26 Mar 2017 - Camping Trip pt. 2
Afternoon.
Yesterday would have been day 31 on Lexapro, but I didn't take my dose. One missed day won't screw me up too badly, but a not-insignificant part of me wants to torture myself by undoing what little progress has been made with the drug.
Overall mood: 4.
A wild and very loud turkey tom calling not far from the campsite woke me up far earlier than I would have liked yesterday, and the sounds of nature, combined with the poor mood that lingered from the night before, prevented me from going back to sleep. However, I stayed curled up in my sleeping bag long after everyone else in the quintet was up and starting to pack up camp. As usual, my inability to be of help and therefore position as a drag for the rest of the group spawned a fresh wave of guilt...While everyone else ate breakfast, I did little more than take up my usual depressed posture, and at that point, I had gone close to a full 24 hours without food. Not a good sign, and especially bad given that I still had around an hour of hiking to do.
After moving much of the gear up to our vehicles, we went down to the beach (this campsite was on a lake) for canoeing. Even though I'm decent in a canoe, watercraft that lack a keel and are therefore very easy to tip make me panicky, and panic combined with my existing state would have been a dangerous combination on the water. I stayed back on the shore, babysitting bags and cell phones, alone with my thoughts. As usual.
Nothing worth mentioning occurred between my being left and rejoining the group. The feelings of not deserving to have gone on the trip in the first place if I was incapable of being happy and enjoying myself were overwhelming, and a small part of me entertained the possibility of walking into the lake and not walking back out. Drowning is a slow, agonizing, and not sure-fire method of suicide, though, so I stayed on the beach for a while before trekking back to the meeting hall.
The only happening between that point and when we left the campsite was the knot of thoughts and emotions generated listening to Favorite Person effuse about the possibility of camping all summer with a mutual, the friend and experienced camper that I'm just gonna call Curly from here on out. I don't blame her for being excited, because that prospect is exciting. I just couldn't turn off the feeling that the excitement was also due to the fact that, if she spends all summer camping, she doesn't have to spend much time tolerating my presence. There's absolutely zero evidence to support that, and I hate myself for feeling that way, but the lies depression tells need no rhyme or reason. The feeling feeds into my constant fear that I'll have outlived my usefulness to my closest friends, and will be promptly discarded. It also touches on the fear that the people I hold in extremely high regard don't view me in a similar light, and that I'm not as important to some people as they are to me.
Once I was back in my dorm, the rest of yesterday was spent numbing my mind with a long stream of YouTube content, not because it made me feel any better but because it prevented me from feeling anything. I lost a lot of productivity because of it, which is something I can't afford at this point in my life. My depression ends up spawning a self-perpetuating cycle of guilt, because I don't get much done when I'm feeling guilty and not getting much done makes me feel guilt.
Another aspect of depressive episodes that I hate dealing with besides the loss of productive hours is the long period when I desperately want to reach out and talk to Favorite Person, but feel that I'd be doing little more than being an annoyance to her. It lasts beyond the end of an episode, sometimes for many days, and it makes it more difficult to recover.
I'm going to try to get back into the swing of posting every night. Not a fan of not having a regular schedule.
Until then.
27 Mar 2017
Yesterday would have been day 31 on Lexapro, but I didn't take my dose. One missed day won't screw me up too badly, but a not-insignificant part of me wants to torture myself by undoing what little progress has been made with the drug.
Overall mood: 4.
A wild and very loud turkey tom calling not far from the campsite woke me up far earlier than I would have liked yesterday, and the sounds of nature, combined with the poor mood that lingered from the night before, prevented me from going back to sleep. However, I stayed curled up in my sleeping bag long after everyone else in the quintet was up and starting to pack up camp. As usual, my inability to be of help and therefore position as a drag for the rest of the group spawned a fresh wave of guilt...While everyone else ate breakfast, I did little more than take up my usual depressed posture, and at that point, I had gone close to a full 24 hours without food. Not a good sign, and especially bad given that I still had around an hour of hiking to do.
After moving much of the gear up to our vehicles, we went down to the beach (this campsite was on a lake) for canoeing. Even though I'm decent in a canoe, watercraft that lack a keel and are therefore very easy to tip make me panicky, and panic combined with my existing state would have been a dangerous combination on the water. I stayed back on the shore, babysitting bags and cell phones, alone with my thoughts. As usual.
Nothing worth mentioning occurred between my being left and rejoining the group. The feelings of not deserving to have gone on the trip in the first place if I was incapable of being happy and enjoying myself were overwhelming, and a small part of me entertained the possibility of walking into the lake and not walking back out. Drowning is a slow, agonizing, and not sure-fire method of suicide, though, so I stayed on the beach for a while before trekking back to the meeting hall.
The only happening between that point and when we left the campsite was the knot of thoughts and emotions generated listening to Favorite Person effuse about the possibility of camping all summer with a mutual, the friend and experienced camper that I'm just gonna call Curly from here on out. I don't blame her for being excited, because that prospect is exciting. I just couldn't turn off the feeling that the excitement was also due to the fact that, if she spends all summer camping, she doesn't have to spend much time tolerating my presence. There's absolutely zero evidence to support that, and I hate myself for feeling that way, but the lies depression tells need no rhyme or reason. The feeling feeds into my constant fear that I'll have outlived my usefulness to my closest friends, and will be promptly discarded. It also touches on the fear that the people I hold in extremely high regard don't view me in a similar light, and that I'm not as important to some people as they are to me.
Once I was back in my dorm, the rest of yesterday was spent numbing my mind with a long stream of YouTube content, not because it made me feel any better but because it prevented me from feeling anything. I lost a lot of productivity because of it, which is something I can't afford at this point in my life. My depression ends up spawning a self-perpetuating cycle of guilt, because I don't get much done when I'm feeling guilty and not getting much done makes me feel guilt.
Another aspect of depressive episodes that I hate dealing with besides the loss of productive hours is the long period when I desperately want to reach out and talk to Favorite Person, but feel that I'd be doing little more than being an annoyance to her. It lasts beyond the end of an episode, sometimes for many days, and it makes it more difficult to recover.
I'm going to try to get back into the swing of posting every night. Not a fan of not having a regular schedule.
Until then.
27 Mar 2017
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