I haven’t been feeling my best this week… I’ve felt okay in spurts of time, but sometimes I’m not sure if I actually felt okay or if I made myself act a little over the top in terms of excitement, energy, and happiness as a coping mechanism, a way to shield the sadness. But does it really matter either way? Isn’t that what we’re kind of supposed to do? When you feel down you’re supposed to do things that make you feel better right?
I’m always afraid of my brain when it starts to think too much and sends me into a mental down spiral, because I know that when I don’t get out of it, it usually ends in a bought of depressive symptoms. I’m usually laying in my bed and sleeping too much, and hardly talking to a single soul. The excitement and motivation I had maybe even just a few days before is suddenly nowhere to be found.
That’s how I feel today. I have a headache and feel fatigued despite having got a good amount of sleep and downing a latte. Everyday doesn’t need to be exciting or super positive, but damn I wish I didn’t wake up everyday this week feeling like an absolute cement block. I think what gets me is the feeling of drowning or being weighed down, but by what exactly? Sure it’s some of my existential thoughts, some of it is the fear that my life is going nowhere and I’m hanging on by an extremely thin thread, but I can usually keep those thoughts in check. I’ve made it my mission over the last few years to make sure that I can pull myself out of those thought spirals, and I think I’ve been pretty successful.
But it’s this cloud, an gray aura that lingers in every room I’m in. It’s waiting for me to slip, for the security I have around my negative intrusive thoughts to falter, if even for a moment. And then that fog will find its way into the cracks of my mental sanctuary and take over, slowly infecting my safe walls until they disintegrate into dust. And then the cloud in my brain results in me never leaving my bed, feeling helpless and hopeless, isolating myself into a perpetual loneliness – making it that much harder to pull myself out of it.
I hate that I know the answer for me to keeping the fog in check. I have to fight the resistance and be resilient in pushing forward. If I’m worried about X, what can I do (even if it’s a small task), to alleviate its weight? Sometimes it’s as simple as compartmentalizing, if only for a little bit. Sometimes it’s going for a walk to clear my head. Sometimes it’s making a big list of everything I “need” to do and then ignoring all the parts that I realize aren’t necessary to do today.
Sometime it’s writing out a mess of thoughts on your blog because it’s easier than physically writing in your journal today.