(Not necessarily looking for advice or anything, just needed to share my feelings with others who might understand)
So, on the Saturday there I had one of my depression dips, and wrote down what I was feeling as if it were a social media post, but I didn't post it anywhere. Just writing it did give me some satisfaction though it didn't necessarily make me feel any better. But it's helpful to have around to remind myself that I do actually have depression and I'm not just faking it for attention or whatever.
"Today I have the "I hate myself and everything about me" flavour of depression. I know it's also exhaustion, and grief, and anxiety and my neurodivergent brain all combining into a perfect storm. There is nothing I can do about this but wait for it to pass, and keep telling myself it will pass.
Distraction sometimes works, if I can muster up the energy or sheer self-disgust in order to wash the dishes. At least the dishes will be clean at the end of it. But telling myself all the good things I have done, or trying to do something I enjoy just backfires and feeds the self-hatred. I want to smash everything I've ever made, tear up everything I've ever written and then set it on fire; I want to erase every trace of me on this earth and strike my name from the record.
I know this is an erroneous attitude and I know that I won't feel this forever, but it comes in crippling waves and I had so much I needed to get done today and instead I'm just sobbing and hating myself for failing yet again."
And then on Sunday I was so overwhelmed by trying to tidy my lounge and clean the flat for people coming over that I was sobbing as I did it. But it would have been worse if I'd cancelled, because it would just have been another thing I'd failed at.
I'm alright just now though, but it does leave me exhausted and emotionally fragile. Still got work the rest of this week, a three hour volunteering session on Saturday, workmen coming to start fixing the roof, and then on Sunday I'm heading off for a five day writing retreat with a bunch of strangers. Which I am excited about but also anxious. And I do feel that I need a week of just being alone in my flat, but I've still got my lodger here for another five months, and she is nice and not really too much bother but sometimes I just want to close the door and be by myself.
