This is weird for me! I've been tracking it but I've been depressed since Friday. This is not unknown for me, but it is unusual. It usually accompanies my pregnancies and I'm not pregnant (just had my period, coincidentally or not on Friday!)
I think this could be hormonal. It is likely exacerbated by "life stress". We're not ill and we're not out of work. But we've been helping kids with distance learning since March (as have all of you) and we're social distancing and everything has been going great. But it is a lot of work. There is a lot of family strife going on with our stance on social distancing. We are feeling political strife too. And empathy for all the things I'm reading about. Though this has gone on for months now and its like it JUST hit me and I'm really struggling.
It came on acutely. I feel awful. I am grouchy. I'm feeling discouraged. I don't want to try. I'm not eating healthy. I'm stressed and nothing sounds fun. I'm having trouble sleeping.
I'm used to being happy pretty much all the time. Except for brief periods of time when I've had a bout of mood disorder (maybe 2 times and each pregnancy in the past twenty years). With each of these, it continued on for a brief period of time and then it passed. Life was gentler to me than it currently is.
I really hate that I'm grouchy with the kids and DH. I guess it is easy not to be grouchy when you are just happy!
So I'm trying to figure out how to dig deep on this one. How do I hold it together when I'm falling apart? And please don't laugh about the fact that it is only 3 days. This is a long time of feeling bad. I'm tracking it.
My best friends and support system are experiencing there own difficulties. My sister's anxiety is on the rise so I can't unload on her and my DH is having his own crisis. I feel like I can't complain to anyone, nor do I know if it would help?
How do I get past this? At what point would you consider it to be something that you need to seek treatment for?
I anticipate that much of the "life stress" i'm experiencing will keep going through most of the next year.
Would love advice.