Tag Archives: Despair

I’ve Lost All Sense of Curiosity

As my depression worsens daily into something just short of crippling, I find myself falling back hard into old patterns, habits and comforts, in a vain effort to stop myself from collapsing into bed and simply not getting up again. I rewatch old episodes of South Park and Futurama endlessly, fail to create anything meaningful – either in writing or in music – and more or less just barely scrape through each day without ever discovering or experiencing anything new.

The hard part about this is that, when I really think about it, I don’t want to experience anything new. It all just … bores me. It isn’t interesting, doesn’t feel worth it, and I find little to no joy in anything I’m not already intimately familiar with. At first I thought perhaps this was just the depression talking, but when I think longer about it, I realize that I’ve been this way for years.

There was a time when I looked forward to new things – really looked forward to them. New albums from my favorite artists, new books from my favorite authors, new movies and TV shows to watch and experience. I remember being really excited to see new episodes of Dexter back when it was first airing, and buying up Stephen King books the day they were released.

Then, I slowly started waiting to experience new things. I waited to listen to the new Nightwish album for a good long time, although I finally got around to it. I delayed and delayed watching Game of Thrones until social media all but ruined it (well, the show writers kind of did it first).

And eventually, I just sort of … stopped experiencing anything new altogether. I haven’t listened to Iron Maiden’s new album, despite it getting great reviews. I haven’t watched Black Widow or any new movie in ages. I haven’t read a book in years. And the worst part is, I really just don’t want to.

When I try, I fail. I watched one episode of Game of Thrones, and just wasn’t invested. I watched the first episode of Amazon’s new show Invincible, and it was really good – but I just don’t care to watch more. I’ve tried and failed to read a dozen or more books.

And when I really break it down, I feel like it comes down to a total lack of curiosity. I just don’t care about things. I don’t care about the world, or the things in it, or the things that are meant to entertain me and take my mind off the things that would otherwise consume me.

I just exist, basically.

I exist, and I’m completely uncurious about anything and everything in the world around me. Nothing piques my interest; nothing seems worth doing or experiencing. And despite the fact that I can barely make it through each day at the moment, I think this has been building for years, or even decades, to the point where now my whole life seems like a meaningless husk, something devoid of any joy or interest.

This scares me, really, because for a long time the only thing that really kept me going, kept me motivated – even in the darkest of times when all I could think about was some kind of escape, I always stayed the course for the idea that, if I died today, I might miss experiencing something truly wonderful that was yet to come. But if there’s nothing that excites me at all anymore – if I just don’t care about anything new, no matter who or what creates it – then what is going to keep me alive? What’s even the point?

My depression is rapidly worsening, and the one thing that usually keeps me afloat is gone. What will happen if the day comes – and I fear it will – when I can’t get out of bed? What will happen when I can’t bear to breathe another breath? What will happen when death becomes more appealing than life?

I once read somewhere that people who ideate about suicide don’t necessarily want to die; they just want their life as it is to be over. The concept encourages positivity, and the belief in change. But what if you don’t believe in that change at all? What if the idea of something new, something different, is as equally abhorrent as what you’re stuck with at the moment? What if death seems appropriate, not because you don’t want to live, but because there’s nothing left to live for?

I realize I’m navigating down a dark path here, and this feeling of dismal, bleak numbness may too pass, but at the moment all I really want to do is curl up and go to sleep. Preferably for a very, very long time.

Endless Summer Doldrums

I’ve never really been too fond of summer; heat, sun and beach days were never really my thing. I’m much more partial to the shorter, colder days of autumn and winter, where you can sit inside by the fire and stare out into the wind and rain, the falling leaves, and dark snow showers of the late winter months.

Since moving to New Jersey, however, summer has taken on a whole new level of nastiness, with humidity regularly in the 80%-90% range. If there’s one thing I hate more than excessive heat, it’s excessive humidity. Put the two together and I’m just downright miserable. I need it cold and dry.

The worst part is that when the weather feels stifling, so does life. I feel like the summer is dragging on, week after week and month after month of dull, humid unpleasantness, going nowhere fast. I haven’t been creative in months. I haven’t even written a blog post in months. On my days off, I find myself pottering around the house, bored and depressed, trying to think of things to do and realizing I don’t want to do any of them.

I can’t say that this is necessarily summer’s fault, exactly; I know I’ve felt like this at all times of the year. But there’s something about summer that just makes it worse. This dull, aching lethargy is intolerable, a kind of depression that isn’t quite depressed; a kind of misery that isn’t quite recognizable. It’s just an endless boredom, a lack of desire, a kind of … null that fills the void day after day. And when you find yourself drenched in sweat just sitting still, you start to wonder what the point of it all is.

