On the Phenomology of Depression

I'd say most of the time I'd depressed, it's mostly just being low energy. I sleep too much, I have trouble getting out of bed. I wake up in the middle of the night and then fall back asleep. I'm tired all day and take lots of little naps. I have no motivation to do much of anything. Work. Hobbies. Video games. Hanging out with people. Even eating, though once food is in front of me I'll do it. 

I don't necessarily feel emotionally bad. Like sure I don't feel happy or even good but it's not like I feel sad, really. I just am. Low mood/emotions can coincide with this mild depression though. It's just not the defining feature.    

For the most part I can push through this. I can get up (with effort), put on a smile and move on. My work will be slower, it will be worse. I'll be exhausting myself keeping my mask on. But I make it through it. This is the depression that makes me feel the most like an imposter, in a way. I'm wearing a mask of myself as I wait for my face to regrow.

Sometimes, the depression gets more physical. Like a pit in my throat or stomach. Just generally feeling physically bad. Not common, but maybe every few days during an episode. Maybe less. It might not even last much of a day.

The bad moods, the sad moods don't necessarily coincide with these physical feelings but sometimes they do. I feel overwhelmed, like I'm treading water and can barely keep my head above. I feel stressed, but not an ordinary sort of stress. No, a stress about nothing, even when there is something to be stressed about. These moods used to have a lot more self-loathing and guilt. Not so much now. I've cleaned up my life and have developed a healthier sense of self-esteem which has made it hard to get hooked this way. That being said, when the moods come, they will eventually find something to sink their claws into and pull me down. And then I either have to wait for the feelings to subside or hope something, someone knocks me out of them.

I used to have a lot of trouble crying. At the very least it wasn't a common occurrence. Based on this blog, that's clearly changed. Crying helps. Doing things helps. It tends to wash (with time) the bad feelings away for a while. 

They are rare, but occasionally I have suicidal thoughts. I've never gotten anywhere beyond passive ideation (and well, maybe fantasizing dying, but never actually making plans) but they're still really scary. Wanting to self-harm is more common (and I think some of my common coping mechanisms, like intensive, reckless cardio when I feel down actually come from that) but I've managed to resist the urge for almost a decade now. In general I think both of these have gone down a lot compared to my early adulthood.

Most people don't know I'm depressed. In fact very few do and even the ones I've told don't realize the extent. I don't blame them at all. I laugh and I smile. I do get happy when I'm with people, generally speaking, so it's not like I'm lying to them in the moment. But that's what they see and so when I say that I'm sad, they don't know what to believe. They don't know I was crying minutes before, that I put the smile on just for them before I opened the door. No one knows.  

I want to scream my feelings out. I want to tell everyone that I'm hurting. And yet when push comes to shove, I never do. Or I do but in a way that comes of as incredulous. Because that's how I am.  

I don't want to go to institute. I want to stay in my office and mope and think about how much everything hurts and how I'm sad and maybe cry. 

I am going to institute because what I want isn't healthy. Being around people is. Participating in life, even if just a bit, that's what I need to do. 

Pre-Summer Day 15

 It's Her birthday, which I will note is a spring birthday and not a summer birthday. 

 Once again stayed in bed too long, but less long than yesterday. Well, at least tomorrow I have a reason to get out of bed (and maybe I'll get my pace below 10 minutes). Can't remember what I did in the morning. I waited around for a long time for the rain to either start or stop. Eventually around 3 I just went out and did the lake loop in the drizzle. Went to the climbing, was fairly successful (did not climb for very long. I went for hard rather than stamina). Went to my office. Graded some papers. Went to the Chinese restaurant for dinner (and lunch tomorrow, I didn't eat that much; low appetite dll). Finished grading. Recorded a version of the first verse of fishing for birds so that I have the melody saved (apparently I was singing in C which is really convenient since that what the rest of the song was in). Next step is to get the music together, especially the melodic synth. What I have right now is too chaotic and doesn't fit together well. Then I'll put all the voices together, add in some drums and fill out the space with pads and the like. Should be good.

