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edenfallingI felt generally shitty this past week, starting from Friday-ish. Sleep schedule out of whack, gray and grumpy and washed-out, very oh-god-why-bother about pretty much everything. Plus obsessive reading. So, you know, my classic brain-down-a-well symptoms.
Meds can't fix everything, I guess.
But! It's lasted less than one week instead of over two weeks, and unlike my blue funks over the past couple years, I am starting to normalize back to ground level instead of to a narrow ledge still halfway down the well. And even when I was feeling awful, I didn't get into a loop of "well, that's it, you've broken your pattern of functionality, there's no hope for recovery, everything's terrible now" which has always been the insidious second punch depression likes to sneak in while I'm distracted by the first punch of generalized spoon-loss and anhedonia. I just said to myself, oh hey, looks like a blue funk; well, I can write off a few days since I built slack into my schedule on purpose just to compensate for this kind of thing.
And indeed, I took a few days off from doing much of anything productive, slowly wrenched my sleeping schedule back to something less dire, and today I was feeling up to trying productive stuff again. (By which I mean coursework and writing, mostly. Paid work doesn't really count, because it occupies a different mental/emotional category for me. I can always do paid work even when I can barely stand to get up in the morning and am living mostly on bread and caffeine. This is maybe not the healthiest trait from a psychological standpoint, but it's done wonders for my budget over the years. *wry*)
My second course of the semester started yesterday; it is a 10-week program rather than a standard 15-week program. This one is an English course about interpersonal communication. I'd gotten the first week readings and videos out of the way last week (before the blue funk really hit), and as of today I have gotten the discussion participation out of the way. I mean, I should make a few more comments tomorrow and Friday, but I've technically hit the minimum requirements so even if my brain goes back to shit tomorrow, I'm all right.
I also picked a group experience to observe for my second Anthro assignment, and have emailed Prof. T to make sure it meets the requirements. So I really think this two courses plus two jobs thing is going to work out, because frankly? The courses are stupid easy, and this time, goddammit, I am organized. :)
Meds can't fix everything, I guess.
But! It's lasted less than one week instead of over two weeks, and unlike my blue funks over the past couple years, I am starting to normalize back to ground level instead of to a narrow ledge still halfway down the well. And even when I was feeling awful, I didn't get into a loop of "well, that's it, you've broken your pattern of functionality, there's no hope for recovery, everything's terrible now" which has always been the insidious second punch depression likes to sneak in while I'm distracted by the first punch of generalized spoon-loss and anhedonia. I just said to myself, oh hey, looks like a blue funk; well, I can write off a few days since I built slack into my schedule on purpose just to compensate for this kind of thing.
And indeed, I took a few days off from doing much of anything productive, slowly wrenched my sleeping schedule back to something less dire, and today I was feeling up to trying productive stuff again. (By which I mean coursework and writing, mostly. Paid work doesn't really count, because it occupies a different mental/emotional category for me. I can always do paid work even when I can barely stand to get up in the morning and am living mostly on bread and caffeine. This is maybe not the healthiest trait from a psychological standpoint, but it's done wonders for my budget over the years. *wry*)
My second course of the semester started yesterday; it is a 10-week program rather than a standard 15-week program. This one is an English course about interpersonal communication. I'd gotten the first week readings and videos out of the way last week (before the blue funk really hit), and as of today I have gotten the discussion participation out of the way. I mean, I should make a few more comments tomorrow and Friday, but I've technically hit the minimum requirements so even if my brain goes back to shit tomorrow, I'm all right.
I also picked a group experience to observe for my second Anthro assignment, and have emailed Prof. T to make sure it meets the requirements. So I really think this two courses plus two jobs thing is going to work out, because frankly? The courses are stupid easy, and this time, goddammit, I am organized. :)
