Language
It's all we've got, but man it's sometimes just horribly inadequate. Perhaps I should make an attempt to engage more in direct verbal exchanges over text-based ones, though it's often impractical in this day and age. Also, that's likely to only help in some cases.
One day this week I got bent out of shape by an email exchange with another HOA board member. I made a suggestion for an alternate budget to consider and got what came across as a very hostile response regarding my "nerve." I really shouldn't have checked that email just before going to bed, as it made it difficult to sleep while I mulled over what I had said and how it could have provoked such a response. That has cooled down some, but it still doesn't make me eager to interact with her in any fashion if she gets that defensive, reading things I never said into a message. Maybe she's stressed - entirely possible - but I really dislike the projected feeling that she sees anyone not on the same page as she is as some sort of enemy. The worst-case scenario in my mind is that she takes that approach to actively dissuade people from looking too closely at something she's doing that's inappropriate. I do not think that's the case here, but it is a tactic I've seen used.
Meanwhile, my online RP for the week has been virtually nil. I've had a lot of time to put thought into that, but I find words fail me in truly conveying the psychology and emotions behind it all.
I can say I've been depressed and have had trouble mustering the interest to dive into things. I can say I feel lost due to the scenes I've missed or skimmed through. I can say it's difficult for me to jump into one scene when a prior one is incomplete or I don't have a sense of what has occurred for my character leading up to it. I can say that certain characters that have been introduced have made it hard to maintain suspension of disbelief and have taken me out of scenes. I can say even ongoing games that I have been actively involved in can be difficult to find any enthusiasm for and can feel more like a chore than a fun activity.
All of these things are very much true, but they don't actually express the full weight and difficulty of overcoming the inertia in my own headspace.
I know that the more I sit out the less invested or interested I'll be. I know that the only way to get involved in scenes, particularly in a MUCK/Discord active-but-unscheduled environment is to just step up and do stuff. I know there is ultimately little or nothing anyone aside from me can do to overcome these hurdles.
And yet there remains this disconnect between the knowing and the doing that I lack the words to describe.
That seems to be where we get into the realm of depression - the f'd up brain chemical issues that even medical researches are still sort of taking their best guesses at and using things that seem to work without fully understanding how and why.
I remember a time when I didn't have these issues, or at least not to current degrees. If everyone felt this way all the time, human society would have died out ages ago. So, yeah, it's got to be me (not just me, but as opposed to everyone). The way I live probably doesn't help, but I don't think it's purely environmental.
I can make it through days when I'm totally unmotivated okay. That's just sort of a "meh" purgatory of life. What really gets bad is when I beat myself up about it - when I prod myself with thoughts like "why don't you just do something," or "why aren't your accomplishing anything," or "all it takes is a little effort." That starts to drag me down as I feel not just unmotivated, but genuinely bad because I see myself as failing to do anything to make my experience of life better.
When that really gets hold, I just want to curl up and ignore everything, which in-turn makes me berate myself for doing so. I feel like I'm dragging myself through a day. My chest feels tight. And I feel a little jostle away from tears. Those are the worst days I've had, and thankfully I haven't sunk quite that far in a while.
For all these words, they still strike me as inadequate to convey how it actually feels.
And one thing that gets me beyond all that is there isn't a lot to be done about it. Medication can help. Being able to talk about any inciting incidents can help. But on a general scale, what can I ask someone to do to help snap me out of these feelings? Any encouragement to get involved kind of echoes my own thoughts and doesn't make it any easier (or more interesting/rewarding) to do so. If there's an answer there, I really haven't found it yet.
One day this week I got bent out of shape by an email exchange with another HOA board member. I made a suggestion for an alternate budget to consider and got what came across as a very hostile response regarding my "nerve." I really shouldn't have checked that email just before going to bed, as it made it difficult to sleep while I mulled over what I had said and how it could have provoked such a response. That has cooled down some, but it still doesn't make me eager to interact with her in any fashion if she gets that defensive, reading things I never said into a message. Maybe she's stressed - entirely possible - but I really dislike the projected feeling that she sees anyone not on the same page as she is as some sort of enemy. The worst-case scenario in my mind is that she takes that approach to actively dissuade people from looking too closely at something she's doing that's inappropriate. I do not think that's the case here, but it is a tactic I've seen used.
Meanwhile, my online RP for the week has been virtually nil. I've had a lot of time to put thought into that, but I find words fail me in truly conveying the psychology and emotions behind it all.
I can say I've been depressed and have had trouble mustering the interest to dive into things. I can say I feel lost due to the scenes I've missed or skimmed through. I can say it's difficult for me to jump into one scene when a prior one is incomplete or I don't have a sense of what has occurred for my character leading up to it. I can say that certain characters that have been introduced have made it hard to maintain suspension of disbelief and have taken me out of scenes. I can say even ongoing games that I have been actively involved in can be difficult to find any enthusiasm for and can feel more like a chore than a fun activity.
All of these things are very much true, but they don't actually express the full weight and difficulty of overcoming the inertia in my own headspace.
I know that the more I sit out the less invested or interested I'll be. I know that the only way to get involved in scenes, particularly in a MUCK/Discord active-but-unscheduled environment is to just step up and do stuff. I know there is ultimately little or nothing anyone aside from me can do to overcome these hurdles.
And yet there remains this disconnect between the knowing and the doing that I lack the words to describe.
That seems to be where we get into the realm of depression - the f'd up brain chemical issues that even medical researches are still sort of taking their best guesses at and using things that seem to work without fully understanding how and why.
I remember a time when I didn't have these issues, or at least not to current degrees. If everyone felt this way all the time, human society would have died out ages ago. So, yeah, it's got to be me (not just me, but as opposed to everyone). The way I live probably doesn't help, but I don't think it's purely environmental.
I can make it through days when I'm totally unmotivated okay. That's just sort of a "meh" purgatory of life. What really gets bad is when I beat myself up about it - when I prod myself with thoughts like "why don't you just do something," or "why aren't your accomplishing anything," or "all it takes is a little effort." That starts to drag me down as I feel not just unmotivated, but genuinely bad because I see myself as failing to do anything to make my experience of life better.
When that really gets hold, I just want to curl up and ignore everything, which in-turn makes me berate myself for doing so. I feel like I'm dragging myself through a day. My chest feels tight. And I feel a little jostle away from tears. Those are the worst days I've had, and thankfully I haven't sunk quite that far in a while.
For all these words, they still strike me as inadequate to convey how it actually feels.
And one thing that gets me beyond all that is there isn't a lot to be done about it. Medication can help. Being able to talk about any inciting incidents can help. But on a general scale, what can I ask someone to do to help snap me out of these feelings? Any encouragement to get involved kind of echoes my own thoughts and doesn't make it any easier (or more interesting/rewarding) to do so. If there's an answer there, I really haven't found it yet.
*group hugs*
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