Apathy

Long time no update. Things have been both bad and good with me.

The good has been two wonderful new friends that I have made: Darin & Carlos. I know Darin from my first online game, Star Wars Galaxies, and he also plays World of Warcraft, as does his partner Carlos. They recently moved here from Berkeley, CA, due to Carlos getting a teaching job at St. Olaf college in Northfield, MN. (About 35 miles or so south of Minneapolis.)

They stayed with me their first weekend here, and I have seen them every weekend since so far. This past weekend was our third weekend together, I think. From the minute I first met them, there was an instant “click”. I can’t quite explain how it feels to be around them. It just feels so good. They are so warm and friendly and just out-and-out nice. I have completely and totally fallen for both of them. Not in a romantic sense, mind you. They feel oddly familial to me. I have barely met them and I already love them both and can’t imagine my life without them. Sadly, Carlos’s job is only for nine months and then they are moving again, so they won’t be here for long. I know I shouldn’t dwell on that part, and I’m not for the most part. I’m just trying to enjoy every chance I get to spend with them.

It’s led me to wonder…do I only allow myself to get close to people who I know won’t be around? John is the person I am closest to besides them, and he’s six hours away. It seems like with everyone else I have barriers of varying degrees. I don’t know if it’s because of the kind of people John, Darin, & Carlos are, or because I feel freer opening myself to them because I know there is or will be physical distance between us.

As for the bad, it’s the usual story: My depression. I don’t know where it came from again, but it’s been really bad lately. I have isolated myself more and more. If it weren’t for Darin & Carlos I wouldn’t do anything at all, and even they have to push me a bit sometimes. (I’m really glad they do.) Left to my own devices, I would leave my apartment to go to work and that’s it. It hasn’t gotten bad enough to cause me to miss any work, but I have a hard time focusing and am not getting nearly enough work done anymore. I’m constantly behind, which only adds to the stress.

I don’t even feel like meeting anyone anymore. (Romance-wise, I mean.) I don’t feel lonely per se, and I don’t feel sad either. Mostly I just feel numb. Everything feels sort of “gray”. Not all the time though. When I’m actually doing stuff it’s fine, and I have lots of fun. It’s the getting me to do stuff that’s hard. It seems like I could have a blast going out for 30 days in a row, and yet the 31st day I still wouldn’t want to go out and would have to practically be forced. It’s so weird. I just have no desire to do anything anymore.

The other thing driving me nuts seems to mostly bother me when I’m at work. I spend the entire day with this feeling in the pit of my stomach that something is wrong. It’s there right now, in fact. It’s this awful anxious feeling that I don’t recall having before. Some days I wake up with it, and some days it just shows up. I don’t recall ever having it on days that I don’t work though.

I think the worst part of it all is that I don’t have any dreams or aspirations anymore. I live in a constant “now” state, just trying to get through each day. If someone asks me what my future holds, I honestly can’t see it. It’s just blank to me. I think the fact that, to be perfectly honest, I don’t really care at this point whether I live or die has a lot to do with that. I don’t mean that I want to kill myself or anything, just that my life doesn’t really matter to me. I am filled to overflowing with apathy.

I know there are many things I should be doing to fix this. The top choice, of course, being therapy. I still have an incredible reticence towards therapy that I don’t know I’ll ever really understand. The whole thought of going to therapy just makes me ill. On top of that, they recently changed our insurance at work, and I really can’t afford to go now. We no longer have co-pays, now we have to meet a $2000 deductible before the insurance kicks in on anything. I really can’t afford to be spending the full cost of therapy right now.

One thing I started doing that I hope helps is exercising. I’m starting slow, about 30 minutes per day on the exercise bike, and I’ve been doing it for a week now. So far I don’t feel any different, but I hope that changes soon. I’m heavier than I’ve ever been in my entire life, and while I feel no real urge to change that (there’s that apathy again), I’m forcing myself anyway hoping that along the way maybe I’ll start to care.

That leads to the weirdest part of this whole apathy thing. When I really think about it, I don’t want to change. I’m working on it because it seems like something I should want to do, not because I really want to, if that makes any sense at all.

I’m thinking maybe when I start school back up again in October, things will change a little. I’ll be busier again, and forced to be around people. Plus, I’ll be engaging my brain a bit more than I have been.

Well, that’s enough of this incredibly long entry. Things aren’t as bad as I may have made them sound. At least I’m finally admitting I have a problem rather than hiding my head in the sand about it. Now I just have to do something about it, but I feel like I’ve taken the first few baby steps. Only time will tell.