Dave (and all you other Rinkies),

Upon reading your post, I recognized much of what you described as symptoms of depression as parts of my present condition. Initially, I thought: "Hey, that's how *I* feel!" But then I thought: "Wait a minute, *I'm* not depressed! I'm just overworked and stressed!"

Let me explain my situation. Since last summer, I've had my own company, working as a freelance graphic designer. A few months ago, I met a guy at a birthday party, who works in a company which specializes in graphic/web design courses and educational material. They needed someone who could upgrade an Illustrator beginner's book from version 8 to 9. I thought it would be fun to try and write for a change, so I went ahead and took the job. I got a fixed payment, and was told it should take around 100 hours to finish, which would make the payment not very good, but OK.

As it turned out, I'm going to use about twice the estimated time. I'll have to finish it by this weekend, over a month after the original deadline. This means I have had to postpone the start of another project which I have accepted on the account that I would be finished with the current one a month ago. And this other project also has an absolute deadline in about three weeks.

I worked my butts off before Christmas, trying to finish the job, but failing, but being very worn-out, I couldn't get myself to work between Christmas and new year's eves. I just had to relax -- although I couldn't actually relax as much as I wanted because the thought of the unfinished project lingered deep down in my unconcious, making me grind my teeth at night and bite my teeth together during the day. Also, every time I thought about it, I'd feel a wave of tingling through the muscles around the right side of my neck and my right shoulder.

The last months have been quite awful, really, not being able to sleep at night, getting up late, thus having to work late, thus abandoning my friends, thus getting more alienized...

My return to Rinkworks (I spent a few months here last summer, but then got too busy) is not coincidential. It was a kind of last resort of human relations, a surrogate of all my non-virtual friends here at home.


> Depression is being up at 6am when you normally have problems pulling yourself out of bed before noon.

Then I guess I'd qualify as overworked, because I'm not able to sleep at night, even though I've been working till 3 or 4 a.m. It still takes me an hour or two to fall asleep. My mind doesn't gear down.


> Depression is alienating all of the people you care about just because you can't seem to be civil to save your life, and in fact for some reason seem to take a perverse joy in being a prick at times.

Hm... Most of my friends and social connetctions suffer from my work situation, because I haven't got the time and energy to stay in touch. Then I go about thinking that they all think I'm a prick because I don't talk to them anymore, and the longer it takes, the harder it is to make contact again.


> Depression is knowing you have work to do but not being able to get yourself to do it because you know you're going to fail.

I know I'm not possibly going to meet the deadlines I've got, so I just collapse and do everything else (like playing Fantasy Quest on Rinkworks... :-), with the result that I get even less time to do it, break the deadline, and get less time on the next project, causing that too to break the deadline, etc. And the worst part of it all is that I never seem to learn. I do it all over again all the time.


> Depression is not understanding why anyone would ever want to praise you for anything but being all too ready to accept criticism of any sort. Depression is beating yourself up because you're not perfect.

I love praise, and have made it a point to learn to take it well. I'm *not*, however, good at giving it to others. I know I'm not perfect, but then again, nobody is.


> Depression is life in a hole. Depression is a world without sunshine.

...or knowing you have to work all day, wearing yourself out, if you're ever going to get out of this evil circle, but not having the energy to do it, and ignoring the fact that your situation is only getting worse.


> Depression is wanting desperately to be around people and yet, when you actually *are* around people, wanting nothing more than to be alone again.

This is how I feel, but not about everyone. I have a few precious friends who I treasure. I found a quote in a diary of mine from a few years back, about my friend Ellen: "Meeting Ellen is like encountering an oasis in the gray desert of everyday life."


> Depression is wanting to go to sleep and never wake up.

Actually, I've been having that thought one or two times lately, and it scares the living **** out of me. I know there's something wrong when I wouldn't mind not living another day on earth. Fortunately, these thoughts pass.


> Worst of all, depression is knowing exactly what you have to do to get yourself out of the mess you're in, but feeling powerless to actually do it.

I know I'm not powerless, but it takes an enormous amount of power to set my life straight again, and I don't have that much.

Two days ago, I took the night train back from the city where I'd spent the holidays. As I'd been living a night life the whole week before (going to bed around 4 a.m.) and had been up till 7 a.m. on new year's eve, I slept only half an hour on the train, and spent the rest of the time (7 hours) reading (Douglas Adams: "Last chance to see"), listening to music (Pat Metheny: "Secret Story") and finally doing some thinking, and making notes about the future course of my life in my filofax. Kind of a new year's resolution, but that's mostly coincidential -- it just happened to be the beginning of a new year when I decided it was time to take charge and get myself out of this dump.

I've been trying to dramatically change my life so many times before that I know I'll probably fail at most of it, but I have to do *something*, or else I won't be able to look myself in the mirror soon. All I know is that I don't want things to go on as they are now.

Phew... Thanks for letting me let off some steam... Although I haven't been on Rinkworks very long, I regard all of you as my friends, and think you're one of the most... hm... intelligent and healthy-minded (?) bunch of people on the web!

-Trav"will stop procrastinating and get back to work now"holt.