Bad Day (Breaking Up Again)

I had therapy for the first time in a month or so, as my therapist is back from holiday. I told her the things I’ve been writing here, about thinking my depression is mainly reactive now, about the job exam, finishing the first draft of my novel and about dating. She was really pleased with my progress. She gave some suggestions for dealing with anxiety. I think a lot of the anxiety is “normal” for now, just a result of things everyone would find anxiety-provoking.

My therapist spoke about writing down my feelings when I’m anxious. She felt that anxiety is a “headline” emotion, but there are often other, deeper feelings behind it. So, my anxiety about telling E. that I don’t think we can stay friends is about not wanting to hurt her feelings.

I felt very tired after therapy and struggled to do anything. At first I felt that I was just tired, maybe even a little burnt out emotionally, but there was some low mood which snowballed, albeit triggered by specific things today and not ongoing depression. The tiredness tied in with something we spoke about in therapy, about my body seeming to need nine or ten hours of sleep a night, with consequent late rising even if I go to bed early (although by nature I’m a night owl anyway). Some of it may be sleeping so long I start another sleep cycle, as my therapist suggested, but I think people on the spectrum do tire easily, especially when tackling social or emotional activities (e.g. autism group and family dinner yesterday, therapy today).

I feel frustrated that autism makes me feel this way, but I’m trying to come to terms with it. I’ve mentioned before that, writing my novel, I realised that my main character’s main need is to realise that his autism is going to make his life different to other people’s, and that I need to do the same thing. It won’t necessarily be worse than other people’s lives, but different. I don’t know how well I’ve shown that in fiction, but since realising that, I’ve found it a bit easier to accept in my own life.

I had someone else message me on JDate today to start a conversation. I always get a bit panicked when I end up messaging two women at once, not that it’s happened to me often. I know it’s considered normal on dating sites and not unethical, but it always seems vaguely wrong to me, plus I hate comparing people, even unconsciously, which I feel is unfair. I always hope one will be a clearly much better connection or one will have an obvious red line, so that I don’t have to choose between two people, who are probably both really nice and pleasant. I have to trust that God will sort it out so I marry the right person.

Speaking of which… I drafted an email to E. responding to an email she sent me. I said that I’m sorry, but I don’t think we can stay friends, important though she is to me still. However, I couldn’t send it at first. When I managed to send it, I was so upset it felt like it opened the wound up again. Then she responded almost immediately to say that she’d like to get in touch as a friend if she comes to London and I had to spell it out all over again that I didn’t want to do that, which just made it harder.

It just hurts so much. I still care about E. a lot. A lot. In a parallel universe where COVID never happened, I could see us being happily married. But COVID did happen, and I can’t pretend otherwise. I would have liked to stay friends, but I think that our connection is strong that we can’t be friends without becoming involved romantically, and I don’t think romantic involvement is healthy any more. But I hate thinking that this is going to hurt her, and she’ll blame herself for what happened. The thought of never hearing from her again is painful too. I hope things get better for her.

I’m remembering a friend I asked out at Oxford who turned me down and later cut me off completely because she couldn’t cope with my suicidality. It was one of the most painful events in my life. I still think about it (it’s ended up as a key event in my novel). Now I feel like I’m doing the same thing to E.

Mum had an MRI scan today, which I think also brought my mood down further, just making me think about her illness and her surgery. I’ve been upbeat about that, I think we all have in the family, but there is a degree of risk in any medical procedure, particularly one involving general anaesthetic, and with any cancer, even one that is normally highly treatable. So that’s all scary.

I know it’s normal to be upset by break-ups and illness in the family, but I just feel overwhelmed by my emotions today. Overwhelmed by all the pain and suffering in the world. I believe that life is about growth rather than happiness, and that growth is more often spurred by pain and suffering, than by happiness and contentment. Therefore, there is a reason for suffering. Even so, sometimes it just feels overwhelming.

Because of all of this, I really struggled to concentrate or get motivated to do anything this afternoon. I’m “reheating” a devar Torah (Torah thought) I wrote years ago this week, just planning to expand it a bit, as I don’t really feel up to doing much research or writing from scratch this week, feeling exhausted yesterday, exhausted and down today and having a test of some kind tomorrow or possibly Thursday for a job (actually the email I got today implied it might be even later than that. They haven’t been very clear). I wanted to work on that devar Torah today, but in the end I didn’t manage to do anything, I felt too bad. I don’t think I’m going to get much work done on my novel this week either, but that’s OK. I just hope I don’t slump back into a major depression.

In the afternoon, while my parents were out at Mum’s scan, the house felt so empty. In lockdown having the house to myself is precious, but I wasted it wishing they were home. I didn’t really have much to say to them, I just wanted someone around as being alone seemed unbearable. I thought of phoning Samaritans, but talking to a stranger wasn’t what I needed, I really needed a hug or personal contact with a loved one.

I titled this post “Bad Day” because of something my GP at Oxford said when I was first diagnosed with depression, that “a good day is just a good day and a bad day is just a bad day.” The rest of this week will probably be hard, but I’m hoping things will get better, that I won’t drift back into capital-D Clinical Depression. That I can continue to communicate on JDate without being terrified of being hurt again or of hurting someone else. That I can do OK on my work test and get the job. That I can accept that I’m not the most evil man in the world (or the most stupid) for cutting myself off from E.

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Achievements: not so many, but they were very draining and important, so I think it was a productive day. I had a draining therapy session, wrote to E. finalising our break-up, wrote an email to the second person to email me on JDate, emailed a friend and emailed the email helpdesk about a problem with bouncing emails problem that has returned. I cooked dinner, because I had promised. Mum offered to do it, but I didn’t want her to have to do it after her scan. I didn’t go for a walk, because I felt too drained and the weather looked too bad. I will try to do some Torah study after dinner, but I don’t expect to do more than a few minutes.

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UK weather is notoriously unpredictable. This year in the spring we had glorious sunny weather while we were all inside on lockdown. Summer has alternated between heatwaves and rain, but over the last week it feels like autumn has set in early, colder, wet, overcast, windy… not nice at all. I think that while my depression is now reactive, it’s worth noting that seasonality seems to be part of that reaction; autumn and winter are my worst months, depression-wise, so it’s upsetting to be heading towards them.