As yesterday's post made clear, I've been all in with the gloom & doom of my depression lately. After the never-ending mind fuck of going off and on medications to try new ones and maybe find one that works better and doesn't chemically castrate me, I have gone back to the two I took for years. Even though it's been five weeks or so, I'm still dealing with a profoundly low mood, lack of any motivation, anxiety constantly bordering on panic and almost total anhedonia. I recall this combo as not being great, but not being terrible, for antidepressant-induced anorgasmia, yet that's been dishearteningly bad as well (even faking my last "orgasm" with someone since I knew it absolutely wasn't going to happen).
In addition to work and life stress I've been dealing with, I was feeling particularly low yesterday (to the point of taking long, lingering looks over the highway overpass on my walk) because I think I ruined a potential friendship with someone I really seem to hit it off with by coming on too strong and needy like I've been doing my whole life. I managed to torpedo that possible connection in less than 24 hours, which is fast even by my standards, leaving me feeling even more lonely and isolated.
But in spite of all that I've been trying to practice gratitude as a strategy against succumbing to the negativity of my mental illness, and there are some bright spots I can appreciate, even as I struggle to cope. For one thing, my employer was kind enough to approve my request to temporarily work from home full-time. The constant changes in medications – while still having to work and produce at my job – had me on edge, and something had to give. A respite from the added stress of commuting to a not-so-great work location has made everything more manageable. Also, while I haven't seen a lot of improvement in my symptoms, I'm so relieved that my constant irritability has all but gone away. I absolutely hate myself when I get that way, getting irrationally angry over meaningless first world problems bullshit and lashing out at the world. So it's been a pleasant change that I'm managing to not overreact and handling things as they come with some measure of equanimity.
