Tag: depression

Life… it happens!

Valerie @ Valerie's Musings6 Comments

I know I haven’t posted a lot lately, and I’m sorry for that. Life has been… well, life. Here’s what’s been going on in the last month or so.

I took some vacation time over the holidays. I’m usually not online much during my vacation, whether I go away or stay home. I might flip through Facebook once a day on my phone, but that’s about it. My best friend was supposed to come for New Year’s but car problems prevented that from happening. I spent the time working on what is seemingly the never-ending room project.

For those of you who are newer to my blog, I’ve been working on deep cleaning/throwing stuff out/donating stuff/decluttering/reorganizing my room for months now. To say it’s never-ending is a bit of a misnomer, I know, because I really am so close to the end. I’m down to two tubs and a pile to get thru plus a few other things that need to get put away. It’s really not much. However, since I’ve been working on this since JUNE (on the weekends mostly), it seems like it’s never-ending! My mom keeps reminding me tho’ that it took me 2+ years to get it to the level of disaster that it was so, 7 1/2 months really isn’t bad since I can only work on it on the weekends and sometimes that just doesn’t happen due to mental health, physical health or prior plans.

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 On top of the seemingly never-ending room project, things have been quite crazy at work. Over New Year’s weekend, we migrated to a new software system for our library. If you’ve ever migrated to a completely different software system at work, you know it’s not precisely easy. Nor does it usually go off without a few hitches. We had to switch. Our old software was being discontinued by the manufactured. However, our new software is drastically different from the old and it’s really taking some getting used to. Not only do I have to figure out cataloging of regular items to do my main job in acquisitions, but I also have to figure out the cataloging of Inter-library Loan items since I’m a part of the ILL team and the only ILL team member with cataloging knowledge. It’s been challenging to say the least and by the time I come home at night, I’m pretty dead tired.

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I was also sick the week that I went back to work, so that didn’t help my trying to get used to the new software. I had no patience for things that didn’t work like I wanted them to!

Finally, this winter is actually getting to me and wreaking havoc on my depression. Usually I do okay in winter. I even like winter most years. But this year we’ve had weeks and weeks of single digit temperatures with wind chills below freezing. It’s the kind of cold that just zaps your strength if you’re out in it at all. Supposedly the rest of January is supposed to warm up and be better. I hope it is. Maybe it’ll help me get out of this funk I’m feeling lately. It’s definitely warmer today so it’s a good start. 🙂

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Hopefully the warmer weather will help me get back to feeling more human and less like a popsicle. I have reviews I want to write, I just haven’t had the momentum/energy to do them recently. Thanks for hanging in there with me!

 

Life with Depression & Anxiety

Valerie @ Valerie's Musings6 Comments

As I said in my welcome post, while this blog will mostly be book reviews, there will be  occasional posts of my musings on life. Today is one of those posts.

I have several mental illnesses, including depression and anxiety. For the most part, I’m still able to work full-time and do some things after work, depending on how many “spoons” I have left after work (Here’s a link if you don’t know what “spoons” means: The Spoon Theory).  Unfortunately, for the last 2 weeks or so, getting thru work has taken every single “spoon” I have for the day. By the time I make it through work, I’m utterly spent. If I do anything at night, it’s playing mindless computer games (Candy Crush Jelly, anyone?).

Of course, then my anxiety kicks in because I have all these books that I need to read for review purposes and I’m not getting to them. This in turn makes my depression worse, with depression kicking my butt, telling me I’m useless and worthless because I can’t get things done in the time frame that I said I would. Then my anxiety gets worse, etc… It can become a seemingly never-ending cycle in my head. I work hard at not letting it really bring me down. Most days I’m successful, but sometimes, it just feels like life is so overwhelming, I have an elephant on my back. This is one of those times.

I don’t share these things to elicit pity or whatever emotion it invokes in you. I share it for two reasons.

1) To serve as a semi-apology. The anxiety ridden part of me says I should apologize for not having a post in over a week. Particularly when I have such a large queue of things to read. Logically my brain knows that I don’t need to give an apology, but I’ve found in these situations, it’s better to issue the apology instead of stewing about it for weeks. It helps keep the panic at bay for a while longer. It’s a perfect example of picking one’s battles. I need my spoons for fighting off the negative thoughts about myself that depression gives me, not for fighting the panic of not apologizing, especially if apologizing will take care of that panic for me.

2) I’m a firm believer that if we don’t talk about mental illnesses and mental health issues, they won’t lose their stigma. You never know who in your life might be suffering from one or more mental illnesses. Those of us who suffer from mental health issues often hide them because the stigma behind them is so huge. I’m pretty careful about how much I share and with whom. You never know how someone’s going to react when you tell them about these things. I don’t want to lose friendships over it, or the job I love. Consequently, I work really hard at not letting them interfere with my life.

Most days, if you saw me at my job, you’d never know I was battling these illnesses. But I know they’re there and I know how tough the battle is, but very few would be able to tell. My job is in the customer service field, which means working with the public. I do all I can to be a smiley, cheerful figure for people to in order to help them the best I can.  Sometimes, it just doesn’t work and more of the depression seeps through, but most days you wouldn’t be able to tell.

During the harder times, I try to stay positive and try to not get too down on myself. I have to live with these conditions for the rest of my life so I’ve got to make the best of it. Sometimes that means I have to be gentle with myself and try to control the panic over not getting things done when I want to. Sometimes that means finding someone to help motivate me and get something done. And sometimes it just means I need to rest more.

I’m not ashamed that I have depression and anxiety. Yes, some days they’re really tough to work with and life doesn’t go so well. Other days they’re more manageable and I can go about living my life. But I do have to be realistic and know that sometimes, sometimes I’m just going to have to rest and not get everything done. It sucks, but I know from experience, it’ll just make things worse if I push myself too far.

So for now, I’m behind on reviews. I’m hoping that things will improve soon so I can back on track. Please bear with me. Thank you for being here and reading my posts.