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.
Gerry May
1/8/2013 03:16:24 pm
Hi Max. I just want to say I think working in a high volume department around the holiday would stress anyone out so I can only imagine how hard it was for you. I went to get a few last minute things at the PX here and I was ready to freak out. I dont know how my son got through his shopping but he did and I know he was stressed out like crazy but we made it through. I ended up spending several hours at church Christmas eve and also on New Years eve as well as an additional 4 nights of special services on the 2-4th. I think this gave me a boost to start the New Year out better than usual. Venting is a good way to release some stress. I know you havent posted in awhile. I hope you have gained more clarification of your feelings , which is good. We are always here to listen. I was totally stressed out for pretty much no reason. Self pity maybe over my crappy job which made it a very poor Christmas for me. Ive been applying for jobs everywhere for months and no luck as of yet. It gets discouraging but I keep trying. Ive never had this hard of a time to get a job. I came here to help my son leaving 2 jobs behind from working like 45-60 hrs a week to getting this job I have now which started out close to 20 hrs a week. They said I would get more but it didnt turn out that way. We are now down to less than 15 hrs a week and its killing me. I feel I let my son down and its shameful. All I know is I can never give up and the first job that offers more than 25 hrs a week im jumping on it. ok enough whining for now. Sorry about that. I hope your group meeting goes well. And never give up either. God Bless.
First, Happy New Year...glad you're here. :) Comments are closed.
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Max HarrisAs I continue my life with PTSD, I will share my challenges and discoveries on this blog. Archives
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