Depression, loneliness and guilt

I picked up this leaf two years ago. I keep it in my journal because it is easier to show a picture of it to explain how I feel sometimes.

A new theme

If there is one theme that connects the last couple of posts it is depression. So, lest I break the pattern, I woke up early this morning and thought to write about how I have been feeling in hopes that I could understand my emotions more.

I feel depressed

I felt a deep sadness last night. After dinner my thoughts where all over the place and I couldn’t concentrate or focus on any one thing. It felt as though my thoughts were all screaming at me at once. I’m experiencing this sadness and anxiety more often. It is one of the ways I can tell that it is more than just a bad day or a bad moment.

I go from emotionally numb to emotionally unstable within minutes. And over the last couple of weeks I have felt a heightened need for sex. I’ve began to masturbate more, even to the point of giving my wife a weekly schedule so she can avoid our bedroom during those times. I am thinking about getting on Zoloft again, but I hate the side effects.

I feel disconnected

Two days I ago I visited my Facebook profile and was greeted with one of those “One year ago today…” memories that have become popular. This one was a post from two years ago when I last hung out with Amy in Seattle. After that time I stopped communicating with her and didn’t hang out with her again until this past October.

Seeing that post made me feel so disconnected. The thought dawned over me that I am forty-five and that I don’t have a single person that I can call a friend. That is a bit melodramatic because I know at least three individuals that I can call and neither time nor distance would have gotten in the way of just picking up where we left off. But I don’t really connect with them anymore.

I noticed myself last week walking away from conversations with coworkers when the possibility of doing things outside of work arose. I’ve even responded with “I’ll let you know” to direct invitations to hang out by Dawn, Eric, Julian, Tagg and Barb. As much as I know that I am being affected by not making an effort to befriend people here, I just don’t want to.

I feel guilt

I have started to feel shame and a deep sorrow over the affair again. It’s not that the feelings are ever gone. It’s more like the feelings about it move to my periphery and mostly stay there, but recently I crash head on with them. Thinking about my failure makes me sad for my wife and angry at myself. At times I have felt like 2014 is so far behind us, and suddenly something reminds me of it and I drown in guilt and shame. My sweet wife deserves a better life and a much better husband.

When I wrote this, I was listening to this:

I am sorry that I have hurt you.