Depression

I think everyone can agree that 2021, while better than the prior year, was nonetheless a steaming pile.

COVID-19

As the year began and the promise of a vaccine became reality. There was a collective holding of breaths hoping to see an end to the pandemic and a return to normalcy. Well, as we approach the end of the year, case counts in Hawaii reached a new all-time high well over 3,000. Which is approximately double the number of our last peak at the end of August.

“Omicron” is now raging in Hawaii and there appears to be no end in sight. Though Hawaii’s vaccination rate has slowly crept up to just above 74% statewide.

Read more

I’ve struggled with “depression” for most of my life. I'm still struggling.

Dysthymia

I’ve struggled with “depression” for most of my life. As a teenager, when I first became aware that “something was wrong,” I hadn’t a clue and wrote it off as just low self-esteem, or merely teenage angst. In fact, what I most remember about my middle and high school days was not liking myself really at all and wondering what the hell was wrong with me. But I functioned. I had friends and had fun and did normal teenage things. And because of that, I didn’t think I was “sick”.

It wasn’t until I was nearing the end of my time in college that I knew there was something wrong. But I had been triggered by events that shoved me into (what I consider) full-blown depression. I still have vivid memories of not leaving my bed for the better part of a week. In the first half of my last year, I stopped attending classes. My grades tanked and I was at risk of failing out.

Read more

I'll probably be sad for the rest of my life. But besides that, I'm good.

Since Before the Blog

This blog, Regarding Frost, was previously a combined collection of journal entries, poems, letters, etc. I (weirdly) named them “The Howling Melancholy Chronicles.” Those collective writings can be found here, here, and here. They are incredibly personal.

While in college, as I transformed my “journal” into this blog, I decided to transcribe those collections. Partly because I find typing soothing (yes, I’m strange) and it was a way for me to read things I had written in years prior. Since then, this blog has largely served as a forum for me to share thoughts and feelings.

I have lived with depressive states for nearly as long as I can remember. My journal and later this blog, has been an outlet. Sharing my experience with dysthymia is one way I cope. But as I got older and more comfortable with myself I found it easier to be more open about my foibles.

And so here I am again. Having struggled to write anything more meaningful in recent weeks (like local politics, national elections, etc.), I thought it was necessarily time for me to write one of these posts again.

Cathartic Writing

For the last several weeks, I’ve been “down.” Struggling for focus, motivation, or energy to do much of anything. It’s been hard, to say the least, and it’s been quite a while since it’s been this bad.

When I write personal entries like this, I am often challenged to sit for any stretch. I’m easily restless and will get up from the desk to pace. Or smoke. Or both. And so it remains. I started this post several days ago and continue to find it difficult to put thoughts to form.

Like drawing poison from a wound, sometimes it’s just helpful for me to try to organize chaotic thoughts spewed onto the page. So that’s what I’m attempting to do here. Though even in this instance I am really struggling to sit and get it done. I’m hoping that once I’ve exorcised these thoughts and feelings out into the blogosphere I can begin to move more positively in my life.

Dysthymia is a Bitch

I don’t know how rare it is for dysthymia to devolve into full-blown depression, but throughout my life, it’s only happened once (maybe twice). It’s a terrible and terrifying experience. The last time I experienced it was toward the end of my time at college; I very nearly didn’t graduate.

Though dysthymia is a “persistent depressive disorder,” my experience with it has been relatively mild, I think. It’s always there, like a shadow on my brain but in recent years I’ve been able to function normally. Years of regular therapy was a huge help in making that possible. In my younger years, it was worse and definitely impacted my life, my ability to be productive, and relationships. I was almost never incapacitated, as one might be with depression, but I definitely think I was impaired. Somewhat emotionally crippled.

I haven’t really had thoughts of suicide since college; lots of therapy helped. Even now, I have no desire to end my life, but I also am struggling to find a point in any of it.

Where’s the Meaning?

People have different things that drive them. That makes them happy. For many of my friends and family, it’s the non-job-related things that give their lives meaning. Spouses and children. Or hobbies. For them, their job is simply the thing they do to pass time, provide for their families, or finance their hobbies or retirement.

For a few, their career gives them joy and meaning. Purpose. Those folks have been lucky to find the thing they love to do and managed to make a living at it. Hobbies turned careers.

For such a long time, it was the idea of being in love that I sought as a means to be happy. Being in a relationship. However, given my extreme awkwardness in relationships and dating, I long ago gave up on the prospect of marriage or a family; I will be a life-long bachelor. So that’s out.

Around the same time, I thought I found the thing that would give my life purpose (and joy): politics. With no children raise, I sought to leave my mark on the world in other ways. Politics can shape the world and have deep and meaningful impacts on people’s lives. For better or worse.

Where’s MY Meaning?

I made a transition to a life in government and politics more than a decade ago and for the most part, I’ve been satisfied with that choice. I’ve even done some good things in that time. For a time, I thought I had made the decision that would chart the course for the remainder of my life.

I worked for a State House Representative and two Governors. Then I left to embark on a new chapter as a consultant. I set up my own business and received my Master’s degree in Political Management from George Washington University.

