I've been having a bunch of weird minor mental reactions and body symptoms during the pandemic. Not sure what they add up to. Depression, anxiety, bourgeois malaise... or just the pandemic? Worth seeking extra help for?
Maybe relevant: late 20s, AFAB, working from home, finishing up PhD (you'll see that I had some problems with this in my question history, though things have happened so that the finish line is visible, thankfully). I have had, thankfully, a decent social life during the pandemic with a small pod of friends, but I still feel that I'm spiraling.
Mostly I'm looking for a potential diagnosis (e.g. matching symptoms to named problems) and potential solutions that worked for you. Yes, you are not a doctor. But any advice you provide will be very helpful in giving me better keywords than my current providers. I've described these symptoms to them and not gotten much help. I'm in therapy biweekly (though I just asked to change to weekly) and I do have health insurance and a doctor who knows my medical history.
So, here's what I'm dealing with lately:
* I have a lot of trouble getting out of bed. Often I have to lie there for an hour or two arguing with myself, or entice myself with snacks, or have an upcoming meeting that requires me to get out of bed NOW (and then I'm late to the meeting).
* I have a very hard time making my body do things in general (move, etc).
* I fall asleep very easily. Sometimes I'll sit on the couch and wake up half an hour later.
* I'm often too tired to "go to sleep properly" and will pass out on whatever available surface, wake up at a weird hour, and exert maximum effort to get up and brush my teeth and sleep properly.
* I feel constantly tired and amazed at others' energy.
* My most entertaining and frequent activity has become: staring at the ceiling thinking for hours. Obsessive rumination over people, problems, failures...
* Getting less and less work done, to the point where I'm so far behind on things that I want to give up. Much less capacity for my PhD work in general (I maybe work 4 hours a day, much of it random managerial stuff and meetings that I do while procrastinating on the core PhD stuff that seems to demand a focus that I don't have). And I definitely work ~10x slower.
* But on the other hand, increased obsession with my weird personal projects or other passing things that I later have a hard time understanding.
* After a particularly hard deadline, even for things I care about, I just let things slip, and often end up in a crying fit and contemplate how great it would be to passively not exist.
* People have told me that I feel very distant. I have a lot of trouble getting close to people I like.
* Mood swings (irritation & obsessive worrying), especially noticeable during the pandemic, to the point where I started birth control recently just to try skipping my period to see if no PMS would fix the problem.
* I'm actually pretty socially fluent... or so I thought until I went a small party and couldn't think of a single thing to say the whole time. My mind just went totally blank and I was very tired, "out of it," very detached from emotional life.
* Decreased appetite.
* Emotions come to the surface at weird times, like during a massage, and then I want to cry very badly.
* Brain fog.
* More frequent nightmares about childhood trauma.
Again... I don't think I experienced any these things at all, or to such a high degree before the pandemic. I mostly want to just stop being so slow/tired/detached!
Things I DO NOT feel, btw: sad, suicidal or at risk of self-harm. I actually still feel very much attached to life, health, relationships, local community, my personal projects, etc.
I have been told I work a lot, so it could be very advanced burnout (i.e. particular to my working situation and the PhD grind, rather than a mental disorder). But I've also been told that burnout is a neoliberal lie... so who knows? (Tongue in cheek!)
Any advice is deeply appreciated! |
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