5/14/24
It will be important to date this document because it could potentially help me learn what intervals these moods come in. I felt my depression coming in from the 12th into the 13th, both before I got to work and once I was there. I wasn’t able to become distracted enough so that I could fully disconnect from the urges of self-annihilation. It is now the 14th, at 1 AM mind you, and I woke up ~8:30 PM. This is because I fell asleep so late, at around ~10 AM. I also took doxylamine succinate to fall asleep, which probably had a negative effect on me but I have no idea if it truly did or not.
My current state is depressed and fatigued. I drank two cups of coffee and took ¼ of my [x] pill. It was too late to take ½ because by then I would have gone to bed far too late and that would have only caused more issues. It does not seem to have helped in any way. My brain is lacking any amount of clarity and it’s a struggle to do the most basic of things. A few minutes before opening this document I took 100mg of caffeine with 100mg of L-Theanine. Whether or not that will help, I don’t know, but I don’t hold the expectation that it will. I also made a cup of green tea which may help with the clarity, but I have no way of being certain.
At work I struggled to read, which is something I normally have no issue with, I was unable to focus properly on the text, while for context, the day prior to Sunday I had no issue. When I think about the seemingly random onset of depression, I can’t easily recognize a pattern of when it occurs or why it occurs. This has been the first time where I have been able to write down and put into words my feelings when my feelings have not dampened and numbified, allowing me to go back to normal. I genuinely feel like my brain is dying or decaying right now, so I’m probably not producing enough serotonin and/or dopamine, but I have no way to accurately find out if that’s truly the case.
I’m always in a pseudo-depressive state, but I can allow myself to be distracted in this state, away from reality and into a whole different place. Now though, I find it especially difficult, even the mere proposition of reading a book sounds like too difficult of a task, and I’d prefer to just lay down. What I think I should have done, and may do in the future when this occurs again, is cut my sleep. Supposedly, sleep deprivation in some cases can help negate some of the feelings of depression, albeit temporarily, which would be beneficial because how I’m feeling is now is specifically temporary. When I can take in large amounts of caffeine and other stimulants and still feel no change, that should be cause for some amount of worry, I should feel some amount of alertness but I don’t.
5/24/24
I would not say I made a full recovery but I don’t feel as terrible. Before this, I felt like I had goals I wanted and made sense to actively work towards, now I don’t. I want to understand what I want separately, in a different document. Monday was when I have worked last in reference to the date this was written, so that would be 5/20/24. I felt horrible Monday night into Tuesday, but not going to work has helped a little bit. Unfortunately, my time is passing exceedingly quick and it’s difficult to deal with that, even if I’m not spending that time appropriately. Contradictory to that thought, it shouldn’t matter if I’m not spending my time appropriately, as I don’t have a thing that I feel I must spend it on. But this time, I want something to spend it on, I want to feel like I’m doing something that matters to me.
All in all, I will try to remember to update on this document when I either rise or fall, currently it is difficult to see the baseline before this most recent drop.
6/4/24
I never really made it back to where I was previous to the most few depressive weeks I’ve had. I still feel awful. I don’t think I want anything. Nothing feels like it has any worth to me, I don’t understand why I should do anything in particular. I woke up feeling awful from my dream, where I was falling into a pit for “another go,” at some exploration of the underworld. After that, I then went through my daily rituals but eventually ended up listening to music and laying on the floor, at first to stretch out my left leg which I could not feel, but then I listened because I was accepting the fact I felt awful. I cried a little bit, just a few tears, and laid on the floor for a good two hours. After that, I got on VRChat with my guitar and practiced a bit while listening to others talk. I had felt isolated and did not feel like I could communicate with anyone that was on the screen. The loneliness had begun the moment I woke up, mind you, but it only has continually felt worse. Eventually the people online left and I was officially left alone, I couldn’t even find conversation that I wasn’t a part of to listen to, and so I closed the game. The guitar wasn’t awful, but everything else was.
I ate some food and started writing. Which is now. Here is now. Now is here. When I was laying on the floor earlier, I was thinking about what I wanted. When I feel better, which I have not felt for a very long time now, I wanted time to focus on the things I thought were beautiful, the things I thought had meaning, but now I don’t know so much anymore. Right now, I’m currently thinking about working. All I want to do is work. I want slightly skilled work to do so that it may eat up my time. I want it to distract me from the reality of my life. It’s crippling to feel this lonely, and I don’t want to experience it if I don’t have to. I think my current job is equal-to or worse than what I’m feeling, which is why I so adamantly want a different one so that I can paid a little more and not feel nearly as awful.
