Good Morning Tuesday

I woke this morning feeling not so great, looking at the days ahead of me just felt really bleak, like there was nothing but an endless repeat of the same thing, so the mood was pretty terrible.

Headed into the office and tried to get work done, but really didn't have any mood or motivation to do anything, so after barely updating the drawings, I found myself just surfing the internet and watching some videos that I really had no interest in, I needed sound because the office was so quiet, there was no one but me and that silence was deafening, it made me think about a lot of things, which made me really depress.

Didn't have too much of an appetite, so I ended up getting 2 sandwiches from the nearby foodcourt and a madeleine before I went to attend a job interview that a recruitment agency had set up for me.

The role was for an Events and Exhibition Designer, which I thought sounded like a fun job that I could tackle, because I am beginning to get tired of doing Interior Design, but as I was talking to the interviewer, who was the boss of that company, he was asking me a bunch of questions related to my software skills and I slowly started to realize I was definitely not the right person for the job.

Instead of asking about skills that I am strong at, which is SketchUp, he was asking me about Photoshop, which I know how to use, but only at the base level, then he started asking about my graphic design skills, which I have none of. The talk about how the job will be very different from what I am doing was also definitely something that made me lose interest in the role immediately, such as the expectation to churn out drawings within 2-3 days when I will usually take 1 - 2 weeks as an Interior Designer, I honestly just wanted to end the interview mid-way through because I knew right then that I was not an ideal candidate and didn't want to waste the guy's time anymore, but we sort of powered through it and by the end, he asked me if I had any questions, to which I just told him I didn't, which should be pretty clear that I am really not interested in the role anymore.

It was nice to have imagined I could have switched to a different company and be surrounded with more colleagues and command a slightly higher pay, but I think expectation definitely didn't match reality, now I really have nothing much to look forward to anymore.

Once the meeting was over, I was once again reminded of how alone I was in the office, there was no one else there, it was just me, the sound of the air-conditioner running, and construction noise from outside. I just sat there, on my desk and started feeling really empty, I really had zero motivation to do anything, so I got up and started pacing around the office and was actively just talking to myself out loud, my boss texted me at one point and ask me how I was holding up, because he knew I had visited the doctor over the weekend for anti-depressant pills, so I told him I probably needed to go take a walk because I wasn't doing too well mentally, to which he agreed and urged me to.

I stepped out of the office, and I remember it was drizzling,, I headed over to the mall nearby because I really needed to be surrounded by people, and when I headed in and heard all the sounds of life, children playing, customers chatting, people walking around, the sound of movie trailers playing from the large TV in the atrium, I just immediately felt better, it's like all that noise just started filled up and drowned out this deafening silence in my head. 

I did more walking, visited some shops to get some essential items I needed, and then got myself a drink from coffee bean and just chilled at the cafe and started people watching, all that noise just made me feel sane, I had planned to just zone out at the cafe for an hour before heading back to the office, but after about 30 minutes, I think I had enough zoning and went back, I was in a much better headspace after that.

Texted a friend and asked if he was free and would like to meet for dinner, he was down for it, so I ended up meeting him over an ION Orchard, whilst I was there, I decided to pop by the old furniture store I had worked at and I found my ex-colleague on duty today, caught up with him and kinda walked around the showroom to see how everything looked, it was pretty nice and I felt really energized after that, I will be meeting him again next week with my ex-Manager for a meal, so that's something to look forward to.

My friend arrives like 10 minutes later and we headed to get our dinner. 

Had a really good catch up over a meal at Itacho Sushi, shared with him about what has been happening with me, opened up about some things I hadn't really shared with others before and because he had similar experiences with me, it was pretty helpful, there was no judgement, it was just listening and offering advise, but not shoving those advice down my throat and I think just the fact that I was able to open up and have a conversation where I don't have to lie about certain things, it just felt freeing.

Continued chatting over Matcha at Hvala, it was pretty good.

