Thursday, February 12, 2009

Depressed? Or just in need of a vacation?

I think I might be depressed.  Honestly, it's hard to tell since "depression" has become a slippery term.  Am I depressed?  Situationally depressed?  Does making that distinction even matter?  And what's the point of even figuring out if I'm "depressed."  Does that change anything?

Things have sucked lately.  

I buried my dog, who has been in my life for 17 years.  And when I say "buried," I mean that literally.  I carried a dead 75 lb yellow lab about 200 feet and put her limp body in a dirty hole in the frozen ground.  I guess I took the "immersion" approach to my first up-close death experience.

Then I ended up in a big, screaming fight with my boyfriend, the love of my life, and during that fight, he went too far and I broke up with him.  I was a shell of a person for weeks.  I stopped eating.

Then, on New Years, we talked about reconciling.  It was decided that we would try again, but that was difficult.  There was too much pain, too much hurt, too many landmines to avoid.  

Then, my grandmother died.  During all of this time, she had been incredibly ill and in a nursing home.  I was visiting her fairly often, but infrequently enough that I still feel guilty.  She had been through a few invasive surgeries, and she just was not recovering.  She deteriorated, and her mind deteriorated, and my amazing witty grandma was just melting into a halucinating, delusional vegetable.  So... that was fun.  Then she died, and it was funerals and planning and organzing and family EVERYWHERE and plenty of stress and breakdowns and it was all just incredibly overwhelming.  

The boyfriend and I got into a fight at her funeral and broke up for the second time.  

Around this time, I started getting headaches again.  I was getting alot of headaches and migraines last year, but then I got new glasses and that seemed to help.  I really thought the problem was licked until now.  Now I am getting headaches almost every day again.  

Then things got difficult at work.  I work at a high school for "troubled" kids.  Five new kids entered the program, and when there were only 20 kids to begin with, 5 can really change the dynamic.  And changed it has.  These new kids have completely undermined any grip on these kids we had, and I have completely no control over the class I teach twice a week.  If I didn't have a headache before I teach that class, I certainly do after.

Then I somehow fell back into bed with my now-ex.  It was strange, but magical.  We spent a whole week acting as though we were still together, in complete denial.  I was ECSTATIC.  Then I asked him about Valentine's Day, and he told me he couldn't live in denial.  I was crushed, and we might as well have broken up a third time, because that's how it feels.

The headaches are getting worse.  I haven't been able to make it through a good workout at the gym all week - I get so down and lethargic that I give up and go home.  I haven't been sad about the boy lately, more like bitter.  Or defeated.  Depressed.

I have next week off.  I'm going south, to be someplace warm where there is actually sunshine.  I'm really hoping this cheers me up a little bit.  But I don't know.  I don't even know.  I'll be alone for most of the trip.  I'm staying with a relative who will be working most of the time.  But I figured I could either be alone for a week here, or be alone in Florida.  I don't know.  I hate this.

1 comment:

  1. I'm sorry life is so difficult. I guess the only thing I can offer, as a person who you don't know and doesn't really know you, is strained old gems from the cliche drawer. "It doesn't rain, it pours" is the classic for justifying why everything seems to go to hell in a handbasket at the same time.

    But one piece of advice I once got given DID make a difference: The only way OUT is THROUGH. Pretty much - if you're going through hell, keep on going.

    Sometimes it seems impossible to believe it at the time, but things will get better and what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Get away to the sun and space. Spend some time with yourself. You're a totally awesome, brilliant, smart and fascinating person and you deserve to rediscover all of that about yourself.

    Yep, as I warned, nothing really practical or useful in this comment! But random people you don't even know are thinking about you, so while you might feel alone, perhaps in some way I can convince you that you're not.

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