I'm in my last year of school at one of the best universities in Canada, with a job waiting for me when I graduate. I have a fantastic (long distance) boyfriend whom I love to pieces and vice versa. I'm on anti-depressants and spent the last two days in bed. One of these is not like the other.
I know these types of questions tend to run long, so I'll try to keep this as concise as I can.
Personality: I'm almost a stereotypical nerd - I'm a little introverted, a little cynical, I don't party and rarely drink, and I'm very much a realist. I place a very high premium on being rational and logical and I tend to be very introspective to the point of being stuck in my head a little too much. Some of my friends might describe me as a typical overachiever. I'm on good terms with my parents, who are divorced, though we are not close. They, and my younger sister, are the only family I'm in regular contact with.
Background: I got good grades in a very rigorous academic program in high school and was involved in a lot of activities and jobs ont he side, but I always had the sense that I could've done so much more/better if I'd just had a little bit more discipline. I worked hard enough enough to get one of the better scholarships my university offered, but none of the national awards I applied to. I had a really hard time transitioning to university and making friends, and that combined with what I now suspect is a bout of depression resulted in a pretty sharp drop in my grades.
I wasn't enjoying my program and decided to throw myself into extracurriculars and pick up a second major to meet people. I got burned pretty hard by some of the drama in some of the clubs I joined (including a weird emotionally abusive almost-stalker situation), but I also made some fantastic friends.
I was also overloading myself. I took on some pretty time-consuming leadership roles and that, combined with my double-major, was taking a toll. There were weeks where I was sleeping 20-30 hours over the entire week. Over the summers I was working full-time or more to save up for next year. By my third year I'd also picked up a part time job. Still, I looked at people around me, and thought I should've been doing more. People were only impressed with what I was doing because they didn't know how lazy I really was.
I'd always considered myself as having a strong sense of responsibility and duty and rarely reneged on promises, to friends or otherwise. By the second term of third year, I started missing shifts at my job...not even because I'd overslept, though that accounted for a lot of it, but simply because I was awake and couldn't bring myself to get out of bed. Needless to say, that relationship ended badly.
Okay, I said, I need to recharge. I set things up so that I would only be responsible for my classes, and a part time job TA-ing, for my fourth year. I spent the summer interning for the company I will be working for, while doing a bit of web development work on the side. Despite really good feedback on my job performance, I still felt like I was muddling through the job, and people only thought I was good because they didn't really know me. (Yes, I'm aware of 'imposter syndrome'.)
Current situation: I developed a habit of spontaneously crying over nothing, sleeping at irregular times even when I had work the next day, picking fights with my boyfriend, and just being grouchy in general. I was in a different city from where I go to school, and decided to wait until I got back to school to see someone about it.
Well, I'm back to school, with barely any stress or expectations. I've been on an SSRI called cipralex for three weeks, which has helped stem the spontaneously-bursting-into-tears thing, and I've booked a therapy appointment for the first week of November (the first slot that was open).
Here's the problem: I still can't get out of bed. I've lost 7 lbs in the past month because my appetite's just disappeared (this after having struggled for a year to lose weight through as much exercise as I could fit into my schedule). I haven't done any of my readings, and I've skipped a lot of class. I just let a deadline pass today without even bothering to look at the assignment. I have never in my life failed to submit an assignment. I have another essay due on Thursday and I spent most of the past 24 hours sleeping, or reading Metafilter on my phone. I've never been more apathetic in my life, and it scares the shit out of me, because I don't deal well with apathy.
What the hell do I do to get my butt in gear?
NB: I'm reading Feeling Good, and finding CBT less than helpful so far, but I will keep reading. My boyfriend of a year knows about most of this and has been totally supportive, but he works full time at a demanding job and there's only so much you can do from a distance. I have friends here who know about this, but I've been mostly avoiding them because I don't want to worry them.
posted by anonymous to health & fitness (31 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
This is not about getting your butt in gear. This is about your brain chemistry. It has affected your thinking more than you even know.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 5:41 PM on October 6, 2010 [11 favorites]