The bigger the decision, the harder it gets.

The last week has been pretty grim. Although I am now managing to get some exercise, it came too late to head a bout of depression off at the pass.

Being down caused me to take a good look at my life and start worrying at things. There were quite a few things I'd been avoiding thinking about. By the middle of the week my head was in a right state.

Now, rather than being just a random chemical depression, I find myself facing some fairly daunting choices. Without going into specifics, I have several paths ahead of me in order to achieve what I want but, whichever way I turn, the likely consequences are unnappealing in the short term and uncertain in the longer term. Whichever way I decide to jump on any issue, it's going to make me unhappy, for a while at least, with no guarantee that I'll reach my intended goal at the end of it.

I'm not very good at making decisions anyway. I fret and imagine all the things that might happen, generally worst case scenario rather than the best. The bigger the decision, the longer term the consequences, the harder it gets. So any major life choices are almost paralysing. Right now I feel very much trapped by decisions. The temptation would be to just stay very still and not make a decision at all, but unfortunately, maintaining the status quo would itself be a decision.

Last time I had really significant choices to make, I got myself in such a state I couldn't make a decision about anything. This included not being able to think of anything to wear, anything to eat, or anything to say most of the time, so I pretty much stayed in bed for a month, then went through a period of taking a combination of downers and alcohol as often as possible in order to avoid thinking very much at all.

Thankfully, it hasn't got to that stage again and hopefully it never will.

I hate having decisions hanging over me, I feel a lot better once a decision has been made. Any decision is better than indecision. I'd rather make my bed and lie in it, even if it is regretfully.

This has been a problem for a friend of mine lately too. She had the choice of make a firm decision now or to wait and see with the possibility of facing having to make the same decision again at a later date. Once you are stuck with a choice to make, sometimes it is easier to jump now and make the definite decision than it is to wait and have it hanging over you for months. So the temptation is to make what may be a rash decision just to get it over with.

I have friends I can talk to about things and they give as much advice as they can but, at the end of the day, they can't make my decisions for me. The one other person who is directly affected and who could, potentially, help me to make a decision has opted to have nothing to do with it.

All this dithering is making me very distracted, pretty miserable and a bit resentful. I'd love to pull the duvet over my head and hope that it will all some how magically sort itself out, which it won't. I'm trying very hard not to reach for the nearest sharp object to take my mind off things for a while.


Week commencing 13/03/06

Medication: I've not had any valium although just switching off for a while would be ideal.
Exercise: 5.5 hours, thank heavens for my bike!
Alcohol: 7
Anxiety: I'm fairly stressed but not actually having panic attacks. The relationship between stress and panic attacks is a really difficult one to get a handle on.
Anxiety Level (0-10): 2
Number of Panic Attacks:0
Severity of Panic Attack (0-5): 0
Depression: My head is in a bit of a mess.
Depression Level (0-5): 3.5
Mania: Not really manic at all.
Mania Level (0-5): 0


Summary

My head is in total turmoil and at times I've been feeling really low.