It's not been a great week to be in my mind. You can't control how or when or for what reason depression will hit you, but it's been getting me down somewhat recently for a variety of reasons. The events I outlined yesterday are one contributing factor, but as I said there, they aren't directly affecting me and thus I have to think that the exaggerated feelings of disappointment and upset I have been feeling may be caused by, rather than be the cause of, depression. Or perhaps there's a whole mess of contributing factors.
I don't know. And thinking about it inevitably doesn't help.
One thing that is getting me down a bit at the moment is how far away I am feeling from all my friends. I live in the middle of nowhere a long way away from pretty much everyone I know, and thousands of miles away from the people I talk to literally every day — friends, coworkers, confidantes. I have Andie in my life, a fact which I am incredibly thankful for every day, but that unfortunately doesn't stop the occasional feelings of loneliness and disconnection.
It's partly my fault in some cases, of course. When you have disparate, unconnected friendship groups scattered around the globe, it's difficult to keep up with all of them. (Hell, it's difficult to keep up with disparate, unconnected friendship groups in the same city sometimes.) Some necessarily fall by the wayside as a sort of natural atrophy. In many cases, this gradual contraction of your worldwide friendship network is a sign that one or all of you have evolved and changed from the people you were when you first knew each other, and you're just going in directions too different to stay together. In others, yes, it can simply be laziness, but mental states play a role in all this, too, particularly if you struggle with social anxiety as I do — sometimes even the prospect of hanging out with a longtime friend can be terrifying if you haven't seen them for ages. What if you have nothing to talk about?
Mostly, though, my daily life, my work and my hobbies have led me to the position I am in now, where the vast majority (though not all) of the people that I would consider my closest friends live many thousands of miles away across the Atlantic Ocean, and in some cases even further afield than that. It's great that I can talk to these people every day thanks to various forms of social media and other online happy funtimes, but sometimes all you want to do is get some people together in the same room, play some couch co-op (or couch competition games like the rather wonderful Hidden in Plain Sight), play some board games, eat some pizza/curry/Chinese/other takeaway goodness and simply, you know chill out together. It happens all too rarely these days.
Ah well. Not a lot I can do about it right now at 1am in the dark in Chippenham, is there? Someday I'll buy you all a drink. Just probably not all at the same time.
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Hi Pete, There must be something in the air at the moment – way over there and way over here! lol It's definitely depression time. The gloomy weather, not to mention massive storms we've had here in Perth this last week or so – cyclonic winds etc – may be contributing to it at our end. What's it like over there?
You expressed that loneliness, isolation, friendships evolving in different directions thing really well – and I imagine precisely as most people around the world, regardless of location, experience at some time regularly. So, trite as it may sound, know that you are not alone in this, and so are NEVER alone. 🙂 You can be surrounded by people and still be in exactly the same isolated mode as you are now.
On the whole I am really gregarious, but as it takes heaps of energy to be like that, to hold conversations with people and be 'up' while in their presence, I spend heaps of time on my own at home. I am constantly saying when in the car and in the shops that I wish all the people would get off the road or out of my way until I go home – then they can come back. They are noisy, intrusive, maniacs on the road – either by hooning or the opposite, driving at least 10 ks under the speed limit in the right hand fast lane. Classic Bah Humbug moments.
I keep saying to my Pete that I just want to get away from them all to a small seaside town up the coast where I can get peace and quiet. It's so strange – I used to be such a party animal.
As for having a drink some time – make mine a flat white, in a mug, no froth! – please. 😀 Why not pop over here and I'll make us a cuppa right now – it's one of my fortes. Jud
PS and completely left field – I've been meaning to ask you – I notice that you don't write copyright beneath your blogs. I wasn't doing so till I added my creative writing blog and thought I should, and so did to everything. But I assume that it's copyright anyway because it's dated on your blog site. Is that right? Should I go through my existing blogs and remove the (C) bit?
And if someone reblogs your work do you automatically get notified that they have done so? I don't mind if people pass on my PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS blog info as it will help more people that way, but will it give a link back to my site as well? When I reblogged your work, I asked permission the first time and notified you the other times, plus added a Link to your site in the blog each time – the right and courteous thing to do, I thought. Was it necessary – did you get notification anyway, apart from the one I gave you?
PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS Link:
http://judsgamereviews.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=22&action=edit
I know that feeling well. *hugs*