Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Health Status

Quitting Facebook was a necessary, though difficult move. I wasted hours every day playing games and refreshing my news feed to see new posts, when I should've been working. And while I've been more productive since walking away from it, I do miss the social aspect of it. I find myself feeling even more isolated than I was (the superficiality of much of Facebook's content was a contributing factor in my decision to quit), and that's making my already-severe depression worse.

A little over three years ago, my father passed away. His death was unexpected in some ways, drawn out in others, and hit me much harder than I ever thought it would. I lost an important person, but I also lost my sense of home -- there is no longer a safe place for me to retreat to when my health issues overwhelm me. The fact that they're overwhelming me now, and have been at dangerous levels for over a year, has me worried that I'll break under the pressure. So far I've managed to limp along, making ends meet despite increasingly frequent bad days, but I don't know how much longer that's going to work.

I ought to be working today. I have a window restoration project that the client is expecting me to install this weekend, and the schedule is very tight. So when I returned from this morning's errands and couldn't find any "spoons" at all, no motivation to do anything productive, it triggered a panic attack, which has completely sidelined me. Knowing I have a certain amount of work that absolutely needs to be done today, and not feeling able to pick up the tools and do it, is maddening and scary. I've already pushed back the target date for this project twice, and I can't bear to disappoint the clients again, which means I'll have to take a day off from my other job to make it work, which then means choosing which already-overdue bill doesn't get paid.

Thanks to this same worsening depression a few months back, I've screwed myself out of being able to get health insurance again this year (didn't send in the appropriate forms or make the necessary phone call to get an extension before the deadline), so there's no hope of going back to therapy any time soon. I try to find something positive to focus on and everything comes with a qualification; I have a roof over my head for now, they haven't turned off my electricity yet, there's food in the fridge for another week.

I wish I had something to look forward to, some stability or security that would allow me to feel reasonably competent. Without that, I'm feeling more than a little lost.

No comments:

Post a Comment