On losing oneself

Being home with a depression made me think, I remember back when I started at my work and I loved it, I was so happy and life felt so good. This was my chance to be the one I wanted to be and do something I loved. My future looked really bright and I was going to make great things. Somewhere along the line this all changed. I started feeling like my work sucked, or more correctly that I sucked at my work. The work I once loved had turned into something I forced myself to do. I felt insecure and that I had no idea what I was doing. I couldn’t get my brain to focus and I panicked by the thought of others seeing the things I did and feared how they must think I was hopeless, just like I did. I remember blaming the fact that I was tired, the fact that I never had the time or energy to grow and learn new stuff.

At this time I didn’t think this had any correlation to the fact that my other big interest also wasn’t fun; that my beloved horse, Nemah, had turned into an obligation and that most of the time being with her I was stressed and in a bad mood. The riding never went well and I couldn’t even analyse why it didn’t work. Nemah was also in a bad mood, didn’t want to be with me and seemed to do whatever she could to annoy me. I was just so tired and felt no motivation at all. I even considered selling her, something that made me feel even more guilt. When thinking about it I can’t think of anything that made me feel happy. Not even the trip to a luxurious place in the Caribbean; all I felt was “it’s going to be nice to rest a couple of weeks”.

All this negativity spiralled down and down until I hit rock bottom.

When I finally got myself to a doctor I thought I needed to work part time for a week or two, just to get some time to rest. The doctor immediately sent me home and made sure I didn’t go back to work for the rest of the month. That month has now turned into two months and I’m still at home.

Now I feel my brain slowly returning to itself and I’ve started thinking and wondering who I really am. I have lost my trust in myself, I don’t know what thoughts are my own and which of them comes from the depression. It scares me not being able to trust my own mind, my feelings and my thoughts. I am not sure if my feelings are my own and I don’t know if I should try to distinguish me from my depression. It annoys me that I feel I have ruined so much in relationships with others, both friends, coworkers and with Nemah. It hurts me to think of how much I’ve missed out on being this tired and I feel so bad that I didn’t listen to my body and mind screaming at me to take all the signs seriously.

Right now I am just trying to get back to some sort of baseline. Trying to figure out what I should do, where to go from here, how to find a route back to being me - the one I know is in there somewhere. I want to get back to feeling positive, enjoying my work and my horse and stop being afraid all the time. I want to be able to do things without worry. I’d love to be able to do something planned without feelings of panic and I would love to have the energy to actually start experiencing things again. Right now I guess I have to accept the fact that I am not there yet and it’s a long road to get back to being me.