Looking at living with depression

I was diagnosed with dysthymia (also known as persistent depressive disorder) around five or five years back. This disorder is characterized by a low mood happening for at least two years combined with two other symptoms of depression. In general, I've discovered I have fairly awful fatigue, I can never get enough sleep, concentration doesn't come easy to me, and I have been proven to be indecisive from time to time. I have also found that I tend to struggle with feelings of hopelessness or not being incredibly interested in things in addition to irritability that can cause working in the professional challenging from time to time. Now I'm feeling particularly unmotivated to write anything, and so I figured it'd be a perfect moment to write about my mental illness!

Being Tired All The Time Sucks

Saying It out loud like that probably does not surprise anyone. However, in day to day life, I think that it can be simple to forget about it. I put a fairly ambitious goal to write one post daily in December. 1 thing that I forgot about if setting this aim is that there are some days where all I could do is the bare minimum to skate by because I am physically exhausted. Today, unfortunately, ended up being one of the days so this article is going to be the bare minimum for me to test" wrote a post today" in my inner todo list.

I Believe this impact has become much greater as my scope of responsibility has improved. When I was only accountable for myself at work it was not a big deal when I was having an off day. Now I'm juggling two projects while having others look to me to get insight into our product, Android best practices, the way to do something in Kotlin, and other things. When I'm fighting back fatigue it's no longer impacting only me but it affects others that rely on me. To sum it up, being drained stinks, and I think that it causes a feedback loop that makes me more depressed.

Lack Of Success From The Professional Life Sucks

I Assume that this will hold true for all professional settings, but I am a software engineer by trade so my personal story will draw from these experiences. There always seems to be something new coming out which I should be studying about or studying. There are times where I really do believe incredibly motivated and that I will catch up on a lot. The majority of the time though is spent battling with this feeling of anxiety and why can not I just be sleeping instead, so pulling it together can take a lot of energy.

I have found I'm prompted by the lowest hanging fruit so than large tasks; I presume that this gives me a feeling of accomplishment. This implies larger and more running jobs tend to be de-prioritized for items that are simple to finish such as responding to Slack or clearing out my inbox. Just today I was working on finishing a characteristic once I was thinking of sponsoring a local event. I instantly jumped on the message to discuss the details and was instantly drained when we weren't able to come to an agreement. Some days I wish I could just close Slack, switch off my phone, and concentrate, however, I don't believe the world in 2018 is built well for people who want to disconnect.

Being Indecisive Has Caused Plenty Of Problems

Perhaps not  Being able to generate a decision and stick to it can have some dramatic impacts. 1 difficulty I face is not being able to unwind after work or properly destress on weekends. Previously I would play video games however I've found just deciding which sport to play is a major job (first world problems, I know), so I typically end up sitting on YouTube for a few hours until I finally work up enough energy to play a game for just a little bit.

Another Recent instance has to do with career improvement. I had been confronted with the option of applying to become an Engineering Manager or stay the course as a Senior Engineer and continue to trek towards becoming a Principal Engineer someday. Through a great deal of indecisiveness and a basic feeling of dread (what if I'm a shitty supervisor?), I ended up staying the course and passing on the opportunity to interview for the position. Was this a good career move? Likely not, most high-level technology positions need management in there even though I had been a dreadful manager I might have constantly jumped back over while still having the term supervisor in my resume.

Depression Is Not Fun

I guess the point I am trying to create on this article (besides being able to say I wrote something today) is that depression is not fun. There are some times where I flat out don't have the capability to perform more Than the bare minimum and there is not any good explanation in the present world To support this. While my present manager likely would be fine with me Posting"Hey everybody, I am feeling super depressed today, going to take the day to sleep" In the early Slack, I think they're the anomaly. I think I'm  Waiting to get a world where emotional disorders are treated like bodily  Ones; it'd be nice if using a bad day mentally was respected in the same manner as someone that captured the flu.

Other links:

- https://www.providencejournal.com/lifestyle/20200227/conquering-dysthemia-is-daily-battle
- https://www.valdostadailytimes.com/news/local_news/isolated-challenges-dealing-with-the-mental-health-of-social-distancing/article_9563afb0-5769-5b1e-afa6-258642650f03.html
- https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/the-lowdown-on-low-grade-depression