Ideally, I could work 50 hours a week, but realistically I might only get something like 40, but I wouldn’t mind all my time and energy being dedicated to work. Here’s the reality: I have no point in actually doing anything. I don’t care about anything. None of it matters. I can’t shake the nihilism off no matter how hard I try. Just as I don’t care about what is going to happen in 1,000 years or my insignificance, I can’t find any meaning in anything. I can’t enjoy anything. Sometimes I can be distracted by a novel and that works, but it’s like a video game or a show; a distraction. Is that all there is in this life? To be distracted? I’m really supposed to roll the boulder up the hill and be distracted until my death, and there will be nothing else for me to do?
I was also thinking about the fact that other people can help positively impact my ability to create. For example: the game-jam. I was able to write, which is something I believe I enjoy doing, and I could work with others to achieve a similar goal. I can write by myself, for myself, but it doesn’t give me the enjoyment I had felt then. I don’t understand why I can’t do things for myself. It’s almost like I don’t believe it means anything to me, but to others, it DOES mean something. Unfortunately, people that I like or want to build things that I like are not common. I’m pretty unskilled and I’m only barely able to write very basic things. Maybe if I had to a reason to be better, to try to be better, or just DID the thing more often, it would improve, but there’s no reason for that to happen. I think my life will simply be working; school when that comes around too. I don’t see why there would be anything else for me. I sort of care about getting my own place, but I also don’t care enough. What would I get my own place for? I know I won’t be able to have a relationship with anyone because I can’t even make friends online anymore. To be myself? There is no self anymore, I rid myself of that, I’m just a being that lives by their surroundings, the environment could change and I would change with it, I wouldn’t stay the same because the “I” is fluid, and sometimes I believe it to be nonexistent. I don’t have any places I want to go out to, nor do I have anyone I want to see. My life would simply be working, school, and sleep. If I’m fortunate enough, I could convince myself that reading could be a good distraction for when I’m not doing those things, and if I’m especially lucky, I can mix in instruments too. Otherwise, I don’t think there’s anything left.
It would be nice for me to get outside of this new depressive cycle, but as time goes on, I believe it to be less of a cycle and more of a reality of my life. I just don’t have anything to strive towards or care about. I have no one to care about. I’m alone in a world I despise. I’m uncertain why I haven’t just ended my own life, I don’t know what means I would want to go about in order to do such a thing. Perhaps I just haven’t suffered enough, I just feel a lack of feeling; no love or hate. I have nothing to love or hate, if I did, I could feel a little, but it’s clear I feel the void. I’ve thought about buying an antidepressant online, but I don’t know if that’s a good idea, but I don’t want to feel this way. I want to care about things. I want to have a reason to live. Am I really destined to roll the boulder up the hill and then die? Rolling the boulder up alone, and dying alone, mind you.
6/5/24
I was able to play guitar and chat on VRC and it was an actually enjoyable experience. I feel good probably because of how enjoyable that experience was. I was able to have a nice conversation with [X] and I felt heard for once. I listened to other conversations because there were people around that were capable of having a conversation too! Most of the time that I was in VRC, I just played guitar and was muted; listening. Sometimes I would interject, or I would carry a conversation, but that was mostly when [X] was around. I feel capable of doing things and that things I would normally say I enjoy are making sense to me. I want to follow those things. I just have to go about doing them. I too, fear the possibility that everything will go downhill again and another depressive pit will stop me from functioning.
I also have to acknowledge that there are a lot of things I’d like to do and “get good” at, drawing for example, but those types of things take a lot of time and practice. The reality is that as much as I want to do all of the things that come to mind now; I feel as if I’m running out of time. I have to admit, I do have more time later. I also have to cope with what I have and continue improving upon what I already have; writing is beautiful and so is music. I can continue with both of those, and they align more with my means of thinking: abstract and fluid.
6/8/24
I continued the guitar/VRC strategy throughout the week it mostly worked out fine. I found that in the nights that I was able to talk with someone and have a conversation that made me feel noticed or not totally isolated, I felt pretty good. Unfortunately, that was the minority of the time. There were also the days in which I felt so completely isolated it destroyed my mood. I think in the times that I’m especially down because of the feeling of alienation, I should gravitate towards reading. Books have a tendency to divert my focus from myself to the characters and the world within the literature, and those characters don’t tend to be lonely in the novel, so it also makes me feel a little better. Hopefully I can gather enough actually interesting people on VRC to always have someone on my side when I get on. I want to continue playing guitar, it has been felt great this week and I actually am coming back from my deep pit of depression. I’m still in there, but the sun shined over me for a few seconds before going away again.
6/16/24
I think for the most part I was able to focus just fine in the past two weeks, my memory didn’t seem totally awful, but now I’m wondering about my own capabilities. Yesterday I felt awful, partly due to work, but most times I can disassociate and get away from myself. Yet, I still was feeling really bad. Today, I’m continuing that trend. I feel awful, my body hurts, my brain hurts, my memory has gone to shit, and my mood is down the gutter. Hopefully I feel better tomorrow. It has been a while since I last seriously considered suicide.