We had a monsoon come through as I was laying down, and it knocked out the power for a while, but having spent two weeks in a place which was less than ideal for sleeping I was able to go right back to sleep. The fans shutting off woke me up; I thought, "Hmm, power's out," shut off the computer and the UPS for the modem and router, and then went right back to sleep. Before my stay in that exclusive resort, I wouldn't have been able to do that.
Anyway the power was out for a couple hours and I slept right through it; when the power came on, it woke me up, briefly, but I went right back to sleep; and when it cut out for a bit, that woke me up, too, but again I went back to sleep.
So I got up at 8:30, fed the cats, and hied myself to KFC for chicken; and when I was on the way home I discovered that the power in the town core is still out--Main Street was largely dark--and the traffic light was flashing red rather than functioning normally.
Got home, logged on to WoW, and nibbled at my dinner as I played. I logged onto the vent server so I could listen to people talking.
Look: I was feeling pretty down. (4-6 range.) Not up on the surface; on the surface I felt 2-3, but in my gut, 4-6. It was kind of weird.
...so I ran old Ormus around farming materials for Alchemy while listening to the raid vent channel. (Yesterday--or was it Thursday?--I dropped skinning and took up alchemy just because I wanted to try something different.) I got his alchemy skill to 185 this evening before I decided it's close to bedtime.
You know what? It helped. I'm a solid 2 all around now. That's cool.
* * *
So, what happened to me that made me so depressed that I cut myself?
The therapist, L., put it in perspective for me when she lay her hands on her notes and told me, "This is a lot of loss!"
When I think about it, she's right; let's have a look:
2001: lost my job and careerOkay, that last one is a wisecrack, but you get the idea.
2003: lost my girlfriend, my home, my job
2004: lost my friends
2007: lost my dad, my first fiancee
2009: lost an aunt, my second fiancee, my job
2010: lost my mom
2011: lost my marbles
So why did the prospect of getting a good job cause a breakdown? Because I was faced with the prospect of losing my childhood home. That loss--atop all the other losses I've faced in the last 10 years--was the straw that broke the camel's back.
And it's not just loss that's the problem, though it was a big part of it; the other part was all the stress that I suddenly found myself under. It was too much for me to handle--all the change and the demands on me--and I cracked under the strain.
Where are the gains to offset those losses? There is only one: I have a new and very good friend in Og. Otherwise it's been a steady attrition all along, a steady erosion of everything I value. And that is why I cracked when faced with having to move to Rantoul.
It's been really, really hard--harder than I thought, harder than I even let on to myself much less anyone else.
When I told Mom about my first fiancee breaking up with me, her response was a tearful, "It's not fair!" And she greeted subsequent reverals the same way--this from the woman who invariably told me "Life isn't fair!" when I, as a child, hauled out the "it's not fair!" schtick.
...she also told me, a lot of the time, that I had been really, really unlucky. At the time, I just thought it was "mom talk"--my Mom being a mom--but with L.'s fresh perspective I'm re-thinking that position: I have been spectacularly unlucky.
I've tried to put a good face on it by reminding myself that I was fortunate to be born in and live in the US, that I have it good compared to a lot of people in the world, or even in the United States; but if you compare my situation with other people in my demographic (white suburban well-educated middle-aged male) I suddenly appear highly unfortunate. I don't have a significant other, I don't have children, I don't have a career, I don't have a home of my own....
At some point in thinking this through it begins to seem obvious that my being depressed--rather than being a form of mental illness--is just a sane and logical reaction to my situation.
When you try and try and try, and get slapped down every time, WTF--it would be insane not to get fed up with that shit. Wouldn't it? Sooner or later, if it keeps happening every time?
*sigh*
I'm going to have to discuss this with L. It's an interesting thought.
* * *
My "homework" from Friday's afternoon session is to think about how I feel about submitting Tales from the Rufus to potential publishers.
It doesn't represent a lot of money--perhaps $50 per month at the most--but it does mean publication and tiny bit of prestige and ego-boost, both of which I could use.
What if KoDT were to reject it? I could always try Dragon, I suppose. I lose nothing by shopping it around to various fantasy publications and one of them is bound to buy it.
I guess I just did my homework.
* * *
Anyway, I want to go to church in the morning, and I'll have to shave and shower before I do, and it's almost midnight. I have to get up at 8:30 to get there by 9, so I'd better hit the hay.
After church I'm thinking about a trip to Harbor Freight....
