High on a Downer, Again

I can't even say how much I appreciate the emails, phone calls and comments you guys have sent my way over the last couple of days. If I haven't responded to yours, I will; I've been pushing forward to hit 50K (which I did), since I knew giving up this close wasn't something I could live with, black mood or no.

It comes and goes, but I'm doing a little better - still broke, still stressed, still worried about things falling apart, but I'm clawing my way up. One of the worst things about when the bad chemicals kick in and I don't have a chance to do any kind of countermeasure is that horrible, horrible loss of perspective that comes with utter hopelessness. (And that's quite literally what it is - the sudden loss of all hope, or almost all. The possibility of things improving, when you're where even down looks up, seems like an absurdity.)

The disruption of my stable little world at work was a big blow. I'd been sticking around because my boss had plans to promote me, and the knowledge that that wasn't going to happen was a little too much shock and horror at the end of a bad year. Now it looks like I might get a little improvement there anyway, which helps a little in my not being full of must-get-outnow panic. I still feel very uncomfortable working for a system that would do what it did to him (and his worst fault seems to be not performing miracles with minimal resources, which describes forfuckssake everywhere I've ever worked); I don't like that feeling of having to wonder who the axe is being sharpened for next. But I at least feel like I can get by for a little while until something that's really right comes along. Not good, but tolerable. So it goes.

Anyway, I'm not what I'd call fine, but I can see it from here without a telescope. I'm really sorry about falling apart like this; I hate being a burden on the people that I care about, and I know how hard it can be to live with me. I don't ever want to feel like I've taken more from my friends than I've given back, and I don't want the price of loving me to be a cheering-up session two or three times a year. So thank you; I don't deserve it, but I don't know what I'd do without it.