Obviously still pretty unmotivated, anhedonic whatever is the norm. I think I woke up early too but I can't remember. Definitely felt more bad this evening than I have for a few days. Just a low key, non-specific bad. Rest of the day was less bad, though certainly not great. Daytime sleepiness maybe but I haven't given in. At least I don't think I did. 

New Sparklehorse album was announced today which is pretty impressive considering he's been dead for 13 years. I quite liked the single released with the announcement. Oh and the new Kaisers Orchestra song should be coming out soon (or did it last week? It might've been 6/10, not 6/16). And I just learned that The Dead Milkman released a new album last week. And I learned the Front Bottoms are coming to a nearby city in September so that's pretty tempting even though tickets are a bit expensive ($35 before fees). So yeah, a good day for music.

Pre-Summer Day 14

My alarm went off at 7, but other than briefly going downstairs (before returning to bed) I didn't really get up till 10. So the hypersomnia is back (along with the terminal insomnia since I definitely woke up before my alarm to fall back to sleep). Oh and excessive daytime sleepiness as well. I didn't feel too bad moodwise. Certainly not good, but not bad either. Still anhedonic and without much of an appetite. Energy levels are lower than they were over the weekend but I'm still feeling kinda irritable/snappy and definitely was on a creative kick again (quite frankly I could probably stay up a real long time tonight but I'm going to force myself to bed again).

Showered and went to the office. Answered some emails, read some stuff and then went out to get lunch. Came back, read some more stuff (yay lack of motivation) and finally got around to the grading assignments I needed to do (I'm caught up now). Was finished around 6 so I had 30 minutes to kill before getting ready for FHE. I slowly ate soup I brought from home and messed around on the acoustic guitar sitting in the student breakroom. I can play three (power) chords: E, B and A. So basically, I have just enough skill to play a song. I also found a melody for Fishing for Birds that I liked well enough but unfortunately I didn't record it and have since forgot it. Maybe I'll find it again. And hopefully I'm not accidentally plagiarizing (even if that is the shithe way). At the very least, while the lyrics are cringey I think this still might be my best lyrical work yet. Can't wait to start the insanity that is Doctrines of Annihilation. Right now (since I over commit to everything, especially creative endeavors...hmmm) I kind of want to do a painting for each song, along with the album cover. Make Šyþed Pyklez a true multimedia project. We'll see what happens, that's a long term goal.

Went to FHE, ate a lot of watermelon and played apples to apples. I won by a lot, partially because I had an advantage playing from the beginning (more people joined over time) and partially because I'm good. Went home. Sat around, got called by a friend and then wrote this. 

Already did my mood diary and you may notice something I didn't do. I swear I'll call tomorrow, I just got very demoralized by my trouble getting up this morning.  

Pre-Summer Day 13

Weird thing that happened after writing yesterday's entry and biking home. It was raining ever so slightly and then bam, I feel something go past my fast and hear it hit the ground. It looked like someone had through a cup of ground ice at me. Which was bizarre for many reasons, including that there was no one around. Even weirder, it happened again like maybe half a mile away from where it was the first time. Must've been weird hail, but that doesn't explain why it was so clumpy or why it was going fast and from a strange direction.  

I slept for about 7 hours and I think I slept the whole way through, unusually. Of course, I didn't go to bed till 1230 or so which is pretty bad considering I'd been up about 19 hours by that point. By 8 I was out of bed, went downstairs to throw my swim stuff in the washing machine and start cooking. I made a vegan variant of Efo Riro for the ward potluck and it turned out really well. I finished up just in time to catch a ride to church and so I quickly got dressed and did that. Since I had lots of time to kill, I made cute little placards explaining the food (emphasizing it was spicy, I even drew little scotch bonnets on them). And I wandered around the church a whole bunch. Eventually I set up a single chair in the overflow and read but I was fidgety the whole time.

Church went fine. Between meetings I headed over to the kitchen and ran into bishop and his wife and ended up telling them that I am depressed and hoping to start treatment soon. Which was kinda weird but it also felt right? Potluck went well, the soup was nearly completely gone by the end of it despite being spicier than many people can handle (wimps). Of course that's partially because we had really low contribution this month; I think I might have been the only person other than Bishop and his family to bring a main course. Maybe one of two people.

