Not Working & Blinkers

The following was written a few weeks back, but I didn't want to post it in the middle of working on the play to demoralise the folks there, or distract from it. I haven't edited it since then, because it still represents fairly well where I'm at now, but I've added a few more comments at the end.

I'm feeling more....I don't want to use the word useless, but it's feeling a bit that way. 

I feel like I'm getting more lazy, less motivated, less sharp (in mind and body), more aloof, less good at keeping up with people and tasks, and just less able. More and more, things are piling up (both literally and figuratively - my room is more of a bomb site now than it's ever been) that haven't been done, things are getting put off, I'm actually finding it harder to get out of bed in the mornings (I'm a morning person, so it's usually pretty easy for me - but then, winter, so there's that), I'm having fairly frequent periods where I feel like I can't do anything, and none of it feels like it's getting better. 

Yeah, that sounds employable. 

I know that a good bunch of it is depression, and that a combination of seeing a good psychologist and getting the right medication will help. I'm just not sure what that means for me right in this season, while I'm still having to just deal with it. I've always been a bit distracted at work - I'm no workaholic by any stretch of the imagination, and I've never really had a job that I've been passionate about (though plenty of great workplaces and people to work with) - but in the bits and pieces I'm doing of work at the moment, that's even more the case. 

Add to that, the whole climate change/global warming bonanza making me feel like very little work has much point, when everything could be going belly-up before we know it. That doesn't really help the depression, either. The world falling apart around you never seems to lift the mood particularly well. 

I'm not sure what the answer is. Maybe there isn't one. Maybe it's just time. There are a few things here and there that I'm still invested in. My fiancée. The play. God. Friends. People. Music. ....I don't know if there's much else. Maybe that's enough. I guess we'll see.

Perhaps one of the things that's most difficult for me, though, is the feeling of always being in crisis mode. Emergency mode. I'm having to constantly deal with my emotional and mental state - but then also somehow find work in the middle of it, which gets me crazy stressed normally, let alone now (there really should be some sort of mental health payments for people who are finding it difficult to work - I know there are some, but the hoops you have to jump through feel like you wouldn't be able to jump through them if you actually weren't able to work) - and I feel like I'm living with blinkers on. Now, don't get me wrong, even at my best I don't tend to look ahead that far; I find it absurd when people say they have ideas about things five years, ten years ahead. I'm lucky if I can think one year ahead, my life changes that much.

But at the moment - it's almost always one day at a time. Living very much in the moment, in the right now. Which some people might say is a good thing, and it's certainly a way to live, but not to the degree that you're almost completely oblivious to plans that are coming up next week that you're supposed to have prepared for! It's quite.....difficult. Annoying. It's caught me out more than a few times in the last month or two, and meant that I've had several last-minute scrambles or situations I've gotten myself into. It's not good.

I'm trying to find a psychologist, but it's difficult to find one that isn't on the other side of the city, bulk bills, and doesn't have a waiting list of several weeks. The last time I checked in with the doctor, she suggested the possibility of bipolar, since the depression meds I've tried so far haven't worked (so far, I've tried a grand total of two). Apparently they don't have any affect if you have bipolar. I don't think I am; my moods can be a little erratic at times, but that's just because life is. I find it difficult to remove myself from the events that happen around me, and so I tend to adopt the emotions that I see. But I don't think I've had the massive upswings that you see in bipolar. I was just generally more of a happy, bouncy person before. And, a lot of the time, not so much now. I still have days, or moments when I'm like that. But it feels a lot more....fleeting.

I don't know. I'm hoping I'll be able to work through this in time, whatever it is. That it's only here for a season. I'm just not sure how long that season will be. And I'm not sure what to do while I'm in it.