Category Archives: depression

070822 Wednesday

  • I went and stood in the rain… I wanted to feel something different than what I was feeling inside.
  • I’m grieving the loss of a relationship… the loss of my hope for what could have been… the hope for more [sex, contact, friendship]
  • I stood in the rain to feel true aliveness… not the pain.
  • I want to call a [different] guy and ask to come over to sleep with him.
  • I am deciding, for now, to change the sheets…
  • I’m angry that I bought these sheets for the lost relationship dude.
  • I’m really really wanting to go back to the way things were… the just sleeping on the mattress pad. Why bother with the sheets?
  • I’m really really wanting to take extra sleeping pills so I can stop the thoughts in my head… I want to zone out.
  • I want to go running in the rain.
  • I want to go spend the night at the gym and swim all night long until I meet with Kevin at 8:00am for my training appointment [maybe I can set the alarm and go early?]
  • I want to scream.
  • I want to tell the Dude off and say fuck you… how can we be friends? do we have anything to be friends about? what is in common? we just talked to one another. we never did anything together. shoulders to lean on. that’s all. ears. hugs. just sex
    except for women… we get attached… the sex binds us… doesn’t matter that we have nothing in common.
  • I want what I can’t have.
  • I want something that isn’t even what I want… because I’m attached and the sex did that.
  • how to stop wanting
  • how to forget?
  • how to heal?
  • how to refocus?
  • will the refouced activity just become something to be resentful about?
  • I’m not in love with the guy… I’m just connected and attached and can’t stop wanting him
  • I’m in that place… where I don’t know how to let him go; how do I move on?
    oh and I did this to myself with my eyes wide open. what a fucking dork am I?
  • one foot in front of the other… breathe… it’s what Tom Hank’s character said—something like that—to his friend in the movie Cast Away.
  • I can’t cry!!! no. don’t cry. do not start with the tears. crying will just make it more real and will make your body ache and be sore, the eyes to ache, and give you a headache. So stop.
  • go breathe…
  • crank the music.
  • count your blessings
  • say your affirmations
  • and those last too things are not me being possitive… it’s me trying to brainwash myself.
  • wanting to call and leave voice mail for Jon
  • wanting to put on some warmer clothes than what I had and go running/walking in the rain
  • wanting to be struck by lightening.

070818 Saturday

  • can’t get out from under the gloom of “not hearing from chad”… or basically, not having anything exciting to do this weekend.

Two days of dreariness… to be indured until the new work week starts. A work week that doesn’t hold much promise of being emotionally fulfilling.

Miss the energy and the “highs”

Q: Is it common for individuals treating Bipolar Disorder with prescribed medication to miss the energy and the “highs” from the untreated hypomania or manic times?

A: Yes, occationally the high energy is wonderful in achieving projects in a fraction of the time it normally takes. I miss the old me that seemed to be able to tackle more. I’ve found that people think I am doing very well, dealing with all my circumstances. Yet, those same people don’t see the parts of my life that have gone neglected. I do the chores that demand doing, and I let everything else go. I hope I am right in pursuring my education above all else. I believe that the degree will help me get the job I want, but I’m not totally sure. I’m scared. When I first posted my information in A Better Place to Be, I was functioning at a higher level. Currently, I tend to become overwhemled, when I do find I have the energy, with not really knowing where to start first. I’ve succumbed to a life of giving into spending way too much of everything… money; time avoiding my school homework with computer games; time on videos or movies watched; stops for take out meals. When I reach out for advice, others say to me: “Can you do baby steps? Take one thing at a time, picking the highest priority?” I don’t always correctly figure out what is the highest priority, but I do what I can for the moment, the day.

Anyone Particular

Q: Was there anyone particular you had in mind when you wrote (Tuesday, May 10, 1983), or was it just a general feeling that you had? How did you manage to get through or over it?

A: Unfortunately, I don’t have any advice about how I was able to get through the feelings of loneliness. At the time that I wrote my “May 1983” journal piece, I was nineteen and I was thinking in particular of a friend I knew at college in Oregon. He and I had been on a few group dates together. But suddenly, I found myself wanting the relationship to grow past friends. A lot of the self pressure, I believe, came from the fact that I knew I would be moving to the Midwest at the end of the semester. I simply ignored my hurting and just lived through it somehow.

The loneliness didn’t disappear. Rather, the next opportunity, the following December, that I met someone who liked me as much as I like them… I ended up getting into a relationship that led to getting married.

In hindsight, I am amazed at the powerful impact that my recurring loneliness and isolation feelings have had on my life at several times. Getting involved in a new relationship with someone in a new town, merely put a band aid on the inner pain. I’m twice divorced. I’ve had one significant relationship since my second divorce. Currently, I am right back where I was at nineteen in terms of emotions. It’s curious that you wrote your inquiry at a time when I can identify again with my own journal entry.

Funk

Q: What does the word “funk” mean?

A: The word funk is my way of expressing the weird, droopy feeling I get when I am experiencing mild depression. Typically, I have a hard time focussing on the tasks that are required. Instead, I tend to withdraw and seek diversion activities.