It’s odd how depression can set in.  Sometimes it’s a gradual, creeping feeling.  And I will say that I’ve noticed myself turning inwards, slowing down, sliding into the gray a bit for the last few days, but nothing major.

Other times it’s an avalanche of bleak, which is where we’re at now.  Today, all at once, getting out of bed was a major effort.  The things that normally make me laugh are bouncing off of me without a reaction, or worse the awareness that I’m not finding them funny is making me sink lower.

For the most part I’m doing a good job at work of wearing the mask, but I can feel the effort it takes.  It’s not even exactly sad, it’s like I’m standing outside the circle of everything I enjoy.  I feel down because I’m left out (which, incidentally, I’m not actually left out) but I also feel oddly detached.  I want to cry, not because things are making me upset, but that I’m upset I can’t feel “correctly”.

It’s manifesting in other weird ways, too.  I’m suddenly worried about the cost of living closer to work, and how much apartment I can afford on my own.  There’s no existing threat to my living arrangement, but a little corner of my brain is sure I need to find something and soon.  Oddly it’s fixating on one bedroom or studio situations, as if my husband were suddenly about to disappear and I would be looking alone.  I’m panicking over a situation that doesn’t exist.

I need to wash my hair, I have forgotten to make my February hair appointment and need to do that, I have a work project that needs love, I have personal development at work that needs attention, I’ve got gaming I could be doing… and no drive.  Not for any of it.

My rational brain knows this is brain weasels.  My weasel infected brain doesn’t care what rational brain has to say, it’s never all that productive anyway so why doesn’t it just take it’s judgmental brain-self out of here.