Went home, took a brief nap and then decided to go to my office to work. Took a while to actually work but I did grade another assignment. Now I'm only like 3 behind (as of now, because one was due tonight). I'll get them tomorrow. Went home, cleaned up the kitchen and here I am eventually writing this.

I didn't feel too horrible today. Not compared to yesterday at least. I don't feel good mind you, especially not this morning. I'm certainly still low mood, anhedonic (I didn't eat breakfast, barely ate much at the potluck and didn't eat dinner till 1030 and didn't really want that) and just feel bad. But not horrible. And I'm still pretty energetic and irritated/agitated even if I was more or less able to control/hide it today. I could probably stay up for another few hours easily but I'm going to try to force myself to go to bed soon. I've also decided that I'm going to try to switch my schedule (which I know needs to be more regular) to have a 7am wake up on the regular. That way when I'm having trouble getting out of bed it doesn't cut into my day as much and early mornings won't be as disruptive to my schedule. We'll see how well this works. It's going to take a lot of self discipline.

Camping- June 2023 (Pre-Summer Days 11 and 12)

 This one is really heavy so I'm putting a break in right away. Proceed at your own peril

Pre-Summer Day 10

So my alarm went off at 6 but I really wasn't ready. In fact, I didn't get out of bed till like 7:30, showered and it still took like another 2 hours to get downstairs. And I couldn't work. No focus and I just felt terrible. The overwhelming sadness (over nothing) was back. So I mostly laid on the couch and repeated to myself that everything was going to be okay, that I was going to be okay. I finally got started with work (and my meeting was delayed for 30 minutes as well). Did the meeting, got a better idea of what I needed to do.

Decided that I should go out and clear my head. Biked down to the boardwalk. That was a great idea actually. I saw a (dead :( , it was in the middle of the bike path and not moving so I went to push it off to the side and it didn't respond) garter snake, nearly hit a chipmunk (it ran back at the last second as I was madly braking), saw a goldfinch, a green heron and a bunch of other things. So that was nice. 

Then I went up to my office to work. Well it took a really long time to actually get work done (I didn't leave the office till after 9, despite getting there before 2), but I did eventually send out an update email I needed to and graded papers (still like 2 assignments behind, but so is everyone else). I'll get up in the morning and catch up on grading, shouldn't be too bad. Generally I get a couple days respite between bad days.

And that is how it is. The last few days I felt okay. Today I felt bad in the morning. Just inexplicably bad. I worked through it and that will hold it for a while. Then it will come back until one day it doesn't and I'll have a few weeks off before I get hit real hard again and the cycle repeats. I really don't get my depression, which is why I have so much trouble seeking help.

Pre-Summer Day 9

 I'm not sick, but I'm not well and I'm so hot 'cause I'm in heeeeeeeeeeeeellllllll!

Got up at 6:30, slept in till 7. Threw together my stuff and went over to go running. Arrived exactly at 8 (as planned). We went running, did an almost exactly 10 minute pace this time and I didn't feel like dying quite so much. Still have to drop quite a bit more. Hung around for a bit and then went to the new gym to shower. It was very nice. One interesting thing is that the locker room/shower/changing area is mixed sex. Of course, you're only allowed to be naked ("no bare chests or buttocks") in the showers or changing rooms, which are completely sealed off so it's not like there's any problems here. Just interesting. Good design I think overall.

Got to my office and took a nap for like 30 minutes (tired from not sleeping enough but also depression probably?). Read some stuff, didn't work. Played Catan, was close to winning but my engine was a bit slow. Went up to my office and then took a walk. Got food (I'm in the overeating stage of depression?). Went back to my office. Still didn't work. Took another nap. 

Went to institute, which was less good than usual. Just a bit derailed I guess. Halfway through I got distracted answering emails for work. Sat in on a lesson with the missionaries afterwards. Went well. Got home around 10 (so almost 15 hours away from home). Cooked some veggies and ate them. Started working. I'm gonna get up early tomorrow to do more work because I'm tired. But maybe I'm finally motivated (by deadlines if nothing else).