16 Mar 2017 - Unproductive Day
Evening, all.
Day 20 on Lexapro. I take back what I said about less jaw clenching.
Today's mood was an overall 4.6, +/- 0.1.
Nothing really worth mentioning happened externally - I watched the last three episodes of Black Mirror, showered and shaved (I don't mind the way body hair looks; I just prefer the way hairless skin feels), and made salmon for dinner.
The salmon was quite good, even if I was a little too liberal in my use of salt and of cayenne.
Mentally, not too much went on, since I was watching one thing or another all day and didn't have much time to ruminate. However, the indefinite span of time between me being aware of no longer being asleep and actually getting out of bed was decidedly unpleasant, because in those moments, all I could think about was how strongly I wanted to be near another warm body, preferably spooning someone soft and nice-smelling . I've probably said this before, but I'll repeat it here: I hate how strongly I need to be physically near other people that I'm emotionally attached to. To be clear, I'm not saying that I hate being physically near the persons I'm attached to, quite the opposite - I profoundly enjoy hugging, laying on, poking, stroking, and generally touching the humans I've accepted as being in my circle. I just hate the craving/yearning between times when I can be tactile, which are few and far between, and the way that that desire can make it hard to focus on anything else.
Aside from the pure discomfort of wanting to touch/be touched more that I have reasonable access to, my need for physical contact occasionally gets turned into ammunition by my depression, when things are bad (which is to say always, to varying degrees). It gets combined with the feeling that no one wants me in their presence and/or no one cares about me and/or I don't deserve to be comforted, so I get trains of thought like I really need to be hugged right now...oh, who am I kidding, no one in their right mind would want to be anywhere near me right now and it would be easier to hang on if someone was sitting here with me...but there's no one anywhere in the area whose time you wouldn't be wasting if you asked, so just get over it.
Depression never manifests anything new, at least for me it never has. It just takes the wants and fears that are already present and magnifies them, combines them, turns them against the self in novel ways, overrides rational thought. You can know that there are people that would miss you if you were suddenly gone, that you have worth as a person, that you're not an abject failure who messes up everything she does (so why even bother trying?), but depression makes it so hard to feel that. Life ends up being a state of constant cognitive dissonance, trying to make sense of simultaneously holding mutually exclusive beliefs about yourself. It's tiring.
In one of her posts, Favorite Person mentioned how I didn't seem to beat myself up too much over how little got done on a day where I took a nap - this was during the first few days on Lexapro when I was incredibly tired - which is an activity I most definitely would have given myself grief over on a more normal day. She then went on to state how she wishes that I'd eventually realize that I get a lot done compared to other people our age, and how my ability to do coursework, paid and personal lab work, readings to be better able to carry out said work, and teach myself more about my beloved bees while also being depressed should be commended, because she wouldn't be able to do it. Reading that, my reflexive first thought was but you don't understand, I don't get very much done, and I waste so much time that it's shameful. It's as though my default is to tear myself down for not doing enough, no matter how much has actually been done or what the context may be, and that fact scares me, since it implies that I'm not capable of being happy with my accomplishments, not really. The day that I'm awarded my PhD will come and I'll be unhappy because my research project didn't include an angle that it could have, or that I didn't teach enough classes, or that I didn't go to enough meetings.
The longer I look within, the more I view myself as being less of a person and more of a tangled mass of problems that can't ever be repaired.
Maybe some other deeply fascinating thought about my depression will have its genesis tomorrow.
Until then.
16 Mar 2017
Day 20 on Lexapro. I take back what I said about less jaw clenching.
Today's mood was an overall 4.6, +/- 0.1.
Nothing really worth mentioning happened externally - I watched the last three episodes of Black Mirror, showered and shaved (I don't mind the way body hair looks; I just prefer the way hairless skin feels), and made salmon for dinner.
The salmon was quite good, even if I was a little too liberal in my use of salt and of cayenne.
Mentally, not too much went on, since I was watching one thing or another all day and didn't have much time to ruminate. However, the indefinite span of time between me being aware of no longer being asleep and actually getting out of bed was decidedly unpleasant, because in those moments, all I could think about was how strongly I wanted to be near another warm body, preferably spooning someone soft and nice-smelling . I've probably said this before, but I'll repeat it here: I hate how strongly I need to be physically near other people that I'm emotionally attached to. To be clear, I'm not saying that I hate being physically near the persons I'm attached to, quite the opposite - I profoundly enjoy hugging, laying on, poking, stroking, and generally touching the humans I've accepted as being in my circle. I just hate the craving/yearning between times when I can be tactile, which are few and far between, and the way that that desire can make it hard to focus on anything else.
Aside from the pure discomfort of wanting to touch/be touched more that I have reasonable access to, my need for physical contact occasionally gets turned into ammunition by my depression, when things are bad (which is to say always, to varying degrees). It gets combined with the feeling that no one wants me in their presence and/or no one cares about me and/or I don't deserve to be comforted, so I get trains of thought like I really need to be hugged right now...oh, who am I kidding, no one in their right mind would want to be anywhere near me right now and it would be easier to hang on if someone was sitting here with me...but there's no one anywhere in the area whose time you wouldn't be wasting if you asked, so just get over it.
Depression never manifests anything new, at least for me it never has. It just takes the wants and fears that are already present and magnifies them, combines them, turns them against the self in novel ways, overrides rational thought. You can know that there are people that would miss you if you were suddenly gone, that you have worth as a person, that you're not an abject failure who messes up everything she does (so why even bother trying?), but depression makes it so hard to feel that. Life ends up being a state of constant cognitive dissonance, trying to make sense of simultaneously holding mutually exclusive beliefs about yourself. It's tiring.
In one of her posts, Favorite Person mentioned how I didn't seem to beat myself up too much over how little got done on a day where I took a nap - this was during the first few days on Lexapro when I was incredibly tired - which is an activity I most definitely would have given myself grief over on a more normal day. She then went on to state how she wishes that I'd eventually realize that I get a lot done compared to other people our age, and how my ability to do coursework, paid and personal lab work, readings to be better able to carry out said work, and teach myself more about my beloved bees while also being depressed should be commended, because she wouldn't be able to do it. Reading that, my reflexive first thought was but you don't understand, I don't get very much done, and I waste so much time that it's shameful. It's as though my default is to tear myself down for not doing enough, no matter how much has actually been done or what the context may be, and that fact scares me, since it implies that I'm not capable of being happy with my accomplishments, not really. The day that I'm awarded my PhD will come and I'll be unhappy because my research project didn't include an angle that it could have, or that I didn't teach enough classes, or that I didn't go to enough meetings.
The longer I look within, the more I view myself as being less of a person and more of a tangled mass of problems that can't ever be repaired.
Maybe some other deeply fascinating thought about my depression will have its genesis tomorrow.
Until then.
16 Mar 2017
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