It has been a while since I’ve written about it as anything other than a tangent on a post, but I’m still struggling with my now months-long depression spike. It has definitely helped that I rarely leave work while it is still fully dark outside and that I’m able to get more sun than ever during my walks (though I’m needing to wear sunscreen now, which is not my favorite, since one of the medications I’m taking makes my skin incredibly sensitive to sunburn). That’s not enough, though, since I’m still struggling to get enough sleep and the constant grind of stress and long work days at my job are more than counteracting the positive effects of the longer days and greater exposure to sunlight. Not to mention that I feel like I’ve been struggling to connect with my friends lately and while that is probably just the depression talking, I still feel like I’m not as socially active as I used to be. I’m also struggling to make space for my own creativity and what space I do make (mostly these blog posts) feels tainted by all the stress and frustration I feel with the shit WordPress’ owner keeps trying to pull. I’ve still got my tabletop games, but most of those don’t meet as regularly as I’d like and they all have their own stressors as I try to avoid getting caught up in anxiety spirals around stuff my players said or did that could be interpreted as them not enjoying themselves.

It’s a rough time, still, even if I’m managing to stay busy for the most part. Plenty of video games (especially with my recent Final Fantasy 7 binge and my upcoming Dragon’s Dogma binge so I can finally beat the first game and start the second one), tons of podcasts to listen to, and more books to read than I have time for. You can only avoid your own mental health for so long, though, and then it usually comes back worse because you get the added negative feelings of no longer being interested in the stuff you found entertaining just weeks or even days ago (like me spending an hour trying to decide what game to play on my Nintendo Switch last night and being unable to pick anything that felt like it was worth doing before it was time to just give up and go to bed).

I’d love to do something about this, like go for a hike or spend time with my friends, but my body is in rough shape this week due to work being extra labor-intensive and my medications being back at the “make your body super sore and prone to muscle cramps” stage of side-effects so hiking is out and all my friends are busy with other stuff so doing anything restoratively social is out as well. Which means I’ll probably just keep up my whole “podcasts and Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth” thing in the hope that the joy of my audio stories and eventually getting to the Segway [“Wheelie”] part of FF7: Rebirth will be enough to shake me out of it [it was not]. I’ll also have the time to make breakfast sandwiches again this weekend and, thankfully, those still bring me quite a lot of joy. Love a good breakfast sandwich and I’ve gotten pretty good at making them exactly how I like them.

Or maybe I should push myself out of my routine. Take myself out to breakfast, find a shady spot in a park to set up my folding chair, and then spend my afternoon reading. I could make myself some tea or lemonade to bring with. It’s supposed to be gorgeous weather this weekend, with an absolutely beautiful (and finally seasonable) high of the 70s for a few days in a row. Could be good to leave my apartment behind for a while and go out into the world, even if I’d still be mostly by myself. I still think back to something my zookeeper friend said while we were all hunkering down for the start of the pandemic in 2020: don’t forget that we’re all just big, smart animals and that we all still need plenty of enrichment in our enclosures. I’ve got plenty of that, thankfully, which beats the hell out of that period in early to mid 2021 where I did not (which is part of the reason I started this blog again, to enrich myself), but it’s not working because I’m too depressed to really enjoy things right now. Which feels weird to write here after I binged all of Andor in an eleven-hour period.

Still, depression doesn’t necessarily follow the rules of logic. It doesn’t always make sense the way I’d like, no matter how long I’ve been dealing with it. And, to be honest, if I could just get some consistent quality sleep for once this year, I might be able to chase it off. That has not worked out too well for me, though, so who know when or if that’ll happen, or if it’ll even fix things. It’s entirely possible that more than one thing is wrong. Like the fact that I’ve felt like crap physically, pretty much non-stop since the end of October, because of one of the medications I’m taking. That is probably contributing to my general feelings of malaise and will continue to do so for at least another month or two. Hopefully no more than that. I’m really quite ready to be done with it. At the very least, if I’m still feeling awful and depressed at that point, I’ve told myself I’ll start exploring antidepressants as more than just an idea to consider. I’ve held off for now since I don’t want to risk mixing medications and I’m not sure I can deal with feeling physically like crap and the often difficult transition period of finding the right medication dose. I do not want to risk overwhelming and exhausting myself more than my day-to-day life already does.

I started going on about something else, but I think it would be best if I just cut myself off here. I’m not helping myself anymore at this point, and I should probably just go do something more restful than complain on the internet about my depression. Like wash my dishes, make myself some dinner, and then hopefully go to bed at a reasonable hour so I don’t have to worry about getting woken up at eight by some asshole playing around with their car alarm like I did both days last weekend. Apartment life really sucks sometimes.