So I don't think I've ever posted in here about any of my mental health bits (I may have, but don't remember if so). Over the past 3-4 years, a number of people who have been closest to me have mentioned that they think I may have been depressed. I'm not entirely convinced, because I think *depression* is a huge term to throw around and I think categorising myself in that bracket is potentially unfair to those who have things far worse than I do. Anyway, I have been told multiple times that getting things down in writing can be beneficial, and no one here other than PPM/DML know me in person and PPM knows my situation reasonably well anyway, so shouldn't have any big surprises if he pops in.
Anyway, shall try not to make this an essay.
My entire family has a history of depression/mental health conditions. For life reasons, health reasons, relationship reasons, family reasons, I've become what I would term as "emotionally incompetent". After a pretty rough 2015/2016 where I lost one of my best friends to cancer, had told him I'd do my best to look out for his children after he'd gone, my future health prospects were suddenly pulled out from under my feet, and I began a full time PhD, I basically lost the ability to cry. I've never been particularly outwardly emotional, but I physically lost the ability to, and I struggle to demonstrate any real emotion. It sounds ridiculous, but I tear up every. single. time. at the final scenes of Blackadder Goes Forth, and the final (proper) episode of Scrubs (Book of Love by Peter Gabriel
), but can't express any personal emotion at all. Between May of 2015, at the funeral and January 2018, I shed a tear once (after my eye diagnosis). In January 2018, one of my first year undergraduate students took his own life and To say I feel responsible would be hyperbole, but I carry around with me every day that I should have spotted some sort of warning signs. This is an example of my inability to let things from the past go. They continue to drag me down (although this specific example leads me to be ridiculously on-the-ball when it comes to student welfare).
Anyway, none of this actually really relates to my initial paragraph.. depression is very different to feeling sad about sad things. However, for a few years, I've just felt sad a solid 95%+ of the time. I can't really think of a better way to describe it than that. It reached the point around six months ago where there were occasions where I was hiding out of sight from the windows at home because I didn't want to answer the door when the doorbell rang. My enthusiasm for any life activities had/has reduced to almost zero, I am completely unable to talk about any feelings or emotions I do have unless I'm asked directly. If I'm asked directly, I'm able to give a completely objective and dispassionate description of what should be a really emotive topic, but I don't see my poor mental health as an emotive topic. This extended to the point that I would have quite serious discussions with my girlfriend/fiancé/wife about how, if I lose my sight completely, I want the option of taking my own life, and I would sit there discussing it very calmly/objectively/emotionlessly and wondered why she was getting upset. This of course would lead to her being more upset that I wasn't able to get emotionally in-touch about it all. It just very much is what it is. Interestingly, I can still feel extreme anger (which I still keep internally). For a number of reasons, I've had a complete relationship breakdown with my Father, which I am, internally, apoplectic about. I have a lot of inside anger.
Anyway, during my balancing of a full time PhD with a full time lecturing role (this doesn't leave much time for anything else), my relationship slowly declined. We put it down to the long hours, but I'm fairly certain that, in hindsight, this wasn't the case. We separated for a fortnight a few years back, and one of the conditions of us getting back together was that I spoke to someone professional about things, but I managed to escape doing so. Anyway, we got married a a year and a half ago, and broke up properly around 3-4 weeks ago after 8 1/2 years together in total. I've found that my outward persona is absolutely fine. I'm outgoing at work, I stand in front of a classes of 80-90 and lecture for a living and pride myself on having informal, jokey lectures that aren't like your average death-by-Powerpoint style. I'm just aware that it's a persona and I'm just quite sad, really.
I think I'm just an overall walking cliché to be honest I've never had particularly high self-esteem. I spent most of my relationship being told how much I was punching (true, but stops being funny on low days), I dwell too much on the past, and have a terrible inability to deal with the concept of death. This is odd, considering I've worked quite a lot with near death and death itself in my job, previously sometimes in quite traumatic circumstances (doing work experiences in African hospitals etc.). This is also odd, as I'm able to talk so objectively about the possible desire to take my own life in the future, as mentioned above.
Damn - this has turned into an essay, which I think includes around 15% of what I originally wanted to include. So here end the the ramblings of a mad-man. After 15 years or so on all forms of GR, you now all know me intimately. What I thought was a rut has stretched into four years or so of feeling extremely, extremely down.
I'm really proud of what I've achieved in life. I'm 28, I've done a shed-ton of charity work in the poorest parts of Russia over a few years, I've travelled to Australia three times in the past four years, I've seen so much of the world in the past twelve years, I've run ten half marathons and the London Marathon, lost around 25kg of body mass, travelled to almost every continent, I'm Dr Mini E at the age of 28, I know I'm a nice person and do the whole random acts of kindness without the need to tell anyone about them (although this post maybe removes all altruism from those past acts?) my mantra at work is "we're all clever here - separate yourself by being nice" (I've just realised I have two mantras and that is two too many), and I've worked my arse off to get into a good position in life, and I know I'm good at my job. I'm really proud, but I'm not happy with any of it and haven't been for a long time.
TLDR: Mini E complains that he's been sad all the time for quite a while, is too emotionally incompetent to do anything about it, but has decided to tell some internet people because reasons.
Edit: Oh - and I've deactivated my FB and Instagram for a while to see if this helps. I buy into the mantra of "Don't compare your behind the scenes to other peopls' highlights reels". Essentially, February brings a fresh start for me in terms of relationship status/not covering for someone else financially. I've got a finite number of years with a decent quality of life. I need to sort my gooseberry fool out or I'm going to waste the decent remaining bit of my life.