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So This Is What It Feels Like
Sep. 6th, 2004 07:05 pmOne of the things I'm most respected for at work is being able to come up with a diagnosis based on the thinnest and flimsiest lacework of symptoms and history, and manage to be right. Somehow I'm just good at putting things together and remembering and recognizing and coming up with the right answer. So why does it take a hammer to the head for me to do the same for myself?
I'm tired all the time. Being around people makes me feel better, usually, but I can't force myself to do it half the time and when I do I just shake in a corner and try to remember to breathe. When I do talk to anyone, I get short-tempered and snap or say the wrong thing in the wrong way - judging by the rapid attrition of my friends-list, that's been happening here as well as in the real world, too. I cry as if my best friend died when I drop a tomato in the garden. I forget to eat for nearly two days, and even when I'm hungry I can't think of anything I'm really willing to put in my mouth. And in back of it all, sometimes even in front, is the constant chant that it doesn't matter because I'm an utterly worthless person. I'm bad, I'm bitter, I'm clumsy and awkward and stupid and useless and nobody really wants me around and I deserve to be pushed out of my social circle and replaced by someone or something more bright and shiny and worthy.
It's weird. I can look back at the first paragraph and know that I said that I'm a good diagnostician, and a good doctor, and look at the litany, and know that I believe them both, and not find any inner contradiction in it.
If it looks like depression, and sounds like depression, and acts like depression.... I'm ready to make a guess, now.
And I can't really blame it on work stress, or wedding stress, or other-issues-stress, or PMS, or family stress, or anything else like that. They're here, and they're real, but I should be adapted to them by now. I should be able to pick them up and move on, instead of just lying here on the sidewalk whimpering that the baggage I have is too heavy to carry.
I just hope I can hold it all together and avoid either melting down or alienating the entire world before November. After the wedding and the job hunt I'll be able to maybe do something about it, but I just don't have time for this now....
I'm tired all the time. Being around people makes me feel better, usually, but I can't force myself to do it half the time and when I do I just shake in a corner and try to remember to breathe. When I do talk to anyone, I get short-tempered and snap or say the wrong thing in the wrong way - judging by the rapid attrition of my friends-list, that's been happening here as well as in the real world, too. I cry as if my best friend died when I drop a tomato in the garden. I forget to eat for nearly two days, and even when I'm hungry I can't think of anything I'm really willing to put in my mouth. And in back of it all, sometimes even in front, is the constant chant that it doesn't matter because I'm an utterly worthless person. I'm bad, I'm bitter, I'm clumsy and awkward and stupid and useless and nobody really wants me around and I deserve to be pushed out of my social circle and replaced by someone or something more bright and shiny and worthy.
It's weird. I can look back at the first paragraph and know that I said that I'm a good diagnostician, and a good doctor, and look at the litany, and know that I believe them both, and not find any inner contradiction in it.
If it looks like depression, and sounds like depression, and acts like depression.... I'm ready to make a guess, now.
And I can't really blame it on work stress, or wedding stress, or other-issues-stress, or PMS, or family stress, or anything else like that. They're here, and they're real, but I should be adapted to them by now. I should be able to pick them up and move on, instead of just lying here on the sidewalk whimpering that the baggage I have is too heavy to carry.
I just hope I can hold it all together and avoid either melting down or alienating the entire world before November. After the wedding and the job hunt I'll be able to maybe do something about it, but I just don't have time for this now....
