Depressed, But Faking It Until I Make It

My day as a semi-functional depressed dude.

Today was hard. I slipped back into my all too familiar dark emotional haze that is depression. I’m a school teacher and I am currently trying to find a path out of the profession. While thinking about my return in September, I slipped again. I got really anxious about the new year, then I felt helpless that I haven’t been able to find a way out or to make staying there better. Then, after feeling helpless, I started feeling hopeless and that’s when the darkness flooded in. The gates were open and I was fucked.

It’s really hard to try and write something inspirational and positive when you feel like this. I want to try and publish every day, but damn. I figured I’d sit down and try anyway.

Man, it’s really hard to keep going when the depression takes hold. It’s like my mind goes blank, my energy levels plummet, I turn into a shell of who I want to be, a fraction of who I know I could be, a fragment of who I know I am. It’s like the human equivalent of laptop sleep mode or something, a low hum can be heard coming from the fans, but you have to poke me to get a response.

Rather than skip the day of writing, I guess I’ll just share three takeaways from the day. Let’s make a listicle out of my emotionally draining day. Why not? Here goes. 🤗

The three things that I learned today while feeling like shit:

1. I really don’t want to go back to my day job.

This was the lead domino today. I was thinking about the fall. Specifically, about how my new in-class-support-teacher wants to implement a new grading scheme.

It’s typical public education tail chasing — let’s do something new, that looks innovative, we’ll give it a fancy name, it will give us the same exact results as doing it the old way, all while confusing ourselves and the students. But don’t worry, it will create a ton more work doing it this way. Fucking sounds amazing. Can’t wait.

… and … cue the dominoes.

2. Even when I feel hopeless, it’s better to make the effort.

Even though I felt like shit all day, I still made the effort to write and get some exercise. I even went over to my mother and father’s house while my just-graduated-from-high-school daughter was swimming with them in their pool. I just sat there, slumped into the chair, doing the best I could to carry conversations along, but after an hour, I left.

I’m almost 50, which means my parents are getting up there in age. I don’t want to take any second that I spend with them for granted. I at least had enough clarity to remember this while I was there, but I had already fallen too far down. Too far to put on that all too familiar fake-smile. I was a 3 on a scale of 1-10. I usually need to be at least a 5 for a convincing fake-smile.

Once I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to snap out of it, I politely excused myself and left. I was glad I made the effort, but I knew I wasn’t going to shake my mood if I stayed.

After that, I managed to get out of the house for one more attempt to slay the dragon.

This time, I decided to visit my 21 year old son on the beach where he works. He’s an ocean lifeguard and it was nice to see him too. I still felt down while I was there though, but I was at least trying to shake off the funk hoping to break free from its grasp.

When I was talking to him and his work partners for the day, I was struggling to be in normal energy mode when I was actually in shit energy mode. I feel like I can pick up on other people picking up on my shit energy, and it felt like I needed to get in the water before they sniffed it out.

I grabbed my swim fins and went body surfing for about 20 minutes. The water was chilly, but warm enough not to need a wetsuit. The cold water acted as a new sensation and a nice way to change my state, even if temporary. It was probably the best I felt all day.

The waves were small and it was short lived, but I still got out there and caught a couple waves. More than if I had stayed home. I would have stayed in longer, but the water was murky, the waves were small, and I was starting to freak myself out with shark vibes.

Got out of the water. Chatted for another 5 or 10 minutes and then headed back home. Again, politely excusing myself and hoping to have not let anyone on to the fact that I just feel like garbage.

3. It’s really hard to write when I feel like this. Scratch that, it’s really hard to do anything when I feel like this.

I’ve been blessed with anxiety and depression going on decades now. I’ve tried therapy. I’ve tried meds. The things that work the best to stave off the darkness are maintaining good exercise, diet, sleep, and relationships. The better I can do these four things, the better I feel.

Eventually, I’m going to have to do the hard work of trying to figure out exactly what is under all of this dark emotion and face it. I have some ideas, but I don’t have the tools to actually heal. My day job is definitely one of the things that sets me off, but I was broken long before I had this job.

I’m about to hit publish on this masterpiece and watch as this steamy turd of an article sails off into the sunset. With my luck, it will be the one that takes off for me. I will have branded myself as the semi-functional depressed guy. Great.

Either way, I’m writing. I’m publishing. Another day, another chance. I tried.

If you are dealing with depression, you’re not alone. It sucks.

Turns out, if you’re reading this, you’ve already survived 100% of the worst days in your life so far.

Keep going. We can fake-smile together.