On Not Achieving.

The title of this blog and header text are feeling less and less appropriate moving forward. In the event that I do change them, they currently read "Kainos Zoe" and 'The musings and thoughts of a man living a new life. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come." Welcome to the new.' Plus a background with birds. Yay.

As many of you know by now, I haven't been doing well for a while. If we're going on a 1 to 10 scale - I used to average around an 8, with my lowest being maybe a 4 (which I wasn't often near), and going up to 10 a fair bit. These days, my average is a 4-5, highest might be a 6 or 7, and I can go down to a 1 or a 2 at times. I'm at about there at the moment.

Depression kinda sucks. I'm seeing a psychologist once a fortnight now, but we've only had a couple of sessions so far. They've been helpful, but it's early days yet. And unfortunately, when I'm in a low spot, I tend to head towards behaviours that only continue the trend; moving away from people, retreating further inside, etc. I don't have the energy to do things. But hey, I'm writing this, so that's something.....right?

It's annoying flipping between states of "there's so much I have the potential to do, but I don't have the opportunity to use it anywhere" to "I can't even do the tiny things that I still have responsibility for". Neither is good. I'm still looking for work, but still also doubting my ability to be able to actually do any work, in my current mental/emotional state.

There's a neat little tool that my psychologist taught me about in our last session, the ACE circle. I'm attempting to make it a daily thing, but I've stalled a little. It stands for Achievement, Connectedness, and Enjoyment. Basically, the idea is that you need all three as a regular part of your life to be doing well. I'm fairly good at the Enjoyment portion most of the time. Connectedness - I have that with Thalia, and now a bit more with family (I'm living with my mum again, because no money), but not much with anyone else. Achievement is a big ol' zero most of the time. Depression is very good at making you feel like you really can't do anything. So I'm trying to do little, manageable things to tick off that portion of my life, if that makes sense.

And I've mostly been doing okay at that. But it still feels a bit shit when you feel like the least productive person you know; not even able to do this, not even able to do that....
While I know that a lot of that is not actually true in one sense, my brain tends to diminish in importance in these things. Or in its power. I mean, all of it's in the brain, I know, but yeah. Emotions seem to be ruling the roost at present, which isn't great.

I don't know if this had a point. It probably didn't. But hey. I'm writing. That's something.
I'm getting through each day, but it's hard. There are a lot of times when it feels like it's not worth the effort. I get a bit emotionally numb to the rest of the world when I'm like this. It's not good.
Anyway. That's where I'm at.