Originally written in May 2014. I waffled over whether to put it online, but I figure I should put my thoughts into words somewhere so I have some semblance of a tracking system.
So. Uhmm. Depression.
When I was in my last year of university, I learned about the Transtheoretical Model of Change (or, TTM, as the cool kids called it). It accounts for the phases a person encounters throughout the process of changing, and it sucks to study because the phases all sort of bleed into each other, but there are distinct hallmarks of each phase that define them. It also sucks to have to spell t-r-a-n-s-t-h-e-o-r-e-t-i-c-a-l. Plus, there's that "pre-contemplation" stage, where you sort of know you need to make a change but you aren't thinking about it even though your sort of are because you know it needs to happen just that you aren't really thinking about it yet.
Depression is kind of a cool case study into TTM. Or at least, the part of depression where you realize that there might be a problem and that maybe your brain isn't working the same way as everyone else's, but you're not really fully aware of that fact and you think it might just be your own brain playing tricks on you..
Despite all my hypochondriac Mayo Clinic/WebMD/Google searching, I didn't realize that fatigue was a symptom of depression. I didn't realize that depression doesn't necessarily mean the "always sad" form of depressed emotion, as it can also mean the, "Life? Meh." form of depressed emotion.
So I didn't clue in when I started feeling effffffing tired all day every day. I assumed it was maybe low iron, or maybe my thyroid was finally giving out, or maybe I'm actually just being lazy since I have no kids/spouse/pet/mortgage/line-of-credit-debt to worry about, so why should I be so tired?
The doc mentioned depression in passing, but I said, "No, I'm not depressed." I know how that feels--You're overwhelmingly sad, nothing is positive, you don't care about anything you used to care about, you feel burned out from life in general...
... wait...
Another look at Wikipedia/WebMD/whatever else Dr. Google came up with showed that yes, I may in fact be depressed. Huh...
So what does this look like for me?
If something sad comes up, I can't let it go, but mostly I just don't really care about anything. I miss being excited to go to the gym after work. I miss pulling inspiration from the pages of cookbooks. I sort of just miss caring about things (although I can remember what it feels like to care about too many things, or to care about stupid things, and that sucked too).
I didn't realize that depression also fogs up your brain--I can't remember things I should remember, and I'm paranoid that even if I remember what I think I remember I might not be remembering correctly so I go and double-check anyways. I can't do basic math in my head. (Actually, I've never been able to do that. Nevermind).
The most frustrating thing, though, is that I've become something I loathe (although maybe "loathe" is a strong word). I'm coasting now, floating through life with no direction and not really caring about it. No more drive. No more passion.
No more balance.
No comments:
Post a Comment