My life, right now, is not great

I’m depressed. 

I keep telling myself that I’m better than I was. That the last five months have been a slow but steady improvement and I just need to keep pushing.

But that’s not true. I’m still just as bad as I was then. All that’s changed is I’m learning to cope better, and I’m accepting there is light at the end of the tunnel. 

What’s been going on?

For those not caught up, let’s do a summary. 

• In June, after a year or so of shifting affections, priorities, and life choices, my marriage came to an end.

• So we put the house on the market to sell up and go our separate ways.

• Of course, then I was made redundant. No salary, no mortgage.

• So I’m staying with my parents while we sell the house, and then for the foreseeable future until I can get a new job.

So here I am. Depressed. 

And depression sucks. It’s left me doubting my friends actually want to see me at all. Passion has drained from my life, leaving me feeling empty and dull. I have no energy, and it takes so much effort to start the simplest tasks. I want to use this time to write, but my brain has lost the ability to create to the point where I find it hard just watching new TV or films over stuff I’ve seen before. I rarely sleep well, and having learned about Revenge Bedtime Procrastination makes it no easier that I can’t drop off until 2am. Some days my emotions are so not in check I find myself on the verge of tears over the simplest things. 

Coping, not curing

I have coping mechanisms, but the thing is they don’t fix anything. Just make it a little easier to get through it. 

I have a good enough redundancy package to keep me going for a decent while, but that doesn’t make me okay. I have loving parents who are able to let me live with them indefinitely, but that doesn’t make me okay. I have a girlfriend who has been a rock and whose patience seems unending, but that doesn’t make me okay. I have friends checking in on me, but that doesn’t make me okay. Compared to millions of other across the world right now my problems pale into insignificance, but that doesn’t make me okay. 

Understand that I’m not belittling any of the things I’ve listed above. I’m so thankful for all of them and wouldn’t give them up for anything. 

But I’m still not me. 

I miss Me.

I miss Me. The person I know I was, and keep telling myself I will be again. Someone with energy and passion. Creative and driven. Someone in control of his own life. 

I don’t know how long it will take. Or whether or not something else will happen in my life that makes everything even worse before it has a chance to get better (isn’t 2020 great?). All I know is that each time I’ve felt better, or managed to start a new habit or routine that looks like a sign I’m on my way up, I have a bad day and everything falls apart again. 

Moving forward

Please don’t take this post as a cry for help, or wallowing in self pity. Rather, this is me trying to work through things. 

I did some therapy back in July and August, which helped me handle the worst of the situational effects. Once I became official unemployed and lost my health insurance this had to end, but I had got what I needed from that bout. Now I’m in the process of finding a new therapist for some longer term work to help me find Me again. 

I’ve also be scribble down notes on what I’m feeling as I go, and this point is an attempt at putting these thoughts together. Partly catharsis, and partly in an attempt at trying to get myself writing again. Sitting and typing these thoughts out has been the longest I’ve written anything in months, and I have really missed that. 

So there will - hopefully - be more posts like this. So sorry if you’re not interested in my mental health, but this is for me. And a little bit for you to keep up to date with where my head is it. I’ve wanted to be a bit more personal on here for a while anyway. I just wish it hadn’t been a depression that made that possible. 

Maybe at some point it might help someone else. I don’t know about that, but it’s a nice thought. 

And who knows, maybe this might unlock my creative brain and get me writing properly again.