(no subject)
The fascinating thought for the night is that I may be a person who is often sad even outside of depression. I've always considered myself an intense person who goes to extremes with moods and relationships, but I've associated this with depression and my occasional manic episodes. What I haven't thought about until tonight is that maybe I'm an intense person even when I'm not depressed or manic.
A therapist told me a few months ago that people aren't born depressed - some are born with the potential to be depressed, but something has to trigger it. Like, you know, abuse.
I'm thinking about this because tonight I feel really sane. The past couple days I've just been good. Not great, not terrible. Just good. I've been thinking about middle ground - wondering if I have it at all - and now I think that this is it. I think this is sane, "normal", healthy Newt. Which makes me think all sorts of new thoughts. Like, if this were the person I dealt with the majority of the time, what would my struggles be? Anxiety, I think, and talking too much, and using my time to it's fullest potential. This makes it really clear to me how relative a problem's magnitude is. Imagining myself without depression, I see that issues that seem trivial right now would be as big as my depression is currently.
Thinking about the sane, balanced me makes me a little sad. Like when you realize you don't spend very much time with a person you really like. I want to hold on to her and not let her go.
But I'm also super prone to believing that Now is the Most Important and the Most Real, so I'm hesitant to get too into this new thought process. But, for now, it's really encouraging to feel sane. It makes me contemplate medication. Not just jumping back on the usual dose of Prozac that has kept me walking and talking in the past, but the whole psychiatrist route - trying to find something that gets me to my sane self the majority of the time.
Basically, this feels like normal mode, default. This is where I "should" be spending my time. Knowing that would give me something concrete to aim for as far as medication.
How (I think) I know I'm sane:
- I often think I'm pretty
- I feel like my perceptions of social situations are accurate
- I feel like most of my social behavior is appropriate
- I am less prone to be manipulative of situations (but also of people)
- I am able to be honest comfortably
- I don't feel like my "real" emotions aren't being expressed
- I feel more comfortable in my body
All that aside, I'm sad tonight. (Which is what got me thinking in the first place: that I'm sad but not depressed and perhaps I am sad more than most people, too, not even factoring in depression). Not really sad, but enough to notice and have to sit with.
Things I am sad about:
- a friendship that ended before it really got off the ground
- not getting called about the job I interviewed for (even though I'm not 100% I wanted it)
- not having friends in Portland outside of the Winch
- everyone being in their own rooms in the evenings
- feeling sick even though I feel like I ate really well
- not having as much contact with Sam as I'd like
- not having a bike
- how long it's taking to find a bike
Mainly it's the friend thing. I'm lonely. I have spent very little time lonely in Portland so far. But here it is. And it being possible that my bout of depression last week ended something I had started makes me really sad.
My mind keeps refocusing on this idea of me without depression. Have I really not ever considered this?
I imagine it being like having a physical deformity removed after years of it being there everyday.
A therapist told me a few months ago that people aren't born depressed - some are born with the potential to be depressed, but something has to trigger it. Like, you know, abuse.
I'm thinking about this because tonight I feel really sane. The past couple days I've just been good. Not great, not terrible. Just good. I've been thinking about middle ground - wondering if I have it at all - and now I think that this is it. I think this is sane, "normal", healthy Newt. Which makes me think all sorts of new thoughts. Like, if this were the person I dealt with the majority of the time, what would my struggles be? Anxiety, I think, and talking too much, and using my time to it's fullest potential. This makes it really clear to me how relative a problem's magnitude is. Imagining myself without depression, I see that issues that seem trivial right now would be as big as my depression is currently.
Thinking about the sane, balanced me makes me a little sad. Like when you realize you don't spend very much time with a person you really like. I want to hold on to her and not let her go.
But I'm also super prone to believing that Now is the Most Important and the Most Real, so I'm hesitant to get too into this new thought process. But, for now, it's really encouraging to feel sane. It makes me contemplate medication. Not just jumping back on the usual dose of Prozac that has kept me walking and talking in the past, but the whole psychiatrist route - trying to find something that gets me to my sane self the majority of the time.
Basically, this feels like normal mode, default. This is where I "should" be spending my time. Knowing that would give me something concrete to aim for as far as medication.
How (I think) I know I'm sane:
- I often think I'm pretty
- I feel like my perceptions of social situations are accurate
- I feel like most of my social behavior is appropriate
- I am less prone to be manipulative of situations (but also of people)
- I am able to be honest comfortably
- I don't feel like my "real" emotions aren't being expressed
- I feel more comfortable in my body
All that aside, I'm sad tonight. (Which is what got me thinking in the first place: that I'm sad but not depressed and perhaps I am sad more than most people, too, not even factoring in depression). Not really sad, but enough to notice and have to sit with.
Things I am sad about:
- a friendship that ended before it really got off the ground
- not getting called about the job I interviewed for (even though I'm not 100% I wanted it)
- not having friends in Portland outside of the Winch
- everyone being in their own rooms in the evenings
- feeling sick even though I feel like I ate really well
- not having as much contact with Sam as I'd like
- not having a bike
- how long it's taking to find a bike
Mainly it's the friend thing. I'm lonely. I have spent very little time lonely in Portland so far. But here it is. And it being possible that my bout of depression last week ended something I had started makes me really sad.
My mind keeps refocusing on this idea of me without depression. Have I really not ever considered this?
I imagine it being like having a physical deformity removed after years of it being there everyday.