(no subject)

[chess]

I feel like I'm not posting enough, but on the other hand I feel like there's nothing to say.

Maybe I should be truthful:
1) I'm not making it to lectures about half of all mornings, instead sitting in my room and spodding mindlessly because I don't have the mental energy to do anything else.
2) I haven't got a project sorted out, although I have now managed to extract a meeting from my DoS, 2pm tomorrow, so hopefully I'll be able to salvage something (and spend all Thursday afternoon writing up a proposal).
3) My room is a complete pit, in which I have lost my engagement ring, a front door key to Oblivion and Nicholas' gloves, and I haven't washed my hair for rather too long.

Other than that I have been going through the motions of living, especially making up characters for and attending role-playing games, because then I can pretend that I'm someone else and don't have all of this doom hanging over me.

I can't help but feel that I am on the wrong course, but I'm not sure any other course would really be any better at this level; I want to Have Things To Do and to Do Things, but it appears that I can't do that without working 9 till 5, and we all saw how well I coped with that over the summer (hint: not very - I could survive but only if I did nothing in the evenings and basically became a working automaton).

I keep coming up with plans to make things better and then sabotaging them so I can spend more time basically sitting and staring at the wall.

I think I am mostly a burden to my friends.

Comments

[atreic.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

(And thanks for posting about the ring - I got terribly worried the other day when I was talking about weddings, realised you weren't wearing it and dreaded having been incredably tactless!)

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

You sound depressed, frankly.

[joysilence.livejournal.com]

Oh dear :( I agree with the above comment that it does sound like depression - obviously hard work and the inevitable monotony of parts of everyday life could be the root cause, rather than a chemical imbalance, but that doesn't make it any less serious ("real life" being so hard to separate from brain chemistry anyway!) and it might still be worth seeing someone about it to make sure it doesn't escalate into full-on clinical depression. Maybe just a college counsellor or something? Apologies if I've said any of this before,or if you've already done stuff like this, my memory is pants...

[chess]

Whereas I was sitting there thinking 'oh no, one of them is going to notice that I'm not wearing the ring and then they're going to jump to the wrong conclusions and it will all be terribly messy, I hope they are actually less observant than I give them credit for'...

[chess]

I have this mental image of the college counsellor being a 'buck up and pull yourself together' type due to one comment that she may or may not have made once, which makes it quite hard to go and see her. Attempting to see any other kind of counsellor seems like more effort than just tidying my room and washing my hair would be, especially as I've just about convinced myself I know what they're going to say.

I also know what's wrong (circular thought patterns about how I'm not any use reinforcing behaviour making me not any use, plus stress about all kinds of little things and one or two bigger ones) but this doesn't seem to help either.

[joysilence.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, sounds like a pretty useless counsellor if she really is like that! I thought they were supposed to be there specifically for people who +couldn't+ pull themselves together without support?

"I also know what's wrong...but this doesn't seem to help either"
I have that problem too, when one is genuinely depressed I think it's often the case :/ People often say that identifying a problem is half-way to solving it, but in fact it's often none of the way to solving it in my experience. Not that I'm trying to diagnose you with clinical depression, but you know what I mean. Minak.

[mair_in_grenderich]

I went to see a counsellor once. She said it was my time to talk, and I couldn't think of anything to say, so we sat in silence for an hour. I can think of better things to do with my time.

[androidkiller.livejournal.com]

Well, in response to the last comment, I think I have to point out that the party was very fun, with very intersting people who I wouldn't have met. And I wouldn't have been there if you hadn't invited me. I don't really think of that as being a burden, quite the opposite in fact.

9 til 5

[zebbiejohnson.livejournal.com]

You don't have to work 9 til 5 if it really will harm you, part-time work is another possible option open to you although unless you are lucky with finding a well paid post you won't be making quite enough to live on (but should be able to make enough to pay your main survival bills such as rent and food with nothing left over). This makes it sucky for long-term but a good way to get experience and/or not have a gap on a cv and it would be perfectly acceptable for short term type periods where you want to try things out or just see how much you can actually cope with, possibly with a view to increasing your hours gradually (in the same job or by transferring).
If you turned out to actually not be medically suitable for 9 to 5 work (even temporarily) because it was actually taking *all* your energy it might also be a more self-esteemful and useful alternative to trying to convince the system to subsidise you completely.
You might also be competing with different people for part time posts than full time, though I'm not sure if that would be a good thing in your favour or not.

[fieandpah.livejournal.com]

Surely the fact that they're friends means you can get away with being a burden if needs be. Though you think you're sabotaging your plans, at least you're making them in the first place. There's hope amongst it all. Your time role-playing and spodding surely can't be as purely escapist as you imply - otherwise recognising that it was would rather undo its effectiveness.

Incidentally, I find that one can generally get away with failing to wash one's hair if a big enough hat can be worn.

[tienelle.livejournal.com]

Chaplain?

[tienelle.livejournal.com]

I feel the need to repeat that the 9 to 5 job was with nCipher, which isn't exactly the best environment for a fragile ChessyPig.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Hello :-) I'm a wanderer from [Bad username or site: atreic' / @ livejournal.com]'s journal/friends list... I was just wondering how you came by your LJ name? It brings a smile to my face (although I'm not sure why), but then you Cambridge types have all sorts of clever names and icons.