I have been meaning to write for quite some time. I even took notes to not forget what I want to say.

The main thought I have been having is this: I need to find a new psychotherapist. I have set this as a goal for early 2023, because I find that I must not lower the guard while I am feeling good and happy and positive.

Second thought is: how long does happiness last, and why do I fear that happiness is doomed to last less long than sadness. It is all in the head, and the heart, so we decide how long we want it to last. Having been depressed in my recent years, even if at various degrees (mainly mild, then hard for 2 full years), I am wary of betting on the longevity of happiness.

Another thought in the last weeks has been this: I have caught myself being aggressive and overreacting when things are done to me wrongly, or let’s say when I feel someone is doing something wrong to me. If I want to imagine this visually, I feel skyscrapers of happiness and skyscrapers of anger and sadness. Plus, this sadness takes me away from the outside world: when I am angry, I don’t want to see anyone, I close myself in my room and watch a movie to calm down. I recognise some patterns of when I was depressed. Red alarm, red alarm! Hence, the thought number one: I must find a psychotherapist asap.

With the psychotherapist I used to externalise my own thoughts to another human being, who would listen, digest, and throw back some thoughts, comments, notes at me that would help me carry on and fight the depression. Without this confrontation of thoughts, I am missing an important pedagogical aspect of my fight against depression. I feel as if depression had left me a goodbye “gift”, a poisonous one at that: anger and verbal aggression against anyone or anything that threatens my so long fought after well being.

It has happened that I have burst in tears in the past 8 weeks – I don’t know, maybe 3-4 times, it was tears of rage, when I have been feeling attacked when someone expresses their opinion. It is sooo annoying that this is my immediate, unfiltered reaction. Last episode was this very week: I have worked at an aviation expo that was very good but also very tiring (4 hours sleep per night), with big emotions (excitement of deals to come, negotiations well handled, a keynote speech given to a professional male-only audience); then comes this company townhall about reorganisation, and it is announced that my boss will change job, but I am not in his organisational chart yet. I got so furious, I started crying while listening to the Teams meeting, and I felt injustice, no appreciation of my work, and even greater injustice for the salary level I have been enduring for the past 4 years, while waiting for my company to adapt my salary. Year after year, I have been doing really well, I have been enjoying my work a lot, I am exploring this new amazing industry, I am showing unprecedented results, but I am not paid as much as my male colleagues, and this drives me insane. Not only because of the injustice in itself, but because I feel I haven’t played all my cards well, so I blame myself even more, in this story.

Cutting a long story short, I find myself extremely vulnerable to jumps of moods, I feel I need to find a psychotherapist right now, possibly in English and online, and I need to find a way to spread happiness throughout a long period of time. When I am happy I am thinking: why and how long still will I be happy for, as if the default version of my life should be worry, sadness and stress. invece no! Also, I must be careful about my state of happiness. Now it’s easy cause all baskets are full. What will happen when/if some are emptied by life?

PS: Alain de Botton gave a speech on depression and the difference with sadness. I find it enlightening.

Scrap notes

its not all about me, its not that if someone gives me a weird look, its because i did something wrong. its probably them who are not certain about something. same thing with me.

I havent felt like doing sport the whole week. thats an alarm sign for me. plus I am about to get my period. that must be it. i am in a bad mood, last 24h its been like that