terrible has happened. And I can’t ask for help because I’m sad because of God-knows-what in the same way that I could ask for help if someone died or I had another major loss.
So now I’m going to go to sleep. I’m not that tired yet but I don’t know what else to do. One of these days, I’ll be back to feeling better, but today is not that day.