Thinking...

I've been trying to decide for the last little while if I really do have a problem or if I just need to try harder to get my life together. I found this list of symptoms for depression on the BYU counseling center website and am not sure if they apply or not:
1. Loss of interest or pleasure in activities.
Well, I dropped my classes because I couldn't get myself to enjoy them at all. Then again, Cuban poetry isn't that interesting to many people. But, I really have been feeling "flat" lately and I often feel bored, like nothing is interesting or worth doing. Even cooking or reading don't interest me as much as they used to.
2. Significant change in appetite, or change in body weight when not dieting.
Not sure about this one, because I've been overweight for a while. But, I have been having weird issues with food. Certain types of foods will totally gross me out just by their texture or smell or strange stuff like that. I will start eating and be unable to continue because I can't handle certain things. Like the other day I almost gagged trying to eat my salad because the tomatoes and avocado were just too squishy.
3. Sleep Disturbance
Well, I am typing this at 1 AM because I couldn't fall asleep. I've had sleep issues for a long time, but they seem to be particularly bad lately.
4. Fatigue
Uh, yeah, but I kind of figured it had to do with the inability to sleep thing. That's not a good thing when combined with a toddler who gets up each morning at 7:30 raring to go.
5. Feelings of worthlessness or feeling excessively guilty.
Don't even know where to start on this. Realized the other day that I have no friends, I suck at school, I sit around my house on my butt and yell at S-Boogie for bugging me. Yeah, I don't know what to do with myself and I feel like crap for it.
6. Decreased ability to concentrate, or difficulty making decisions.
This one is also a big one because it's the one that is bugging me most. I feel like I can never make up my mind, like I can't concentrate or think about any one thing because there are like millions of thoughts crowding my brain all the time. I can't shut it off and I can't prioritize what I should be worrying about and what I shouldn't.
7. Recurrent thoughts about death or suicide
OK, the last time I ever thought about killing myself I was about 15 or so and I mainly wondered if anyone in my family would even notice that I was gone. But, I do keep having these panicky feelings of wanting to leave the world and just hide somewhere else for a while. Like I want to check out of life and not have to deal with it anymore because it's "too much".

Yeah. I don't know if I'm depressed because I quit school or if I quit school because I'm depressed. But I realized the other day that I rarely feel like life is fun or fulfilling. I feel grouchy and irritable a lot of the time, and I keep feeling like I have no control over my life. I know that this isn't normal, but I can't remember not feeling this way, so I don't know what normal is any more.

Oh, and a lot of things I look at say stuff like that you should try getting your life in order first to see if it clears things up. Like get more sleep, exercise, eat well, etc. Um, I really do try. I occasionally make a commitment to exercise, plan out how I'm going to do it, and then wake up feeling like crap so I don't do it. Or I do it for one day and then fall off the wagon and then spend the next week feeling bad about being such a bum. Yeah, I feel too crappy to get my life together, but I need to get my life together to feel better? I'm not sure how that works...

Anyways, I think I will post this and go to bed. Not sure what I'll do tomorrow. Maybe I will try going for a walk and cleaning the bathroom. That might help.

Comments

Considering that clinical depression runs in your family, it might be worth checking out. Besides, I've heard your husband is enough of a loser to drive anyone insane.
Anonymous said…
You know, I felt a lot like you do not very long ago. For a little over a year actually I felt like that. One thing that really helped was really bizarre, but I took a cake decorating class. It was just 4 nights. But it was fun, taught me something new, and gave me something to look forward to. AND I wasn't getting graded on it! I didn't really want to take it, but the girls at work convinced me to. I didn't want to be creative, but I didn't realize that one of my problems was stiffeled creativity. I just thought I had too many responsibilities and things to do and so couldn't do anything fun. Maybe try something like that. But also, BYU offers free counseling to BYU students and their spouses and they're really nice there. It wouldn't hurt to give them a try.

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