Getting the Obligatory Overwrought Depression Post Out of the Way First.
It’s a cold and dreary Monday morning, perfectly suited to my mood. At 7:52, I’m the first one in the office, and I enjoy the momentary quiet. I flump down in the cozy chair in my office, the big, comfy one usually reserved for students that feels a little like sitting on a hug. I stare out the window at nothing and sip my coffee. Five minutes. For five minutes I’m still inside myself. I glance at the to-do list I posted to the arm of the cozy chair the day before, a place I know I’ll see it.
My to-do list for the day:
-Plan for upcoming program
-Meet with faculty partners
Overall a pretty standard day in Higher Ed. The sort of day that I truck right on through, because I’ve been doing this for over 10 years and I know my stuff. Like most people I don’t always like my job, but I know I’m damned good at it when I’m on. I feel productive today. It’s going to be a productive day.
That feeling lasts for all of five minutes. It’s at that time that I slump over to my generically ergonomic chair and open my email. A letter from my supervisor. I don’t even know what it is, but my stomach drops out and I’m done. That’s it. Any motivation for the day is gone. It’s not my supervisor sending me an email, it’s not the nature of the email, it’s merely the possibility of what the email could entail. I am suddenly unable to function because there –might- be something negative in the email about my performance.
It’s most likely completely innocuous, an update on a program, or advice about a meeting, but my brain and body literally cannot get past the possibility that it might be some sort of chastisement. I am frozen in my own head while my guts churn. It’s the beginning of a panic attack, something which I’m beginning to experience more and more frequently. Tears start rushing to my eyes and all I want to do is run away or lash out at something. It’s flight or fight against your own body. How are you supposed to cope with that? How are you supposed to run away from your own brain?
I can feel the jumble in my stomach settling down after a few minutes, my gut going dormant, numb. The problem is so does everything else. I’m still frozen, but now I don’t care that I’m frozen. I don’t care that I won’t be able to get my work done today. I don’t care that this is literally affecting my ability to do my job and even a supervisor with infinite patience will not put up with a total lack of productivity. I vaguely care about what happens to my wife and kids if I get fired, but even that feels vestigial. Caring is exhausting. Caring requires energy that I don’t have. I burned up my reserves for the day with that panic attack. There’s too much to do and I can’t do any of it, even if I wanted to. Sure, academically, I know it needs to get done, and academically I know it won’t be as grueling as it feels right now, but I’ve already lost. I couldn’t flee or claw my way out, so I’m resigned to curling up in the fetal position and taking the hits. It’s no more than I deserve, after all. I’m terrible at my job, no matter what I try to convince myself of. Nothing I’m doing actually matters and I’ve pretty much got nothing to show for 35 years on this planet. I’m a fraud and a liar and a failure and why bother trying to accomplish anything when nothing ever comes from it? And the loop continues. For hours, this is what I hear inside my head.
In Student Affairs, you have to care. Professionally. You are a professional carer. You care about students, you care about their families. You care about your staffs and your relationships with your coworkers. You care about drunk students and achieving students, quiet students and rambunctious students. You care about their health, their grades, their social standings, their mental well-being. You care about all these things, but what you don’t care about is yourself. Who’s got time to care about you? You have 3 programs, 11 conduct meetings, 57 hours in the office and you’re just starting a duty rotation. Who has time for themselves? You get tired, careless, passionless, but that’s just burn-out, right? And burn-out goes away. A weekend off-campus or a pep-talk from a mentor and you’re good to go, you’re back in the game. Except for the times when you’re not. Except when the burn-out doesn’t go away. Except when it lingers for months and feels worse and worse. When you don’t feel burnt-out so much as used-up. That’s when we realize that we should have been worrying about ourselves all along.
About a year ago I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and in retrospect I realize I was probably suffering from it for a lot longer than that. I was so used to recognizing it in others, as I was trained to do, that I missed the classic signs in myself. My job performance suffered, as did my relationship with my family. I was short with my wife and apathetic towards my kids. I didn’t enjoy doing any of the things I used to enjoy doing and couldn’t get out of bed. Textbook depression. I ended up leaving my job and spent the next 7 months as a stay-at-home dad, quietly sinking deeper and deeper into numbness. Eventually I spoke with my doctor and got on medication. Is it working? I don’t know. It helped me get things together enough to find another job, but I still get black spells that are hard to dig out of. I don’t feel numb as much anymore, but I still don’t enjoy my hobbies as much as I used to. It’s a more even keel, but even is not great. I think that’s what people who don’t have depression don’t always realize, that just because you’re doing better, it doesn’t mean you’re doing great. You’re just doing better. Better is a relative word. Better is just a start.
Will I always suffer from depression? Probably in some way. My brain doesn’t produce chemicals in the ways that it’s supposed to, and while meds may balance them out, the mechanism will always be broken underneath. Therapy seems to be helping, but for how long? I just have to learn that some days you fight through it and some days you have to retreat. I can’t win every battle against my brain, but I can learn to recognize the signs of a fight and do my best to shore up against it. I can get by. It’s better than stopping.
romaincrisis
prguitarman
snowghoul
theartofmadeline
baratheonpilled
izzy806
titsay
blakekathryn