Tag: Depression

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Challenging Myself to A New Way of Thinking

I wanted to write more often but I haven’t been doing well. Honestly I’ve been feeling like a mess. Depression and anxiety have a way of making everything look worse than it is, and I’m doing personal work to untangle a lot of my thought processes that are not necessarily healthy or helpful.

Anxiety is a recent addition. Or the return of an unwanted guest. I have been anxious before but was able to get it under control and I had been doing well for a while. But I went from “this is manageable” to “holy shit someone save me” in a very short amount of time. Some days are very difficult, to the point where I have to ask for affordances from my wife, which is totally unlike me. I tend to deal with things on my own and avoid burdening others. Not being able to do that anymore, I have to remind myself to not take everything on and let others help me. I need to be kind to myself and allow for a less ideal self-image to show through, so others know how I am and can offer support.

It’s not an easy place to be. I have a sense that the work I’ve been doing to challenge my thinking is at least partially responsible for these difficulties, especially the anxiety. It’s good to make attempts at solving some of my issues and try to grow as a person, but it’s not meant to feel comfortable. This isn’t the first time in my life where I need to step up and be better. Intuitively it makes sense that every time you do this, it’s going to feel different, because the place where you are in life and the challenges you’re facing are specific to this moment in time. However this one for me comes with the added angle that I’ve been pushing and burying this stuff down for too long. I need a good shovel.

At the moment I stay away from things and relationships that do not bring me something positive. That means the news is out, among other things. As is staying in touch with some people who drain me. I always tell myself that I should do this and I should do that. Well, my new modus operandi is to question those thoughts. Should I really do those things? Do I really need to support others when I can’t support myself? Maybe I don’t and that’s fine. Right? I just have to keep repeating it to myself and maybe one day it’ll sink in.

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Looking For What Sustains Me

I’ve been feeling very down for a while. As I keep thinking about why, it’s been on my mind that I’m a support person for many people in my life. It’s actually something I identify very strongly with. Always have, since my younger years, and something I used to take pride in. There is dignity and strength in being there for others, in lending a helping hand, being there to listen, or just teaching what you know.

It’s something I do in my personal life and at work in various capacities. Professionally I get rewarded and regarded for it, but I don’t know if that’s something I want to keep doing, so it’s a source of internal questioning. Not an easy one and probably a whole other branch to explore.

In my personal life, this is a side of me that has grown and has become increasingly difficult. More people have become dependent on me during the last 10 years, independently and at different times. I have had to step in and provide for others in ways I didn’t know I could. I surprised myself helping others through some pretty rough times. However at the same time it seems right when I say to myself right now that it affected something within me. I didn’t come out of it unscathed. It’s a form of trauma, which I didn’t realize at the time and perhaps didn’t properly heal from.

It sometimes feels like a weight and other times it feels like darkness. It triggers my mind to try to find a way out. Some of the places my thoughts go in doing this are rather discomforting. Suffice it to say it’s not a good place to be. It’s not easy to admit I’m not OK.

I have a strong feeling of duty that I have to keep going, so I find it difficult to say no when someone comes to me. I am emotionally tired though. I am running out of gas.  The word exhaustion comes to mind.

So I’m trying to break the negative cycle, by writing here, by doing things differently, by thinking of my needs. I am also looking for help. All of these things seem like very very small steps at the moment. I’m often reminded of the advice on planes to put on your own oxygen mask before helping others.

That’s where I’m at, looking for what brings me oxygen.

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Searching My Way Back In

I haven’t blogged in seemingly forever. It is something I miss dearly though and I have often thought recently about getting back into it.

It’s hard to say what has brought this on. However I do know that I feel lonely. Not the kind of lonely that arises from finding yourself alone, but the one that results from wanting back in. As I have mentioned before, I used to have a good following and made interesting connections through the previous incarnation of my writing digs. That and the body of work I had built is something I regret leaving behind instead of nurturing it and keeping at it. Who knows where this would be today if I had.

I have a sense that if I write and put down whatever comes to mind, hopefully good things will follow. I need a place where I can pour words and stir them into ideas that can grow into something soothing.

I have personally been going through a very rough patch and I need an outlet. My thoughts have been dark and rather unwelcome, to say the least. OK, honestly it’s freaking me out. I need something to grab onto. I think it’s all because I’m not getting any younger and my life has changed in recent years. My role with my wife and my kids is not what it used to be. All for the better, to be sure, and I still love them dearly. That will never change. Professionally too, things have lost their luster, in a way that makes me wonder what’s next. And it’s natural that things change. I just was not expecting that the transitions would hit me like a ton of bricks. Now I find myself pondering deceptively fundamental questions like why am I here and what’s my purpose now that those previous roles have been largely fulfilled?

Answers to such gloom seem like a millions miles away at the moment. My apologies for the heaviness. May these words evoke some meaning for you, dear reader. Perhaps this can be like a song, where we attach a meaning that suits us based on what personal experience we bring in. I do read a lot of blogs and I’ve always very much appreciated that people freely share personal slices of their life experiences with strangers on the web. I started blogging back in the day as a way to give back some of that. Now instead of giving, I want to get back what I lost.

Cheers.