This is ridiculous.

Let me tell you about my depression.

I'm dysthymic, which means I have chronic low-level depression, which occasionally descends into periods of major depression. A major contributing factor to this is the fact that I also have rather severe social anxiety disorder.

It's a ten-year-old topic with a life-long basis and I think I've begun blog entries on it so many times it all starts to sound both melodramatic, whiny, and like I've simply given up trying to do anything about it.

Why do I feel this way this, and Why can't I do this that, and the like. I'm starting to sound like a broken record, or at least an emo-kid.

In college, when it was first diagnosed, I went to counseling, and tried anti-depressants, specifically Paxil. While the drugs did work to some extent-- I lost my social phobia or at least my inhibitions enough to make some friends-- they messed me up in other ways. I...lost my inhibitions. It was a bad scene. I also lost a lot of the creativity that had been such a major part of my life until then. I don't think I drew or wrote anything for years. Plus, I lost my appetite (in defiance of the normal "weight gain" people experience on SSRIs), my head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, I was twitching at night in my sleep, aaaaand my libido was pretty much completely destroyed. Because you needed to know that.

So I eventually stopped the Paxil. I figured I was cured enough that I could manage, now that I knew the symptoms and what worked for me to nip them in the bud. That did work for a while, actually. Exercise always has helped me, and for a while after college I was working out every day. I was beginning my aforementioned run of starting projects (and not finishing most of them), which was fun, and I wrote my first novels during National Novel Writing Month. I felt down plenty, but it was different, less intense. I found ways to distract myself and not think about it so bloody much.

Still...it crept back in. It was like a house you think is sealed up nice and tight, but somehow the rain creeps into the cracks, and mold starts to grow, and sooner or later it pops up on your ceiling where you can see it (speaking of which, our ceiling is showing water damage, arrrgh!). Unfortunately by then, it's too late to do any "nipping in the bud."

When I started grad school, it had gotten bad enough that I knew it was going to become a problem again. My social anxiety was back in full force, due to the new surroundings, new community, the career pressure...Not too pleasant.

Probably contributing to this was the fact that the hormonal birth control I was taking was affecting my mood. I got PMS, like most women do, of course, but mine was...rough. I would cry at the drop of a hat, I would get angry at the smallest provocation, I would have these horrible dark, desperate thoughts in my head that frightened me.

I did go to a counselor about this. She recommended that I get a full physical work-up, to check my hormone levels and explore alternative means of birth control. That, by the way, was the end of hormonal BC for me-- the Pill made me nauseous, I was not into...inserting...anything like the NuvaRing, the patch was what was causing the whole mess, and I had no desire to risk getting the shot and feeling that way for months.

She also suggested I go back on antidepressants, and I seriously considered it for a while, since there were other kinds than the one I'd taken before that had messed me up so badly. I eventually decided not to, because I didn't want to be dependent on a pill for happiness.

I DID, however, find out that I had borderline hypothyroidism, which can contribute to depression, but not enough to take medicine for. I was told to just keep an eye on my levels.

After grad school we moved back to our current location, and it all sunk gradually downward. The stress of finding a job, adjusting to life outside of a city, adjusting to the jobs I did find, realizing I had little in common with the people I came into contact with but too scared to try looking elsewhere...I had a brief slide into major depression, I think. I managed to pull myself out of it I don't even know how.

Then I had a wedding to plan. Then I got married. Then I was laid off from my job. Then we had to move to a place I HATE (called "Salisbury, North Carolina") for a job that ended up being one of the most traumatic events of my life.

That was another period of major depression. I went as far as getting my thyroid levels checked because I was afraid the sheer, unbridled misery I felt couldn't possibly be so severe without hormonal dissonance. Turns out they were normal, and again I had to seriously consider going back on anti-depressants.

The only thing that pulled me out of THAT depression was leaving the job, moving back to our home, and starting a better job at the very place I'd gotten laid off from. Imagine moving from a cold, dark, ugly town where you know no one, your boss is psychologically torturing you, you hate your job, and you have to drive to Charlotte to go anywhere you might actually want to go...to your beautiful family land in the mountains, surrounded by a loving family and community, to a job where they are laid-back and nice to you, where you don't have to wear a suit, where you can work part-time and still make enough to live on, where you can relax...

I think I was nearly euphoric for a month or two. I staved off any depression simply by telling myself, "IT COULD BE SO MUCH WORSE, HOLY CRAP."

But, again, like that insidious mold, it crept back in.

That job really did a number on me. I let it, of course, but when all's said and done it's still true. I never feel good enough, I never feel like I'm completely capable and confident. I am afraid to go downstairs sometimes, for fear my boss will see me and want to talk to me, which is ridiculous because she's a very nice woman who understands that mistakes are made, and knows the ambiguous nature of research might involve a few crossed wires here and there. It's definitely changed my ambition for the worse; I don't even want to be a professional librarian anymore because I'm so afraid I wouldn't be able to take the pressure or deliver when I need to.

And personality-wise? Creative-wise? I feel...flat. I feel like I don't really want to do anything anymore. I feel like whatever I do, it's all just killing time until I can die. I feel like I can't talk to anyone. I marvel at the many people I see who pop out jokes at the spur of the moment, who effortlessly deliver monologues seemingly without any thought beforehand. I feel like my interests are mostly antiquated (who embroiders except for old ladies?) or too trendy to be of any use. I feel like though I may have some measure of skill in many areas, I never seem to be better at any of them than anybody else. My mind goes blank in front of people. I can't even be arsed to do the things I know, I KNOW help me, like exercise. I don't even embroider because I'm afraid my skill is so far outweighed by my vision that I'll just fuck it all up (like everything else) and end up with a mess.

And to top it all off, I DON'T want to go back on anti-depressants and I DON'T want to go to counseling because I'm both too cheap and too poor to do so, even with a sliding-scale mental health center, even if my aunt who's a psychiatrist gives me free sample packs of the pills like she did when I was on Paxil.

I've felt this way for a good ten years now. It's getting ridiculous. I can't even wail "I don't know what to do!" anymore because, well, I know damn well what to do.

I just won't DO it. So what do I expect?