I wasn’t going to post it on here but then I remembered it might help someone, so - I am very depressed. Very functional. It’s a weird state. I’ve been more depressed recently. I can’t remember being happy very much. I feel ungrateful because I love my family and they love me.

I feel less anxiety about work. I am anxious about it still, but I can read and words make sense, I’m not living in that flat-out fear.

I’m lying on my sofa, everything is ok. But I can’t remember feeling joy. I remember the elation of successfully speaking at BSides.

I remember being very relieved to get this job - mind blown sort of thing. The fear was very strong then.

I am much better placed than I used to be with managing that fear, and it doesn’t hurt to know I will be continuously wrong in tech like it used to.

I’m not sure how this helps people but that’s always the same, and it works out it does. You’re not alone if you feel flat. I feel I’m unpredictably angry and volatile at the moment, and it’s definitely pandemic-related. But I can’t stay like this, it’s not fair on my family.

My life, as pre-pandemic, seems totally sorted. I feel I have the start of a career, not just an entry level position. This job that I’m in now is a career & it will change with me. I love my family and my home, my cats, my garden... and if you told me I wouldn’t wake up tomorrow

I’m concerned that on a personal level I wouldn’t care. I would care deeply for my family - I would fight very hard to stay alive because even as I am, they need me. But I am afraid that this is how my life will always be now, perfectly good, loving and loved, and... missing

something I can’t define beyond that sort of low-key joy and excitement. I used to get excited about fancy meals and nights out, or trips to places or birthdays... I’m afraid it will never come back.

I used to get so much excitement from clothes. I felt really good in myself. I used to dress up and be fancy in smart places, but I struggle to get dressed now because I don’t see what I want to project, there’s no fantasy me to play at.

I’ve had a lot of dreams that didn’t come to pass, I guess, as well as some that did. Jobs and places and people that probably wouldn’t have been a good combination for me. But I used to enjoy looking at ever-fancier houses. Now I just see maintenance. Does that make sense?

I miss London and Paris. I would like to go back. I would like to see Tokyo and New York one day. So it’s not even that there are no future thoughts. I enjoyed knitting that snood. But it’s all very mild. No great thrill of delight.

I miss Manchester and getting a coffee from the arcade, looking fierce and walking miles I miss taking the opportunity to hug my little one when we’re on an escalator somewhere I miss walking to the tube from Kings Cross and feeling like I know my way

I miss having something specific I hope to achieve, and I miss my internal fantasy life, which I killed off after a bad time at the end of 2017. I had lived in my head, and it turned against me, so I had to shut down because it hurt too much. Maybe I’m getting better?

If we’re all out and about at Christmas, socialising again - and right now it seems unlikely to me - I’d like to go skating at Somerset House, and drink a hot brandy cocktail afterwards.

Wow, I’d like to go to a spa and have a massage. I’d like to have my hair cut.

This thread is following an upswing in my mood now. I’m going to write all these down. My heart feels lighter to think I could enjoy all this again some time.