I am feeling very melodramatic today.

[chess]

I don't know if that's the right word, but here are some snippets:

1) Maybe this holiday has been to teach me that my time is not, in fact, intrinsically valuable, because when I own it I waste it wholesale and don't even feel better for it; I am not the kind of person who will do all those things she meant to do. It seems that the less free time I have, the more I do with it. It remains to be seen whether this will make me less depressed when I go to work.

2) The world has that 'fall of the Roman Empire' feeling at the moment. Apart from the actual top of the pile, who make up a vanishingly small quantity of the human population, I am in fact just about at the pinnacle of human endeavour at the moment, in the 'how much stuff / free time / support I have' stakes. But there's a fear underneath it all - the barbarians are at the gates, and we've forgotten how to grow food.

3) Hell is that moment when you are depressed and you know that nothing will do any good and you're breathing in ready to sob again and the world goes red and pink and there's nothing but pain, physical and emotional pain all gathering into one, and you know that despite it all you will keep breathing and dry your eyes and carry on like nothing's wrong. Also, I'm not sure I have forgiven God for attempting to let me grow up. I want to be held and spoon-fed and told it is all okay, but I don't think I'm at the kind of stage where that will happen or would do any good.

4) I am deeply, deeply afraid. I am afraid that I will not be good enough at my job. I am afraid that civilisation will implode around me. I am afraid that the floor will give way and I will fall, screaming and naked, through other people's homes. I am afraid that I will give in to my self-destructive urges (which just seem to be getting worse) and stab myself or jump off a bridge or deliberatly mess up my medication. I am afraid that I am not doing enough for God (but I don't know what He wants from me). I am also cynical; I do not believe that anyone or anything can help me with my problems. I do not think that anything can take the pain away, no matter how much I want it gone.

5) I think I know what my personal morality is now, and it is rather strange. What I care about - what persists - is honesty and openness. My idea of the perfect world is one where everyone knows everything about everyone, and all of the reasons why that is a bad idea are dealt with in various ways; the rest of my morality just follows from wanting to make that utter openness and transparancy practical. Of course, reality imposes on top of that; I know that God exists and is roughly in line with the general consensus on the Christian God and hence modify my practiced morality (the morality that I feel bad about breaking) accordingly. But at the heart of things, that is what I care about.

Comments

[chess]

No, the medication is all for physical things (although that's one I left off my trigger list - forgetting to take my inhaler makes it difficult to breathe, which brings on the 'everything is not quite real' version). I feel especially averse to taking the problem to medical professionals because if I just drank enough water, ate properly, and took all my medication properly, I would mostly not go through any of this (a bit before illnesses if I'm unlucky).

[zebbiejohnson.livejournal.com]

I have a similar thing though not the same extent - when I am in alert stage I know that drinking at least 2 pints of water a day and taking lots and lots of multivits with iron makes me significantly happier, healthier and more optimistic within a couple of hours. However I don't really believe this and it's a lot of hassle when I am dehydrated and 'meh', and find it easier then to think that that lightheadedness and irritablity are because the world is confusing and awful and I am sick. Given that stage two can come on in the course of a night if I get too hot in my sleep (which I will do inevitably as I require about a foot of duvet thickness to feel secure) I really need to develop a routine that involves forcing water down my throat immediately. However, this is a lot more effort somehow than just kind of loping along and bemoaning my dry mouth and unkind universe. I also then fail to be motivated to eat as it seems awfully difficult to picture what is required to *start*- too many choices and prerequisites to make it worth bothering with. If you are given a solution to this issue, please let me know.