Today, I seem to have crashed emotionally again.
I am feeling things, don’t get me wrong, but my depression seems to be getting the better of me lately, and today in particular.
With high-functioning depression, I find that after something I get worked up about — stressed, anxious, happy, excited — I tend to crash a few days after. There is this feeling of I have to keep going with that momentum until I have a day away from The Place Where I Work (or whatever), and then the crash takes place.
So the training session on Tuesday left me on a high, which lasted a little bit into yesterday, and then last night after work, I could feel the stress and excitement melt away. Despite me having a few projects I wanted to work on today, my energy and motivation are both running on empty.
Since there are deadlines to both of the issues at hand I need to go out for today, I will force myself to get them done.
To be honest, what deepens my depression a bit is one of the things I need to do seems utterly unnecessary to me.
In December, I got a library card after 20 years or so of not having one. The librarian who helped set it up for me seemed a little bewildered by the system, which, fine, I understand that people have to learn these things at one point or another. And, at first, my card and account seemed to be working okay. But now, I’m not able to do much of anything on any of the Web sites (like borrow books electronically) and I get the warning that my library card expires soon: three months or so after I got the damned thing.
My thoughts drift to: Seriously? Couldn’t life be a little less complex? Why does this shit always seem to happen to me? I got the card specifically so I could borrow electronically, which makes life easier for everyone, and I even said this to the librarian, but the system wasn’t hooked up for me to do that? Fuck me. Really seriously annoying.
I get angry. Then I get frustrated. And then I either shut down or I get depressed.
I guess I should be happy that depressed actually keeps the feelings intact a bit. Thank God for small miracles.
Another issue that I can solve from inside the house was a bank issue I have been trying to deal with.
I contacted one of my credit card companies for some guidance, and filled out this complicated form, but forgot to include a few bits of information, so I emailed them from the bank Web site to let them know this.
I got an email back the next day to say that someone had already got back to me, and he would let her handle this additional information.
But no one had got back to me. No phone calls, no emails, nothing. So I wrote back and said, no, in fact, no one has gotten back to me about this except this person who is passing the buck on to someone else. (I was nicer than that about it, but that’s what it boils down to.)
A whole 8 days has gone by and I have heard nothing except that one email.
So today, I wrote again. I shouldn’t have to write again. Was this person working for the bank just going to ignore me and put on their system that she had contacted me? Because if that’s the case, as a customer, that worries me a great deal. If one of my employees had done that, I’d hit the roof. It’s not good enough, and, to be brutally honest, I shouldn’t have to chase them up for a rather simple answer. I’ve done all the hard work on my end, and they can’t seem to be bothered getting back in touch with me.
These sort of scenarios really wear me down.
I think it’s a combination of things today. These seemingly mundane tasks eating into my own time (that shouldn’t be eating into my own time if other people had done their jobs / do their jobs properly) and also a crash from the training on Tuesday, and the emotions surrounding that training.
My counselor and I have spoken many times about this draining feeling I get when I am at this stage, but we’re still dismantling depersonalization so it might be a while before we figure out what this draining sensation is as well. It, like depersonalization, is probably some sort of learned mechanism.
My goal today: one foot in front of the other. Get things done, as slowly as I need to. And hopefully being out and about improves my mental state, or getting a good night’s sleep (which I honestly did have last night) reboots my brain for tomorrow.
Beam Me Up, Scotty 