Medicated depression, day #68
At the office, alone. I doubt there will be any colleagues in today, most of them went for the beer sampling activities yesterday, with pub-hopping or whatever activities they went to afterwards.
Slept so-so this night, went to bed at a decent time and woke up a little before the alarms went off this morning, amassed about 5:15 of sleep. Not very good .. but not very bad either.
I'm contemplating cancelling all activities tomorrow, I kind of half-promised to go to next town over to hang out with a friend, also to bring son .. now I feel that I'm drained of energy and just want to sleep. I'm sure my friend would understand and accept a rain check .. but son would not.
It feels like I lack the satisfaction of getting things to work, yesterday when I got the thing I've been working on for a while to work as intended, I felt no satisfaction, it was merely "meh, it works". No joy. No happiness. It might be the higher dosage of my medication, that I'm unable to be happy .. I'd take that any day, rather than being sad and miserable .. or depressed. I'm still learning how this all works, depression and medications.
My relative N was depressed, desperately he sought help from the adult mental care apparatus but were denied, as he in lack of help from mental health care had started "self-medicate" with cannabis/marijuana, he was "disqualified" from any help. This went on for months and eventually he committed suicide. He had other medical and mental issues as well, but this is what drove him over the edge .. and into the abyss of depression. I talked to him just a few weeks before he spiraled down into this back hole. I wish I knew where he was heading, I wish I knew in what mental state he was in, he had kept it all in and said "it's ok" when I asked.
When people greet me at the office in the mornings, it's often followed with a "How's things?" .. almost mechanically it is followed with a "It's ok" from most people, I usually respond with a "It's so-so.." .. and the discussion dies with that. I don't want to bring down anyone but if they ask, they'll get my honest response.
Later: Just had the checkup meeting with my manager. Got heaps of praise and was re-assured that I'm a valuable co-worker and colleague. It felt really good and boosted my self esteem several notches upwards. I also told him about my fears; each time a manager from the other office is at our office, my thoughts are that "now I'm gonna get fired", completely unfounded and unrealistic thoughts but that is how my thoughts are, whirling around, with angst and stress onset as a result. He told me not to worry about that and to do what I'm doing, continue on my path as it seems to work, as they see a slow but steady progress. I described my impressions of the latest assignments I've had, two in a row that went south, the first where I was told I was incompetent and where I could not deliver a solution in time, to just a day or two later deliver on it but where the decision where already taken to cancel the contract, that made a deep impact with me and is probably where the deep feelings of not being capable and knowledgeable enough comes from .. and the second assignment which was a real penny-pinching customer that asked me to fix and solve all the problems that remained during the last days of last year, so I spent three days doing just that and the customer went bat shit crazy when they got the invoice .. as it overshot their budget. Next time I agree to something like that, I'd like to have it in writing, first.
I got some chores too, to fill out some document with some fields about how I think and feel about some things, for feedback to my manager.
Later: Had a good talk with a colleague, honest talk about thoughts and mind, he recommended that I look into meditation as it has helped him. I'll think I'll look into that during the weekend.
I'm skipping lunch today, no appetite and I can get out of work a bit earlier, most people work half-day or not at all today. Nobody will notice if I leave a little early.
Later: My thinker is broken again, bleh. No abstract thoughts and not able to focus. Wrote a bunch of gibberish and did not realize until later. Feeling a headache is coming on, at the moment a low-key rumble in the back of my head. Twiddled with some code but only managed to break it royally, reverted all changes. I have about two more hours of work .. but should check out now as not able to get anything useful done anyway.