Taking Stock After a Long Holiday Season

As always, the post-holiday funk lasted longer than I expected it to.  I have been trying for over a week to write something meaningful for my blog, but have been dissatisfied with what I had written and deleted a total of seven drafts before finally figuring out what was bothering me so much.

I was depressed, severely.  I had no idea why and it was frustrating as all hell to find a way to articulate why being depressed made me feel annoyed and angry with myself.  After all, the rest of the holiday season went pretty smoothly.  I didn't have any major issues with my PTSD.  I didn't have any anger issues with family.  I really enjoyed my time that I did get to spend with family, despite my standing desire to avoid large family gatherings out of fear of my PTSD getting the better of me in those situations.  I refused to let my fear of the PTSD keep me from enjoying the company of family I don't get to see very often.

So, imagine my surprise when I woke up on January Second, depressed as all hell and fighting the urge to hide in a deep, dark hole for the better part of the month.  Why the hell am I still depressed?  It doesn't make any sense.  Why would I be depressed when everything went so well?

It took me until tonight to finally put two and two together.  It was the release of pent up stress from working in a store that experiences extremely high customer traffic.  Having to contend with large crowds, disgruntled and stressed co-workers, demanding customers, and substantially less sleep ratcheted up my stress level substantially.  It was the release of this pent up stress that triggered the depression.

So now, I have to claw my way back out of this funk so that I can focus on all of the things that matter to me most:  Family and Family.  I am thinking that the break from blogging, while necessary, deprived me of an essential release valve for my stress.

I have my first individual and group therapy sessions of the year tomorrow and I am really looking forward to getting back into that groove as well.  Maybe other reasons will present themselves during therapy.  I am certainly hoping that I can make a breakthrough tomorrow.  This depression is sucking the motivation out of me faster than I can recharge my batteries.

Am I the only one experiencing this?  I doubt it.  It would be very helpful to hear from you all on this matter.