too depressed to care

I am feeling overwhelmed. I have so much to do with my writing that I don’t know what I want to do first. Then I think that I should just leave it up to the editor to sort out for me. But the depression is clouding my thoughts and I can’t think straight. I keep thinking about death. I don’t know if I should call my psychiatrist or not. She’ll probably tell me to take an Ativan. I just don’t know what to do. I am not in crisis, I don’t plan on taking any action towards death but I keep thinking about it. I think I have taken on too much in my mind that I can’t sort out what I need to.

And I keep thinking about the short story that I am working on. It is about death and darkness. I like how it flows but it is too short to publish. How ironic is that? A short story that is too short. I picked up the manuscript for it today. I wanted to work on my book at Starbucks but I forgot my phone and I hate listening to the music at Starbucks. It can annoy me to the point of leaving the store.

I can’t stand this depression but I there is nothing I can do but wait until it passes. That is the hardest part of dealing with the depression, waiting. You want relief now but there is no knowing when it will pass. It makes me sick. It makes me tired. It makes me crave carbs. Somehow I lost three pounds and I hope it stays off but I bought donuts the other day. They are my comfort food. I will try to make them last but sometimes I use it as a meal substitute because I don’t know what I want to eat. Bad choice but when you have depression, you don’t care about these things. But I am mindful about my weight because I am seeing my PCP soon and he always harps on me about it. It’s like something you can fix overnight. NOT. It takes time to deal with weight issues. Time and patience, just like with the depression. But you quickly run out of patience with depression. You wonder if you will ever feel better. Everything is a hassle. Even taking a shower can drain the energy from you. I felt that the other day when I had to go out. I am bad with taking showers and other types of self care but the shower to me, has to be the worse because I can stink and my family will notice. My sister has a nose like a bloodhound. I am not kidding. She is very sensitive to odors and I try to avoid her when I haven’t showered in a few days. I try to keep up with the every other day but sometimes it can be up to four days before I shower. It just is so hard. It used to be because of my pain that I would fear the shower, now it is because I am too depressed to care.

I also hate losing interest in things. Things like going to my Starbucks or reading a book. I haven’t even journaled in days. Sure I write my blog, which is kind of my online journal, but I also write the private thoughts that shouldn’t be share with the internet in my journal. Or just write to keep track of things so I know what I did on a certain day. I have found that it is much easier looking things up in my journal than on my blog. Even though my blog has a search function, unless I know specifically what I am looking for, I can’t find it. I feel totally useless in this regard. And lately, I have begun to feel more useless. I feel like I don’t have a purpose anymore and it just compounds the feelings I have about death and not being anymore. But my book continues to give me hope that I will help at least one person and that I must see it through. Though I am terrified of the editor, I must admit. I think that is scaring me silly. Seeing my work full of red marks is not a pleasant thought, though I keep trying to tell myself it won’t be many. But then, I am not seeing my book through her eyes or anyone else’s.

I am so tired of dealing with depression. Even though what I am feeling is a mild depression, I can’t help but think I should just end it just so I don’t have to deal with it again. It’s like every episode you feel for the first time, and each time it just breaks your heart into a thousand pieces. You lose hope. You feel rejected by the world. You feel lost and helpless, like nothing is ever going to change. I keep thinking of Andrew Solomon’s TED talk where he describes in detail of how painful it is just to eat dinner. Though I do know the ordeal of things, I have never felt like that. My thoughts maybe slower and less agile, but I never felt like it was a painful experience just cooking a meal. I guess because my mother cooks most of the time, I just shovel it in without thinking of the process of cutting the food and chewing it. But I do know the ordeal of trying to get dressed. Of having to choose what to wear when you want to go out can be such a challenge. That is why most days I stay in my PJs. The only time I go out, is when I really want to or I have the energy for it. Like today. It wasn’t dreadful for me to go out of the house. I had a specific plan in mind and I followed through on it. If I didn’t forget my phone, I probably would still be out of the house. Then there is the other thing, the anxiety of leaving the house. I have grown so accustomed to my being in my room all the time that leaving it can cause me anxiety. And anxiety and depression just don’t mix. It can be a deadly combination. But as long as I have a specific agenda and follow through with that, I can survive the anxiety. For example, today I had to go to Staples to pick up my manuscript. I took the bus, went to Dunkin for a cup of tea, then went to the store to pick it up. I wanted to take the bus to Davis to sit at Starbucks and work on my manuscript but the anxiety of not having my phone caused me to just pick up the short story and head back home. I was too focused on not having my music that I had to go home. I was really too depressed to care about working on my manuscript even though I left the house. I can work on it from home but now I am too overwhelmed. Think I will just write my therapist a letter instead.