I’m slowly regaining some control over my life and I feel like that means I should start writing again. It would probably be even better if I kept writing through my depressive period, but it’s kind of hard when you’re in… Well, a depressive period. And I certainly was from January up until a week ago.
Depression or not: it all feels the same
I’m not sure the three months of sadness, lethargy and anhedonia are officially depression. It might be a little winter dip or whatever you want to call it. But to me it felt like that familiar, dark, gloomy cloud was back in my life. The cloud I know so well because it has been with me for the better part of my 32 years on this earth. Just when I thought I beat it, there it was.
spacing yourself farther and farther but all the while watching depression shrink into the growing distance
when that tiny speck of sadness vanishes from sight completely
it’s as if at that precise moment your periphery will catch hands reaching up from behind you to cover your eyes and you will hear a small voice whisper
“guess who?”
It was scary at first, but it quickly became familiar. I’ve lived like this for a long time and I kind of settled into it. What else can you really do if you have no energy to fight it? Sometimes the best option is to just let it wash over you. So I did just that. I slept a lot, I ate a lot, I complained a lot. Not productive but also not bad, per se. It felt like coming home, sort of, but to a broken home.
Work work work
Then, a few weeks ago, I was sitting in my therapist’s office and I told him about all this. How scary it was to have this wave of depression wash over me again. We talked about where it might have come from and while the winter in all it’s dark, cold gloominess doesn’t help, that wasn’t the sole reason. I told him about my job and how incredibly boring it has been lately and he told me about something called a “bore-out”.
We all know about burnout. In modern society most jobs put too much stress on their workers and that causes burnout. But my job is the opposite. For over half a year, my job has pretty much been obsolete. I go in, I help produce stock that won’t be sold for years, I waste as much time as possible because I have no clue what to do and then I leave. My boss knows about this but he doesn’t seem to care. They just don’t sell enough but they don’t fire us either. We’re just expected to come in and work while the work doesn’t really exist.
This job is already very understimulating even when there is actual work to do. That’s the thing with AvPD: it forces a lot of smart people into menial jobs that are actually bad for their mental health. But this lack of actual work has pushed it over the edge. When my therapist explained this “bore-out”, the puzzle pieces just clicked. A bore-out is pretty much a burnout but instead of being overworked, you’re underworked and understimulated. The symptoms are pretty much similar.
Change
Luckily, a few weeks ago one of my coworkers came up to me and asked me if everything was okay. Apparently I didn’t look like everything was okay, because everything was not okay. I told her how hard I find it to get out of bed and come into work and we worked out a way for me to work four days instead of five, spreading my hours differently.
I’ve had this new schedule for three weeks now and it’s already working wonders on my mental health. Having a three day weekend finally gives me the feeling I can actually recharge mentally, whereas I used to feel like my battery was still barely halfway charged before having to go back into work. Sure, it sucks having to do longer days, but once I’m actually at the jobsite I don’t really mind. It’s getting there that’s hard, and cutting down the times I have to motivate myself into work by 20% has been amazing.
Sleep
Sorry, my chapter titles suck today. But yeah, with this newfound feeling of having actual time to myself I have been able to fix my sleep schedule. Most days now I go to bed at a reasonable time (between 23:00 and midnight), have a cup of tea beforehand and actually read a book instead of doomscrolling.
The problem with this is that it works wonders but when you’re depressed this feels pretty much impossible. I talked about this with my therapist last week and told him how unfair it is that you have to not be depressed to do the things that will make you less depressed. When you’re in that dark mindspace, it’s pretty much impossible to make healthy choices out of self-love because there is no self-love.
I feel it again. It’s back. I am regaining control over my mind and while three months feels like an eternity when you’re in it, it actually isn’t too bad. The year is far from over and I can do wonderful things with it still. All the horrible thoughts of having wasted not only my year but potentially my life that felt so real weeks ago, now feel ridiculous.
Group therapy, part 2
I had a beautiful therapy session last week. My therapist had me do an exercise where I had to pick between hundreds of core values and pick the ten that I felt were most important in my life. Not only did I discover that I already have a pretty big part of those ten already set up, it also highlighted what’s missing. One of those was “self-respect”. I feel like a lack of self respect (also linked to self-love, self-care etc.) is at the basis of most of my current issues in life.
Then my therapist told me there’s a group therapy starting soon aimed at building more self-esteem. And while my experience with group therapy last year was amazing, I still feel very weary to sign up for a new one. But that’s probably why I should do it. If it’s still scary, I still need it. So I signed up and the intake is next week. It’s scary as fuck but I’m also excited to keep working at myself in this way, especially with how successful the last one has been.
What now?
I’m asking myself the same question. The exercise I did with my therapist cleared up my goals pretty well: I have to get out of my job somehow. The problem is that I never finished college so most jobs available to me will be similar to what I have and either give me burnout or another bore-out. The only real solutions to this problem are either finishing a college education, which is not realistic with where I’m at AvPD-wise, or starting my own business. The latter is something I’ve dreamed of for years and something I definitely want to start realizing.
So that’s what I’ll be focusing my newfound time and mental energy on. I don’t expect to be self sufficient anytime soon. My goal is to earn my very first self-made dollar by the end of 2025 and then I’ll be very happy. If it’s ten, great. If it’s a thousand, fucking amazing. But one is enough for this year. This will require a lot of intense mental work because right now I definitely don’t feel like I’ll ever be able to do this. I feel like a fraud and a joke just thinking about it. I have to break down this mental image of me as someone who can only ever do dead-end jobs, which is hard but not impossible. I’m hoping the group therapy will help.
Anyway, that’s enough rambling for today. I still haven’t gathered the guts to share this blog with anyone so nobody’s reading it anyway. It feels good to be back regardless. I’ll talk to me soon. Bye!
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