Since then, things have been… a struggle. I’ve struggled for work and struggled to be financially secure. In both 2018 and 2019, I made less than half of what I had working in the Governor’s Office. This year hasn’t been much better and since graduating in 2018, I’ve worked fewer days than not. And I’ve racked up personal debt in the tens of thousands of dollars paying bills (mostly health insurance).

Now, in 2020, the steaming shit-pile dumpster fire of a year, I’ve started to question what the hell I’m doing. It’s pretty clear now I can’t cut it as a self-employed operative. Though I’ve potentially got a job lined up post-election, I can’t help but feel like it’s a step backward. Both professionally and financially.

I have no personal life. No love life. I’ve always taken some comfort in the thought that at least I had a professional life, but now it feels like I’ve failed at that too.

So… I’m really struggling to find meaning in… anything. I wake up. I go through the motions of daily life. And I find little joy in much of any of it.

Hoping for Light Around the Corner

Over the course of my adult life, I’ve learned to be more attuned my emotional and mental states. I don’t have “cycles” per se, but have “episodes” that can last from a couple of days to weeks.

One of the ways I’ve learned to cope is to regularly remind myself that there’s always an end. I come out the other side feeling better, normal. But this bout has lasted far longer than average. To some extent, it can be attributed to COVID jail, but I don’t think all of it.

I’ve also learned that the best way to keep quiet the dark voices in my brain is to keep busy. Feel productive. Since August that has been incredibly challenging.

I keep waiting, hoping that I’ll wake up in the morning having turned the corner. Until that happens, though, each day is just a bit harder to get through than the last. With no purposeful activity and no motivation to seek it out, I’m struggling to find meaning in anything I do.

Maybe the light around the corner tomorrow. Here’s hoping. I truly hate feeling like this.

Read more

Self-Isolate

It’s been roughly two week since I’ve become even more of a home-body than normal.

While I remain confident that not only do I not have the Coronavirus, I have not interacted with anyone who does. Still, out of a combination of shared self-sacrifice and alternative-lacking, I have spent nearly 24-hours a day in my home for almost every day of the past two weeks.

As an introvert, you might think this time has been like a dream come true for me. Lovely long days spent alone with my thoughts, my work, and small apartment. It is not.

A friend shared on Facebook this article (https://introvertdear.com/news/introvert-but-quarantine-sucks/). Being single and childless, I can’t completely relate, but it does nonetheless hold some “truths” for me.

Being an Introvert Doesn’t Mean Solitude is Preferred

Last year, after a couple of different experiences, I wrote about what it really means to be an introvert. I used to think being an introvert meant we prefer solitude to other people, but that’s not true. Rather, it means that social interactions can be taxing both physically and emotionally. Solitude is necessary for our balance and for “recharging”. That’s definitely true in my case.

This experience has reconfirmed that fact for me. Not being able to go out (except for necessities), not being able to interact with friends and colleagues in the real world. Not being able to visit the Capitol, etc. All these are taking their tole on me.

In fact, I’ve understood for years that being cooped up in my house is a recipe for downward spirals. Under other circumstances, even without any of those things, spending an afternoon in a coffee shop was a welcome respite from the concrete cave that is my apartment.

Years of therapy have taught me this lesson well. So much so, that I’m able to often correct my trajectory so as not to completely lose it. In this way, I feel lucky. I imagine there are lots of people who will experience depression during this period of isolation, not recognize it for what it is, and won’t know how to deal with it.

Introvert or No, This is Hard

In addition to being an introvert, I’m also prone to depressive episodes that can last any where from a few hours to weeks at a time.

More than anything else, what keeps me on an even keel (under normal circumstances) is my work. So long as I feel productive, those depressive episodes are shorter and less frequent.

2020 was supposed to be an action-packed year. A legislative session pushing for advances on progressive issues, a flurry of local candidate campaigns, a presidential campaign, and county, state, and national Democratic Conventions. The Coronavirus has upended all of it and I’m struggling to fill my days. My professional work has all but come to a grinding halt.

Sure, there no end to all the reading I can and should be doing. And of course there’s writing and photography and walking I could undertake to keep myself busy. The trouble is I work best under deadlines. With no end in sight to this way of life, I struggle to get myself motivated to do much of anything.

What’s more, I tend to work and think better when there is some level of background noise and activity around me.

In college as now, quiet work spaces are not for me. Libraries, as much as I love browsing bookshelves, have always been a terrible place for me to get a lick of work done. Some of my best writing and thinking has taken place in bustling coffee shops blanketed with hi-fi headphones and a well-chosen playlist.

A Routine Built on Externalities

Yet another quirk of my brain is the need for at least some structure and routine. For me, entropy is a very real issue. Within a margin, deviation from a routine is jarring to me. It causes stress and can trigger depressive episodes.

So many of my friends are true “self-starters” who are able to find productive things to occupy themselves and their time. This, sadly, is a skill I’ve never been terribly good at developing. I can do it in fits and starts, but it’s always been short-lived.

Maybe I should see this global crisis as an opportunity to improve myself in this area. I am trying, but entropy, the relative quiet, and solitude makes it difficult.

To Do’s

While I’ve learned not to commit to something I’m not fully prepared to do, I leave here both for posterity and motivation a list of tasks and activities, at least some of which I hope to undertake as this global health crisis and necessary isolation persists:

  • Do more photography
  • Do more writing
  • Restart video blogging
  • Learn the ukulele
  • Take walks
Read more