Feeling low
Lately I've found it difficult to string together words at work or with friends let alone for a thoughtful blog post. I keep meaning to write, but fatigue has left me no choice but to crawl into bed most nights around 9 PM after doing the bare minimum each day: wake up, work, exercise, clean or run errands, and feed myself. So, I'm just going to write about my slump.
Considering everything going on in my life right now, it seems I should be happy. I met my sister last month during probably the best trip of my life. I'm so close to publishing my first-author paper so that I can defend my dissertation in a couple months and finally finish this endless slog that is a PhD. I have supportive friends both near and far who make me smile. It seems like I could never be better.
But I'm not. Every day is a struggle mentally and or physically.
It should be said that not all of the emotions I'm currently experiencing are new. I typically feel quite down during the summer. I'm fully convinced that I experience seasonal depression... during the summer. Unlike most people in my city, I don't have a car. So, I have to brace sweltering conditions nearly every day as I walk or cycle everywhere. I love spending time outdoors, but it feels oppressive. I often have to shower twice per day. I'm more easily annoyed.
It's not just the season though, unfortunately.
I slowly feel myself identifying with my suspected disease, endometriosis, more and more. Not long after returning from vacation, pelvic discomfort greeted me once again. For 2.5 weeks. Birth control pills have thankfully given me my life back so that I'm not relegated to laying on my floor useless for most of the month, but I can tell that they're not a complete fix.
Of course, they're also changing my brain chemistry. Everything seemed good for a little bit, but things have gone downhill since returning to the US. The extreme fatigue that I blamed on jet lag persists. Unfortunately for me, it was accompanied by brain fog that made me feel genuinely dumber. I feel like I've aged by fifty years, collapsing in bed by 9 PM and some days even sooner than that to sleep 9-10 hours only to still feel groggy for most of the next day. I have little energy for work let alone for my hobbies.
I recently passed through an extreme depressive phase that I also attribute to the birth control. I'm not an unemotional person, but it is unheard of for me to cry for five days in a row. Sure, some of it is despair and helplessness. But some of it was triggered by minor inconveniences at work. I discovered that the tears felt more cathartic next to a microscope in the basement of my university's biology building rather than on my apartment's hardwood floor.
Every tiny thing feels like something huge. I know I'll finish the experiments for my paper revisions in time so that it's published, though it feels Sisyphean as some things continue to fail. I'm moving in less than a month and can't wrap my head around getting rid of things and physically moving my stuff even though I'm doing so for my own good.
When I do manage to find some energy, I can't resist reading more information about endometriosis. Even more before and since my surgical consultation earlier this week. And I'm sure this adds more stress and exhausts me even more, but I can't help it. It's in my nature. In such a fragile state, I am on the cusp of making a big decision (and may in fact already have). For some reason I still like freaking myself out and deciphering all the ways an excision could go wrong, imagining myself in the shoes of all the Redditors who describe how much they regret having done this because their endometriosis returned quickly and maybe even worse than pre-surgery. I know the Internet is a haven for those with negative stories though. Those who feel better are out living their lives. Why can't I just stop?
Part of me still wonders if it's all in my head. Not that I was and have been in pain more than I should be. More that maybe I should learn to live with this. After all, the birth control helps. Or maybe I should give it more time even though it's nearing the three-month mark and I find these monthly episodes difficult to tolerate. Maybe I'm just a wimp.
I like to think all this will pass. That things will cool off literally and existentially. I hope I can return to this blog post and remember all this as an overreaction. I'm trying to remind myself that seasons are not just for the weather. The problem is I easily become consumed by things: things I adore, things I want, things that plague me. All this is no exception.