Dreamless and Depressed

OK… so I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Why am I feeling so depressed?

Well, let’s see. I just turned 48. When I was young I had so many dreams. I was going to go to college, have an exciting career, fall in love, get married and raise a family, maybe do some traveling and see the world for myself. As I struggle with  my illness through my twenties, even thirties, I still thought I would do all those things. When I turned 40 and was no closer to being able to do any of those things, I began to doubt I ever would. As the years continue to tick by, it becomes more and more obvious all those things are out. I missed out on life! This damn illness robbed me of having a life!

As it sunk in that some of those things weren’t going to happen, I downsized my dreams. Not all at once, but little by little. To compensate for losing the “big stuff”, I added new dreams – ones that seemed smaller, more manageable. For example, I was going to hike the Appalachian Trail. But every smaller dream I chased eluded me just as the big ones had.

Finally all I had left were small dreams. Things like fixing up my house, for example. Surely that was reachable? I really believed it was! I had a plan! Money was the only thing holding me back, but I knew how to fix that. I would give up having a vehicle and live a more healthy walking lifestyle. That would leave plenty of room in the budget for home repairs, over a period of time. But alas, it seems even this is not to be.  I have failed to manage the walking lifestyle. I’m fine with day to day errands about town. I even enjoy it. But I just cannot find a way to get to medical/therapy appointments in the next town, 15 miles distant. It’s too far to walk. I tried bicycling but since it is 15 miles of steep hills that took too much out of me. With assistance I tried to get comfortable using the only semblance of public transportation we have, a government subsidized service to get the disabled and elderly to medical appointments. But the overhead in terms of phone calls for scheduling is too much. Reliability of the service is low. They left me stranded 15 miles from home the first time out! I just can’t handle it. So it seems I will have no choice but to buy a vehicle. Ownership and operating costs are so high I can say goodbye to any hope of fixing up my home. Which leaves the question what do I do 10 years from now (if I’m still alive) when this old place starts literally falling down around me?

It seems I am destined to live the rest of my days alone, isolated, under-achieving. Basically just existing, taking up space. Blah. No wonder I’m depressed.

I figured I could lift my spirits if I finished some long neglected projects around home… the aborted home improvement project from last year, re-taking the half acre clearing I created two years ago (which nature has been busy filling), doing some minor antenna work, and so on. Money wasn’t a deal breaker on any of those so it was just a matter of getting it done, right? Maybe.

After two days picking a little at projects here and there, today I decided to get started in earnest.  I had been working about three hours when the “attack” hit. All of a sudden I felt acutely weak shaky, slightly nauseated and a bit disoriented. The world took on sort of a surreal quality, as though I and it were completely disconnected. I’ve written about these attacks before. They started six years ago. To date no reason has been found. Today’s episode was a bad one. As soon as I realized what was happening, I dropped everything and headed for the house. But, too weak and dizzy to walk, I fell and had to crawl the rest of the way. It has been several hours now, and while I have returned to normal mentally, my body is still weak and a bit shaky.

I will get up every morning and try to work as long as I can. If these attacks keep occurring, progress will be slow. This doesn’t do much for my depression. I get my mood up enough to devise a self-help plan only to be physically unable to move on it!