Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “depression”
Wow! It’s been a hectic semester for me. I have a ton of things I want to write about and have fallen behind on my blog. Oh well – life happens. The good news is that the things that have made the semester hectic are generally good things. I’m feeling really lucky with how wonderful my life is right now. I’m a bit overloaded with work (in exchange for a light spring semester), but other than that, there is absolutely nothing I can complain about. So with that, on to my life update.
It’s been WAY too long since I’ve written a life update. I’ve been meaning to for a while, but every time I think about it I decide it’s not interesting enough. However, today I decided that’s stupid. I don’t really care if it’s boring. So here we go: an update on what I’m doing for work and how I’m doing with my depression.
The majority of my posts over the last few months have been scuba-related. I’ve written a lot about what I’ve done, but not a lot about why I’m doing it. I have a couple more posts about my PADI Divemaster course in Australia planned (here are Part 1 and Part 2), but before I fisnish those, I wanted to reflect a bit on what scuba diving means to me.
I’m really bad at falling asleep. This has been the case ever since I could read. When I was 6 or 7 I’d go under my covers with a flashlight and read after my parents tucked me in. I thought my parents couldn’t see it but of course they could. They didn’t mind though since they knew I was reading.
You may have noticed that I haven’t been writing much lately. I have plenty of material for What’s in that hole? but haven’t written any of it up or posted it. I’ve also been up to some interesting things this summer, but the only thing I wrote about was my trip to Belize, and that was two months ago. And, maybe most noticeably, I haven’t written anything on a truly personal level since… actually I don’t remember. (Edit: turns out it was this post five months ago.) But enough is enough. I promised to write not just when things are …
February 18, 2015 is the day that I checked into the hospital. I was partway through a fellowship in Washington, D.C. and when I went to work that day, the fellowship director (let’s call her AM) could tell something was wrong. It was a Wednesday, but it was the first day of work that week because Monday had been a holiday and Tuesday was a snow day. By that point, I hadn’t slept more than a few hours in 3 or 4 days and was in the midst of a full on breakdown.
Yesterday I made a decision that might have cost me millions of dollars. I don’t say that lightly; I was offered the opportunity to work with renowned scientists on something that has already received millions in grant funding and is already protected by a patent. Nothing in the business world is ever a sure thing, but this concept certainly has legs, to say the least.
Okay everyone, here we go. I have a plan. Well, kind of. It’s only for about 4 months and, as you’ll read below, it’s lacking in detail. But I don’t tend to plan that far ahead or in any detail (as you can tell from my impromptu Cozumel trip this week – more on that in a future post – and the fact that I quit my job with no backup option ready), so this is actually pretty good for me.
It’s been about 3 months since I quit my job. In that time, I’ve essentially pushed a reset button for my life. I’m remembering all the little things that give me joy, accepting and embracing all of my many quirks, and letting go of external pressures and expectations. And I’m enjoying every bit of it.
Exciting news! I wrote an article for SwimSwam about how athletes (and everybody else!) can help friends and teammates who have depression. Hopefully it helps keep the conversation about depression out in the open and gives some ideas to people who want to help their friends but worry that they’re doing it all wrong. Click here to read my article!
Hello friends! Glad those of you who prefer introspective content are still reading despite my rather glib posts lately. Actually, I’ve been planning this post for a couple of weeks, with the intention of writing something a bit more serious and personal – it’s just that serious posts take longer to write! But something happened yesterday that has made me want to write. So here we go.