It was a really great catch up and definitely something I had needed, catching up with people I have known for a long time and talking to them is very different from talking to ones that I have matched on a dating app, these long time ones feels more consistent because I have known them organically in real life and stayed friends throughout the years, the ones from those dating apps are not, and my mistake was putting too much reliance on the connections I had made on the dating app for my socializing needs, aka that friend that I had met 2 weekends ago to help with his home furniture layout.

He has decided to just stop replying to my messages since last Thursday when I really needed it the most, I have a feeling he has since archived my chat or something because not only are my last few messages not replied to, they have not even been read, and I have been sending some over the weekend to try and illicit a respond, all the same, not even read, meaning he didn't even bother opening the chat. Tried reaching out on Instagram by replying to some of his stories that involved him working on his home because I was the one who helped him with the furniture layout after all, also did not bother to reply to me as well.

To be fair to him, I have only really known him for a few weeks, and I was texting him a lot of  during those few weeks, like 10 messages back and forth on the daily, and they are like pretty chunky text messages of just random stuff because I really needed to keep my head distracted, and those chats did help, so for it to suddenly stop honestly does not surprise me because I have been sapping his energy to refuel myself. Do hope he hasn't decided to completely cut  me out because I really could use more friends in my life.

Depressive Sunday... not as bad as Friday

Sunday was still a relatively tough day to sit through, but it wasn't as bad as Saturday and definitely did not hit the same kind of low as Friday evening.

I had zero appetite the entire day, so I skipped my morning coffee and only had water in the morning, I didn't eat breakfast and lunch, felt lethargic the whole day and just really down in general, I would  return back to normalcy every once in a while and my mood will stabilize, so I did end up having enough appetite during that period of normalcy to eat a slice of Hershey's Chocolate Pie.  

I guess being physically sick also didn't help because of my cough, block nose and jaw ache. Saw a doctor at the private clinic near my place to get medication for it, the total bill came up to $98, which is nuts because the Polyclinic bill from Saturday's trip was only $40, and that was along with like 60 anti-depressant pills, which I am not planning to touch because the side effects of that pill isn't something I want to go through. There is a very valid reason why most people would go to the Polyclinic instead of Private Clinics, but I was honestly too lazy to take a bus over and spend an hour there, so I paid more and managed to see the doctor, get my medication and leave within 20 minutes. 

Came back home from the clinic, was in and out of that depressive state, but I think I did notice that I was able to snap out of it a lot quicker now, I don't stay too depress for too long anymore, it never did hit quite as bad as Friday evening. 

The evening was spend at a restaurant with my family to celebrate Father's day, being outside and with family definitely helped take my mind off whatever is going on internally, my baby nephew was also a great source of entertainment during that dinner period, along with my Sister's dog, although a lot of attention was definitely on the human child. 

Happy to say when I got back home, I think my mood did stabilize a lot more, it didn't hit as hard anymore and I would like to think that it is because I just really needed time to process everything. The reason why it hit so hard on Friday was because that was the day right after I confessed to that person, and that person left me on read like the inconsiderate fuck they are...

Red Flag Alert! 

... and I had way too much time to just keep thinking about it on Friday evening because I had nothing else to look forward to and think about for the weekend.

Anyways, it's Monday morning now, I will be visiting the Therapist today, I think I will be going in with a clear mind and should be able to talk to her a lot more coherently about what is going on, we might end up focusing more on my career stuff than that stupid red flag fuck who had been causing me all the emotional turmoil, because I think that red flag fuck is a trigger point, but I already had a lot of underlying issues that I had to deal with before that.

Update : After meeting the Therapist.

It was a pretty good session, I was able to talk freely to the Therapist about what I was going through and because I had really done a lot of introspection through blogging about my experience, she told me I was actually extremely self aware about everything that is happening to me.

She made an assessment based on what she noticed and told me I probably just have an Anxious Personality trait and not so much depression, a personality trait which could potentially lead to a disorder if I don't keep it in check, and she told me what I am feeling, this sadness, is normal, especially because it was the first time I was giving dating a chance and I ended up investing way too much emotion into it due to 35 years of pent up excitement from being single, which is also something I am aware of. She was telling me a lot of things that I am already aware of, so there really wasn't too much of an Eureka moment for me, but to blabber and talk about my feelings and the experience I had with the dating app, which I had a lot to say because I had to explain the parties involved, the lead up to my sadness, it was A LOT of building to have her see the full picture, and she did, and she expressed that aside from my Anxious Personality, the other party is also, really, a selfish piece of shit, well she used the word selfish, I just added in the piece of shit at the back to really drive my point across.