When I get like this, I’m tempted to just go to sleep. I mean after all, if I’m going to waste the day away, I might as well get some rest out of it. Nothing’s worse than sitting on the couch, staring into space, mind agonizingly treading over meaningless gibberish at a mile an hour. But when I wake up, I feel even worse; tired, disconcerted, and wishing I’d done something productive with my time.

What even is ‘productive’? What does it mean? Life is so full of endless, repetitive and meaningless tasks that you could spend every waking moment busy, and still get nothing done. Is cooking dinner productive? Cleaning the kitchen? Watering the plants? All of these are things that need to be done, but are they productive? This kind of mental quagmire is something I find myself in frequently; regardless of whether I spend all day doing nothing or doing something, I still feel like I’ve accomplished nothing at the end of the day. The only things that really make me feel worthwhile are creative endeavors, and in this mindless funk, those become impossible.

These doldrums are endless, and the summer makes it worse. I see no end in sight to either. I can’t wait for fall, and I can’t wait to feel more like doing stuff. But even when the shorter, colder days come about, I worry, because autumn is usually when my outright depression worsens, and I can’t bring myself to even get out of bed.

Life is endless, too. Day after day of the same, going nowhere and getting nothing done, living each day just to see the next. I start to wonder what the point of it all is. I don’t exactly feel that I’d be better off dead, but I can’t quite see the point of living, either. What’s it all about? What’s it for? Who am I entertaining?

And even as I write this, I’m overcome with the desire to just sigh, forget it all, and go back to bed.

A sigh.

It sums up life better than anything, really. Just one big sigh.

And I won’t; or if I do, I won’t forever. As much as I’d like to.

Everything passes in time. The darkness passes … but then, so does the light. Like a zebra, I’m left to wonder if life is depression with bouts of happiness, or happiness with bouts of depression. Sometimes I think it only matters how it ends; only then can you really figure it all out. If I die depressed, then that’s really what life was for me. If I die happy, then … you get the point.

I don’t want to die, and I don’t want to live. I’m just stuck, somewhere in the middle of existing.

And the summer just won’t end.

Wild Mood Swings

I am getting tired. Tired of so much, in the world, in life, and in my thoughts; but most of all, I’m getting tired of not knowing where my head is going to be next month, next week, or even tomorrow. Frankly, living with bipolar is an exhausting experience, and although I’ve mostly just dealt with it until now, I have to admit that I’m running low on energy – not just energy to live and do things, but energy to cope.

It’s one of the reasons, if not the most prominent one, why I don’t attend to this blog like I did years ago. I feel bad about it, but feeling bad was never much of a motivator for me, so I continue to neglect my daily writing in favor of sleep, TV, and sleep.

Historically, long periods of low mood, energy and motivation have formed a large part of my life, from my teenage years through my adulthood and to present day; I’m no stranger to depression. Often this manifests as wanting to stay in bed, feeling hopeless, and an inability to cope with the most basic of daily functions (e.g. showering, brushing teeth, etc.). I’ll spend day after day not even watching TV, and just staring at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to take me to twisted dreamscapes where I can escape from reality – if not entirely pleasantly.

But more recently, I feel I’m struggling with a new level of exhaustion: one that wears my mind down from an excess of actual mood swings. If my normal depression is akin to the tiredness of a marathon runner nearing the end of the slog, my current state of mind is closer to that of a sprinter after a day’s worth of races: running full tilt, then stopping, then starting again, over and over with no end in sight.

It’s like being on a non-stop rollercoaster. It’s like falling endlessly. It’s like … well, there are likely dozens of metaphors I could choose from, but the point is that I feel like my brain is about to leak through my eyes and ears, a complete and total meltdown from being forced to cope with a rapid cycle of ups and downs in a very short period of time.

Only a month ago, I was suffering from one of the worst depressions I’ve known in recent years. I couldn’t work, I couldn’t play, I couldn’t get out of bed, and I was sorely tempted to begin self-harming again after over a decade clean. Last week, I finished the last pages of my new manuscript after several days of hours-long writing stints. I went from catatonic to manic within a period of only a few days.

I don’t think this is good for me. It’s left me with a whole new level of exhaustion that I’m entirely unused to, and I honestly don’t know how to cope. It was my birthday over the weekend, and I spent it mostly in the loft watching Lord of the Rings and writing emails to people I haven’t contacted in months, or even years. I don’t know what I’m doing.

I wake up every day before 6 AM, but I want to pass out by 7 PM. This is also new; I normally sleep in like crazy, and stay up late.

I wonder if it’s to do with the new medication my psychiatrist started me on; I wonder if it’s to do with the strange weather (70°F in November, what’s with that?). I wonder if it’s … I don’t know anymore.

In any case, I’m done writing young adult/new adult for the time being, which means maybe – just maybe – I’ll find some time to return to The Redemption of Erâth for you all, as I started on book four almost eighteen months ago and never really got too far into it. In the meantime, I’ll see if I can start posting here a little more regularly, as I always want (and always fail) to do.

Many thanks!