Redwolf's Journal (continued)

Well, starting the morning off with a frustrating, looping software issue is one way to feel something other than ongoing malaise, right? A flickering ember of undirected anger instead... It's definitely not been a great week for me on the mental-emotional front. Though "alone" at work (ie. the other IT person has been out), things haven't been much busier than usual. Of late, the "usual" has been more boring than anything. I know enough to acknowledge that's not overall a bad thing, especially in any job that involves supporting others. It takes a different sort of psychological toll than being busy, however, rather than none at all. I've been thinking a lot about the not-MUCK of Faire lately and I seem to have reached the conclusion that playing "there" isn't really for me. That is sad and frustrating and a bunch of other muddled emotions that I seem to be moving toward acceptance of. I'm just not there yet. I've said pr...

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 ...

Things were reasonably normal when I got home last night after doing a little favor/errand. I peeked in at Discord to see what the latest RP-stuffs was and saw 223 messages missed just in the general conversation channel. Okay, time to skim... talking about making new martial arts... bear traps as weapons... Yeah, I could sense that little jealous flare of "I'm conforming to presented rules while others are expanding/bending them." Ugh. So, I told myself flat out, "Look, you're not going to let this get to you tonight. It's too easy. You'll get bothered. You'll feel left out. That'll make you depressed about it. Just don't tonight, okay?" And with that, I pushed back, listened to a Youtube video, and went to make dinner. As dinner was ready, my phone buzzed with a message from my supervisor/co-tech. The accounting server had been restarted for Windows updates and was now in a recovery loop asking for a password that didn't match o...

I mean, I'd be blind to miss it at this point. And what caused it? Well, that's harder to pin down. I think "brain chemistry" is a valid contributor that is rather difficult to do anything about, especially in the short term. I could point at entertainment, perhaps. Watching a character go through an existential crisis while knowing he, as part of a fictional narrative, really does have a purpose can certainly drive home the lack thereof in real life. I could wave at a lack of entertainment. Between schedules, health, and moods, I've seen very little entertaining only roleplay in the recent past. Some of that, of course, sits squarely on my own shoulders as I really shouldn't expect others to go out of their way any more than I do. And I ended up sitting out of yesterday's superhero game session. I'm not sure how much to blame the apparent shift it directly, but I really wasn't feeling up to it by that time (which makes me feel even more disconne...

Loneliness is a pretty terrible feeling. And yeah, it can even happen to those who typically don't really care to be around other people. I might argue that makes it even harder to combat and deal with, but I don't actually have the perspective to say with certainty.

What to say? It's been a rough several days in my head, bordering on miserable. "Depression sucks?" Yeah, that's appropriate enough, I suppose. I recognize it, at least. I don't have any reliable way to shake myself out of it, but it will pass at some point. I can probably blame the beginning on work. I don't really like to go into specifics of work here these days, but... Last week sort of rubbed in my face elements of the situation around my workplace that degraded my moral. The situation is not new, but I can usually get by without really thinking about it, but that wasn't the case this time, leading to multiple coworker discussions about it and far more mental time than it usually gets. It's a sort of ongoing, low-level frustration (as opposed to an anger-inducing immediate frustration) that makes everything just a little harder day in and out. Last week just brought it to the fore. And once something gets a foothold, depression (or at least my v...