I had really hoped we could have extended the therapy for an hour or 2 longer to be honest, I really had so much I wanted to talk about, there was just so much background I had to build-up, but then as I was about to introduce another person into my experience, she told me I only had 5 minutes left and we couldn't stay longer because someone else had booked the room we were using, which was a bummer.

Next session is in 2 weeks, hopefully I will be in a much better space by then, appetite has returned and I am feeling quite lethargic, almost feel like crashing out because of bad sleep and the lack of proper meals over the weekend.

My boss actually gave me the day off, but I still decided to come back to the office anyway because going home and just being in my room the whole day won't help me a lot. The plan was to get some work done, but sadly, I don't have the attention span to do that now.

Depression. Legit.

I have been going through episodes of sadness over the past 2 months, and I knew I had developed a mild form of depression for a while now, but last night, I actually fell into an extremely depressive state where I was truly and completely overwhelmed with this sense of melancholia. It was sadness at a level I had never experienced before.

There has been this lingering sadness in me for a while now, one that started from after I had been socially isolating myself, and by that I mean a lack of socializing at work, because I am alone in the office half the time, and a lack of socializing on my off days because I haven't been meeting up with friends to fill up that need to socialize. I tried to fill that void by meeting new people through a dating app and it didn't really work all that well, they all came and went, the first few matches and dates, although didn't go well, didn't affect me too much, that was until I met someone that I ended up investing too much emotions into, and when nothing came to fruition between us, it send me into a downward spiral. 

This ended up worsening my already existing mild depression from the lack of socialising, and during yesterdays' episode,  I actually ended up getting very worried about what I would have done to myself. Thankfully I did mange to get out of it, but because this feeling comes and goes, I know that feeling will return again, so I decided I was going to visit a General Practitioner today to get a referral letter to actually see a Mental Health specialist. 

I had 2 options this morning, I could either go to the private clinic near my house, or I could book an appointment with the nearest Polyclinic. My initial plan was to go to the private clinic because it was within walking distance to place and I was pretty sure I could get connected to a Mental Health Specialist sooner compared to the Polyclinic route. 

I had a meeting with a client in the afternoon, so visiting the one near my place made the most sense, I could just walk over, have a quick chat with the GP, share my feelings and what I am going through and I guess they will direct me to a specialist to talk to.

I was experiencing the lows of my depression, so I really really needed to talk to the GP to at least be able to share what I am currently going through, however, when I finally reached the clinic, I see a sign that had been placed at the main door..

"No doctors in today."

... I stood outside the clinic for a while because it had just opened then, I thought maybe that was placed there to stop people from coming into the clinic before opening hours, but I was not feeling very patient and opened the door, only to be greeted by the staff who confirmed that there were indeed no doctors today. When you are depress and you finally take the steps to go seek help, being told that there was no doctor in the clinic, a clinic I had visited multiple times with the doctors always available, felt like the universe is taking a knife and just pressing it against my wrist.

I was so upset, I remembered how helpless I had felt last night and I knew I really needed to seek professional help, so I quickly went to the NUHS app and booked the earliest appointment at Bukit Batok Polyclinic. I had to rush back home, take a quick shower (literally 20 minutes after I had just taken my morning shower, because of how sweaty I was), grabbed everything I needed for my afternoon meeting with the client later and just rushed over to the Polyclinic. I had booked the 9.50am slot but I was a bit late because the stupid bus was late, I sped walk into the Polyclinic as soon as I reached the bus stop, scanned my IC and then proceeded to wait at the waiting area for my turn.

