Past Depressions
2025-09-26
Last night I had a tough time sleeping and couldn't get to bed until about 4 AM. I still managed to wake up at 8 AM though and I started my day without feeling tired. I managed to workout and all that as well. Then my afternoon slump came and now I'm back at the Starbucks here to write yet another entry for today. Unfortunately, I don't feel like I have any sharp insights today and just feel rather measly and dull. I don't feel bad, but I wouldn't say I feel excellent either. I think that I'm in a default mode: not elated but happy enough to not be driven to murder or suicide. Lovely.
I can't really share anything super interesting either. Well, I was looking a little bit into CNC machining earlier today and that looks like a really fun job. I've come to enjoy computer programming and I think that CNC machines are really cool. Funnily enough, I never really thought about pursuing it as a career until just today. I don't know too much about it, but I do remember learning how to use one in an elective engineering class I did in middle school. I remember having a fun time making the designs and learning how to properly use the software to make curves and other precise cuts. It was a good experience and I think back then I was too mesmerized with playing saxophone to really consider it as a career or anything like that. Back then, I didn't care about jobs or making money or anything like that—well, I still don't, but it feels a lot less cool to say that at 27 versus 13. Ah well, life happens the way it does for reasons I can't explain.
Still though, this line of thought does make me feel reflective about the past. I feel a strong desire to think on my motivations back in the day and see where I was going with it all. Thinking about the past is a tough thing for me. I still remember when things started to feel 'off' mentally. My freshman year of college, I flunked a calculus test. It wasn't the end of the world, though. I had failed tests before and still been able to come back from them. But when I flunked this test, it set something off that I now know far too intimately. The depression hit me as if a noxious gas began to flow through my body. I remembered thinking to myself that it was just shock from seeing the bad test grade and that I'd feel better if I blew off some steam or forgot about it. It lasted for about 3 months and it made everything so much worse. I still don't know how I managed to take all of my finals that semester and get a good GPA.
All I can say now though is that it was far from the last time my mind would go back to that place. Every time, it got harder and harder to keep it at bay and it made me do things I didn't think I would do. I had become so much more avoidant—depression episodes made my social battery's capacity go down to near-zero. It wasn't that social interactions weren't enjoyable anymore, but that they would cause me immense pain, frustration, and exhaustion. I can normally get along with others just fine, but when I'm depressed, I usually have a hard time hiding it. Because it's hard to hide it, that's why I isolate myself. Most people don't understand chronic depression, and so it's hard to make them see what it's like from that point of view. These days, you can tell someone you're depressed and they'll generally be understanding and sympathetic. But the problem is when you have to tell someone that a dozen times a year; it puts strain on most relationships because it's hard for someone to garner an extended level of empathy like that. Most people aren't wired for that kind of empathy and that makes sense—the diminishing returns don't make it feasible.
At this point in my life, I don't expect people to have the patience for long stints of depression, so I try not to make them feel bad for not being able to do anything about it. This is why I write: the best person I can talk to about these kinds of things is myself.