Depression

Glol. I remember Charisma Man, Jesus fucking Christ he was a regular occurrence when I lived in Vietnam.

Putting a structure in place and adhering to it requires a level of self discipline I do not personally possess. Employment helps me quite a lot.

It's a really long story. The love of my life may have slipped through my fingers because I was too wrapped up in being a self immolating prick, and there's a real chance that she's gone gone - we're still talking and meeting, so it _might_ be repairable, but I have a sincere fear that she will move back to Canada in the not too distant future, or just can't heal where I'm concerned.

So it's not "everything" from an objective or external point of view. I'm getting back to being me, new job is going alright, I'm really working on me and trying to figure out how to love myself. But she was the one really, truly important element of my life and I was too goddamn late.

It all leaves me in a very torn state of mind. It has been a good 2 or 3 years since I felt this comfortable in my own skin, and that's immense, but my heart is breaking at the same time.

Yeah, I get you. I hope it works out for you. It's a bitter pill, losing love.

I had a really good relationship with an Italian woman when I lived in Greece. We'd been together for a year, her contract there was coming to an end and we were talking about moving to Belgium together. But she kept extending her contract and I was getting increasingly frustrated with my job in Greece and the country in general (the bureaucracy is nuts and the healthcare system is in the pits).

So I got offered a contract in NI and said, hey, is it cool if I go to NI for 6 months and then we move to Belgium? See, I really fucked up there. She said yes but what she really meant "Don't you fucking dare leave without me." I thought we understood each other and were pretty mature people, but really she was needing me right then and there and didn't want to be apart. What she really wanted was for me to move in with her in her flat in Greece, wait for her contract to finish and then move somewhere together.

Whereas I was like, yeah, I get offered a good job that will push my career prospects when we go to Belgium, it's only six months, we've both been around so we know it's not the end.

Anyway, she now lives back in Italy. I miss her a lot, while it lasted it was the best relationship of my life. Shame I fucked it up.

It me.

That said, I'm so bad with emotions. I start to type things then my brain's like NOPE so I delete everything.

It's happened 3 times tonight.

Convinced myself a while back that I had that avoidant thing, but then realised its frequently abbreviated to AVPD and I couldn't get past the Alien vs Predator connotations.

The video hovered in my Youtube recommended. I didn't want to watch it. I don't believe in trying to self diagnose.

Prefer the term 'authority', but will take expert.

I can be a defiant prick when the mood takes me, and since watching that I've been pushing against it

Most of us, one way or another.

Another week survived. Been really not doing great. We had two friends over yesterday, I was like a day old noodle, double whammy of depression and anxiety.

My ex-wife is in the UK, so I'll meet up with her in two weeks. I don't even know how I feel about it. I haven't seen her in six years.

I think I need to restart therapy. Maybe even change my medication, if only my GP gave me more than 5 minutes on the phone every two months.

The therapy didn't make everything better but it did help. I had plateaued so I stopped it in January 2021. I was pretty okay for a year but had a sharp dip in May and really been struggling since. I emailed my therapist and will start doing some sessions with him again.

I'm on Paroxetine 20mg. I started taking it in 2018. My psychiatrist said that I should stop after a year or 18 months at most but because I've been moving countries no one wanted to take responsibility to changing it. My current GP seems so overworked that I've even considered if I need to pay for a private psychiatrist. It's a low dosage and I've gone up occasionally when it's been the hardest but my anxiety gets much worse then.

Before I started taking this I had two others. I think the first was Fluoxetine (Prozac). I couldn't walk, seemed to really affect the major muscles. Then I had something else, which made it impossible to sleep. The current medication is a compromise, it's never been great but it's given me enough autonomy to have a life at least.

Mine has pretty much wrecked my week off and birthday, bah.