posted 2007/11/22 at 21:01
The depression I've been suffering from these past few days has only been getting worse. I even skipped half of my usual waffles-and-Mystery Science Theatre 3000 Thanksgiving tradition today, just eating the waffles and generally moping around the house. Things have gotten bad enough that I notice myself slipping back into some of the old, destructive behaviours I thought I'd gotten over in recent years. I suppose things aren't so bad right now because I can distract myself with the Red Wings game on my television right now, and I was playing video games earlier to take my mind off of my problems, but when the hockey game is over tonight I have a feeling that I'm going to slip right back into a very deep funk.
There are far too many contributing factors to this recent bad spell for me, but one of the underlying themes that has come up is a kind of juvenile sense of not being rewarded for doing the right things. When I was very young I was always getting into all kinds of trouble, and I frequently acted out and misbehaved as a way of getting attention. Threads of that behaviour trailed well into my adult life, and I wouldn't be honest if I said I've totally eradicated them, but as I've grown older I've put in more and more of an effort to be a better person. In addition to just the overriding theme of acting in good conscience, I try to have that spirit carry through to all the small things in life I do like adhere to all the rules of the road when I'm driving, holding doors open for people wherever I go, and the like.
Unfortunately, and I don't know if this really is happening more or if I'm just noticing it more because I'm in such a bad mood right now (probably a little of both), but more than ever it just seems like being the good person is costing me. Everywhere I look, it seems like the people who break the rules, who act selfishly, who don't care who or what they hurt by acting in their own self-interest, are getting what they want, while I keep getting the short end of the stick. I know that this sounds childish, and I know that being the better person is supposed to be its own reward and all of that, but at times like this it just seems hopeless to keep trying.
I know that I can't be the only one out there right now who is feeling like this, so in keeping with the theme of the holiday, I would just like to say, to all of the rest of you out there who always try to act for the greater good, who follow all the rules even when they work to your detriment, who make every effort not to give in to selfish, destructive thinking (even though you may not always succeed in doing so) ... to you, I say thank you. Perhaps I may not have directly benefited from your kindnesses, but I'd like to think the act of being kind and responsible helps the world, intangibly, as a whole. I appreciate the efforts you put in to make the world a better place, and I can only hope that others are appreciative of my efforts as well.
Labels: depression, personal
posted 2007/11/14 at 21:29
Although the eleventh of this month is notable for me personally because it was the day I launched this Website seven years ago, it's also painful for me because five years ago on that date, I made the biggest mistake of my life. I turned my back on the best friend I've ever had in my entire life at the moment when she needed me the most, and nearly every day since then I have cursed myself for having done what I did. Some days it feels like I'm getting better about it -- I know full well how harmful it is for me to keep living in the past like that -- but I can think of no other reason for the deep depression I've been in lately than this rather unhappy anniversary. Too often in these past five years, whenever I feel like I might be on the verge of real happiness, it seems like the bad karma I built up from that one mistake comes back to bite me in the butt real hard. I'm not so sure that I believe in curses, but I've certainly become a lot less skeptical of them these past five years.
It was only in the past few months that I came to realize why I did what I did back then. It didn't take me long after the incident for me to realize that, as much as I tried to block the feelings out in my conscious mind, I was deeply in love with my friend. That much was fairly clear, but it's only been recently that I've realized that more than just being afraid of my feelings towards her, I have a fear of being loved by others in general. I finally realized what a tremendous responsibility it is to be loved, and how it was a responsibility that I didn't feel ready to handle. Yes, back when I was still in college I had my share of crushes and fixations, but none of them ever got to the point where I had to start thinking about what it would mean to be loved by someone else. (Just to clarify, I have no fear of being loved by other members of my family because I just don't feel there's the same responsibility there.)
These past few weeks, I've been thinking about this a lot. Perhaps I'm doing so because a couple of old friends I can't deny having feelings for suddenly showed back up in my life recently; perhaps I'm doing so because I continue to edge ever-closer to leaving here and living on my own and I worry about feeling even lonelier than I do now. I want to be more open to the possibilities of love, but after I've been through so much disappointment these past five years, that comes very, very hard to me. Don't quote me the whole "better to have loved and lost" thing; that's one line you don't have to tell someone with two degrees in English, thank you very much. Still, I can't help but feel that I'm in a very fragile state right now (for this and other reasons), and I can't help but worry that if I make any kind of move to bring that kind of love back into my life I'll just wind up hurt again. I already have a hard enough time dealing with regret; I don't need more bad decisions on my part to look back on like the one I made a little over five years ago.
Labels: depression, personal
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