This week I had a new round of funding come through for counseling, and was able to get another professional viewpoint on what my brain is doing.
Counseling is an odd thing. I rarely come out 'knowing' something new, yet every time I leave, it's with new insight and understanding.
This week, we discussed my inability to take in new things. For the last several years, I haven't been able to concentrate on anything I'm not already familiar with. I struggle to do more than skim the surface on anything that needs to establish new neural pathways. This is one of the 'classic' signs of Depression.
Which has left me with an entertainment world full of 're-runs'.
This isn't a new thing for me. Looking back, I frequently would get to points where I struggled with new things, and my bookshelves showed the proof of my retreat, between the shiny new spines and creamy new pages of exciting new authors, there were the cracked spines proving innumerable re-reads, the yellowing pages of books that I carried around with me for years. The pages I used to hide from the world. With the loss of my hard-copy books, my Kindle has become my book blankie.
I retreat into familiar tv, re-watching beloved shows, instead of discovering new ones. There are shows I can recite almost word for word, shows I re-watch when the world is too hard. Shows that may have new episodes, but have a cast I've known for years. Despite the recommendation of trusted friends for new shows, I have zero interest, zero enthusiasm, to create an attachment to a new story.
Movies too, I can watch sequels and re-boots; new movies, are just too hard.
After all this talking about it with my counselor, I have to acknowledge that it makes me zone out of conversations that touch on things I don't have a 'link' to already. That I become oblivious to others' excitement. That Depression causes this inability to connect, is upsetting. There are people I WANT to connect with, people I WANT to have engaging conversations with, people who, thanks to the Depression squatting in my head; think I don't care about anything they have to say.
I care, I do. I'm trying to find ways to build new pathways.
Building new pathways is really hard, and I'm tired. All the time.
Derri.
Counseling is an odd thing. I rarely come out 'knowing' something new, yet every time I leave, it's with new insight and understanding.
This week, we discussed my inability to take in new things. For the last several years, I haven't been able to concentrate on anything I'm not already familiar with. I struggle to do more than skim the surface on anything that needs to establish new neural pathways. This is one of the 'classic' signs of Depression.
Which has left me with an entertainment world full of 're-runs'.
This isn't a new thing for me. Looking back, I frequently would get to points where I struggled with new things, and my bookshelves showed the proof of my retreat, between the shiny new spines and creamy new pages of exciting new authors, there were the cracked spines proving innumerable re-reads, the yellowing pages of books that I carried around with me for years. The pages I used to hide from the world. With the loss of my hard-copy books, my Kindle has become my book blankie.
I retreat into familiar tv, re-watching beloved shows, instead of discovering new ones. There are shows I can recite almost word for word, shows I re-watch when the world is too hard. Shows that may have new episodes, but have a cast I've known for years. Despite the recommendation of trusted friends for new shows, I have zero interest, zero enthusiasm, to create an attachment to a new story.
Movies too, I can watch sequels and re-boots; new movies, are just too hard.
After all this talking about it with my counselor, I have to acknowledge that it makes me zone out of conversations that touch on things I don't have a 'link' to already. That I become oblivious to others' excitement. That Depression causes this inability to connect, is upsetting. There are people I WANT to connect with, people I WANT to have engaging conversations with, people who, thanks to the Depression squatting in my head; think I don't care about anything they have to say.
I care, I do. I'm trying to find ways to build new pathways.
Building new pathways is really hard, and I'm tired. All the time.
Derri.
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