| 11 mar 2002 ok. it's hard to type right now (spliting headache), but i feel like i owe you guys an explanation of what has happened in the last four days. basically, starting thursday, and for the entire weekend, i had a severe depressive episode. i mean, i've always thought that i've been a little down for the past few years, but i just thought it was about adjusting to life post-college. the first time that stands out in my head was at jeremy and kate's wedding back in 1999, when i was just sitting there at the edge of the dance floor, looking listless. i remember jay telling me he could get me some anti-depressants. but i got worse by many orders of magnitude during the last four-five days, to the point where i was at the brink of giving up. i can't tell you how many ridiculously morbid thoughts i had throughout the course of the weekend (starting thursday night). complete and utter despair may seem like an extreme thought to people who don't know how it feels, but when things are bad, even the craziest and more insane thoughts make perfect sense. anyways, i was all prepared this morning to storm into the office and announce that i was going to take an indefinite leave of absence. i spent the morning straightening out my medical insurance in preparation for getting some serious psychiatric help. the world is full of people in this kind of need, so the earliest appointment (barring checking myself into the emergency room) was wednesday, so that's when i'm seeing a professional. i was actually feeling pretty good for the first time in almost a week, and i was almost ready to shrug off the weekend as "just another episode," but i can feel some of the despair coming back, so i dunno. it's not over just yet. there's not much more i want to say, except that i am pretty disappointed in myself. i used to be such a solid guy, but apparently ever since i started working, stress has taken its toll on me. i guess school (even at a place like stanford) always came easy to me, but the rigors of a steady job (at startup companies no less) is something that i am realizing i can't take. so what to do. one way to go about it is to take a break, fix myself, get some perspective, get some meds, and keep trying. i'm not too sure this will work. the other solution is to go for a career change and just accept that i don't have what it takes to be an engineer, constantly battling the time pressure, the chip schedules, etc. i think that will be a hard thing for me to accept. that's about it. i was telling jay that i must be really stupid to have gone through now six nervous breakdowns and finally realize that i needed help. but apparently denial can go a long way. the key, though, is that i am finally taking the first step to get some professional medical attention, and i have to stay positive and hope that things will improve. i just can't put into words how nasty and utterly bleak these past four days have been. i know people tend to say, "things will always get better... things will pass" but honestly, when you hit rock bottom, those words don't have any weight at all. i wish that our bodies could talk to us in a clearer language. too often the symptoms are really subtle and mysterious, and too complex for us to comprehend. and the sign that something is wrong is only apparent when things have already gotten out of hand. i had no idea that life could be this hard. most people i know don't even need to remind themselves that life is worth living and worth enjoying. it's only when you lose complete sight of that and get stuck there for a while than you realize how miraculous that kind of perspective is... faith in the value of life itself is something that i bet sane people take for granted most of the time. that's it. it's time i start fixing myself. |