dianaschnuth

I clearly need to step back and commit myself to some sort of mental reset. I’m still in a blasé mood most of the time, especially in mornings and evenings. –Actually, no, it really is most of the time, now that I think of it. I get brief reprieves when I’m eating lunch or working out or interacting with others, but mostly I’m really in a funk.

I feel affected in every area of my life. At work, I can’t concentrate. At home, I lose my shit with my son much sooner than I should. After his bedtime, I trudge down the stairs and think about how this preschooler power struggle isn’t what I wanted my life to be. Then I either stuff my face or go down the smartphone rabbit hole (or both). Then I stay up too late. Then I oversleep. Rinse and repeat.

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I’ve never been officially diagnosed with depression. As a teen, I wanted help, and I even asked for help — but in retrospect, I’ve chalked it up to hormones and typical teen drama. As a young adult, I put the blame on myself for allowing my days and nights to get turned around in college, causing a spiral of oversleeping and poor academic performance. Now, in middle age (*shudder*), I throw the blame on myself yet again for fostering poor sleeping habits and just having a boring life in general.

I find myself writing about this quasi-depression often enough, though, that I wonder — is this normal? Do other people find that every few months, there’s a stretch of a few days to a week or longer where they really just don’t give a shit?

I’m overtired, unable to concentrate (except on writing this, so I think that’s irony?), and have no interest in doing things that would normally be exciting for me — today’s yoga class, for instance, or mailing exposed rolls of film off to be developed. My sense of responsibility is strong enough (thanks to parenthood) to get me out of bed, get my kid up, get myself to work, cook meals, and do all the necessary things… so I’m not really depressed, right? Depressed people spend all day in bed because they can’t bring themselves to get up. That’s not my M.O., so I’m not depressed. Right?

At my last visit with my GP, the nurse asked me something much more epic — something along the lines of “Do you ever feel hopeless?” Hopeless? No, tired and apathetic and disinterested are definitely different from hopeless — and it’s not all the time.

My brain tells me that the correct solution to all this is, “Suck it up, Buttercup.” Therapy might help, or meds might help, but maybe I ought to see if I can help myself first. You know, eat right, exercise, meditate (zazen, walking, writing, etc).

If I can help myself, then I’m not really depressed. Right?

I’ve just been in kind of a funk lately. I have moments of yay, but mostly I’m feeling meh.

I haven’t been able to properly work out for over a month, thanks to my nagging back pain. In early October, my back complained about both kickboxing and yoga, and all I’ve done since then is a couple elliptical sessions and some walking. I suspect the lack of exercise is affecting my mood, on top of my just being in constant low-level pain or discomfort. (Yes, I suppose I could take something for the pain, but I’d rather not if I can deal with it, especially now that I’m in physical therapy for my lower back and I need to monitor my improvement over time in regards to pain.)

At work, I have trouble concentrating on what I’m doing. I feel like I have monkey-mind in a big way: easily distracted, can’t focus, can’t seem to get tasks completed, and get extra frustrated when I can’t puzzle out a problem (as is the case right now, actually). My annual review is coming up soon — today is my work anniversary — and I hope my boss doesn’t feel the same way about my job performance as I do.

All I’ve been wanting to do in the evenings after I get my son to bed is feed my face and play on my phone — or watch TV, which is a rarity for me. I don’t feel like writing, reading, cleaning, organizing. I have blog posts backlogged, either half-written or unwritten… but I just can’t get excited about finishing them.

I’m sure part of it is the time change — or, more accurately, the season change. No matter what time the clock says it is, the daylight hours are getting shorter. Plus, the weather has been gloomy, overcast, windy, drizzly, and generally fall-dreary (instead of the autumn I love, with brisk colors and bright blue skies and hoodies galore). Last night, we had a windstorm that blew most of the remaining leaves off the trees… including my beautiful burning bushes. No more vivid red border in the back yard, unfortunately.

My mood and habits are creating a nasty cycle with my weight, too. I was all gung-ho to reach my goal weight by Thanksgiving… then by New Years… and now I’m wondering if I should just throw in the towel for 2015 and work to maintain instead of lose. My frame of mind is no longer in the right place for this, and I don’t know how to get back in the right headspace. I just can’t summon up any fucks to give.

And no, it’s not that time of month, but thanks for going there, anyway. Honestly, it does kind of feel the same, mood-wise, now that I think about it.

Maybe going out for date night this weekend will perk me up.

It’s not even that things are that bad, or that stressful. Sure, I biffed the garage door last week, necessitating that I use the remainder of my personal time from work — until my work anniversary next month, anyway, when my vacation days renew. As far as work itself goes, it’s a little stressful and scattered right now, and there are a few fires to put out, but it’s not making me dread going to work every day or anything. And, yeah, my at-home to-do list is extra-long, but that’s nothing new.

No, I really just feel… well, I can’t really describe it. Not quite stressed out, and not quite overwhelmed. Not so much a defeatist attitude as the feeling that the treadmill is throwing me off the back. Or, for those of you who (like me) watched American Gladiators in the early ‘90s, like I’m holding steady on the Reverse Treadmill at the beginning of the Eliminator.

There are just a bunch of little things that keep piling on and piling on, and I really only have so many hours I can squeeze out of a day — which makes it worse when my mindset isn’t where I’d like it to be and instead of being productive after my son goes to bed, I fall face first into a bag of popcorn and a mini-marathon of Good Eats on Netflix. Or when I waste half an hour figuring out why Google Chrome and Windows 10 don’t seem to play nicely, so I can’t upload a simple image for my blog post without resorting to the new Micro$oft browser, Edge. But anyway.

I’m not going to regurgitate my entire to-do list here, but I have several on-going messes I need to clean up around the house, I have Fall cleanup and planting to tend to in the garden, I have multiple work projects going on at once, and I have a self-imposed deadline of losing 12 pounds in five weeks. Also, thanks to me having to take so much time off in two-hour increments for car maintenance, haircuts, and Connor’s doctor appointments, I am all out of time off of work. (Except actual sick time. I can still get sick.)

If I want to get things done, I need to prioritize and be OK with some things at the bottom of the list not getting done until later — or not at all. It’s a matter of consequences, really. Therein lies the problem: lots of things in my queue have been deprioritized multiple times. I know I would feel happier with a clean home office, a clean closet, family photos framed and hung on the walls, Connor’s notable art projects from school either scanned or framed or put into an album. But it all takes a back seat to the more visible or time-sensitive tasks: gardening, daily household chores, child rearing. And sleep. I need to get to sleep earlier if I want to sleep better.

I’m stuck in the same damn spot on that reverse treadmill. I need a boost — or a new strategy — to get some actual momentum.