I went to get Soymilk from the Mr Bean in the Polyclinic, 2 packet of Soymilk for $3, the first packet I had ended up being a curdled mess, but the staff was very nice and ask me to get a new one from the fridge, so I did and I drank my Matcha Soy Milk while waiting for my turn to be called. I hadn't had anything to drink at that point because I had no time. 30 minutes later, my turn finally came and I headed in to the consultation room.

The doctor greeted me as I stepped into the room and I started off by I was in for a sore throat I had been having(was actually a cough but I mixed it up) , but then immediately shared with her my main reason for going down, and that was my intention to get a referral letter to see a Mental Health Specialist because I suspect I have depression. 

She was really nice and immediately started asking me how I was feeling, so I told her how I had been feeling really sad, what had been going on in my life recently and also what I think the trigger point for the episode I had last night was, I was on the verge of tearing up a few times because this was the first time I had verbalise what I was going through to someone, this emotional turmoil I have been suffering in silence since May that had gotten significantly worst, she got me to fill up a quick questionnaire and I ended up scoring a "mild depression"

She went ahead and prescribed me some lozenges for my sore throat (which is really a cough so that lozenges is redundant), and then 6 weeks worth of anti-depressant medication called Fluoxetine, she then highlighted to me that the anti-depressant medication has certain side effects, one of which is the the increase in having suicidal thoughts, but then she told me it takes the medication 6 weeks to be fully effective and that the first 2 weeks, I just have to power through it.

2 weeks? I was almost having a mental breakdown last night, and I am suppose to go through that for 2 weeks?  I went to reddit to check how other people's experience with that medication was like and it was really bad, a lot bad panic attacks for the first 2 weeks - 1 month, they became more depress, the suicidal thoughts became louder and it was all kinds of fucked up. I am already fucked up as it is, I don't want to have to endure 2 weeks of what is potentially worst before it gets better.

I'm not touching those pills for now, I have been having dark thoughts during the more severe episodes, but I never had plans to follow through with any of them, so the last thing I need are pills that will actually make me want to follow through with those thoughts.

She told me she can help me arrange for an appointment with a Mental Health Specialist, but it's going to take 6 weeks. That means if I take the medication, I might not make it before the appointment.

Anyways, after that visit, I still had some time left, so I decided to head over to my Sister's place to wait until my appointment with my client started, I didn't want to wait at the nearby mall where my client lived because that is where I had my first meet up/date with the person who is partly responsible for causing me to feel the way I am feeling right now, if I wait at that mall, it will only be triggering me even more. 

When I was at my Sister's place, I told her about my anti-depressant medications and then asked her if she could introduce her therapist to me because I really needed to talk to someone about what I am feeling. She was worried and I really didn't get into detail about why I am feeling the way I am, I just told her it was just life in general and also because of my recent attempt at trying online dating, which got me feeling really emotional, she explained to me how therapy had worked very well for her, so it made me feel better knowing that there is at least something I can do.

My stay at her place wasn't long, I really just wanted to share about my depression with her and then get her therapist contact. 

I then went for the appointment, and I was feeling relatively fine at first, I was talking to the client with my boss, my role was more active at the initial design discussion, then my boss took over during the quotation discussion. As I was sitting at the table, my mind started drifting and I started to think about where I was, and I was reminded of that person again because the place where we first met last month, IKEA Alexandra, was just across the street, and the mall where we had our first and only meal was literally a 2 minute walk away from where the client was staying at. It brought on this feeling of sadness, and as I am typing this out, I am engulfed by it again. 

I really wanted to get the meeting over and done with, and when we were finally done, I opened up to my boss and told him I had visited a Polyclinic earlier this morning and the reason why, he was quite surprise and also worried for me, so when we were in his car, I kinda just told him I had been feeling depress because of how isolated I have been feeling and then also because of some other personal stuff, and he jokingly ask me if it is because of relationship stuff, if I had broken up, I then told him we didn't even manage to get together, to which he immediately switched topic so as not to trigger me. 

He dropped me off at Orchard and I immediately thought of Laderach Chocolate, which I had gotten a few weeks back when my boss also dropped me off at Orchard after meeting that very same client, back then, I was still on contact with that person and they had been the one who introduced me to Laderach,  but I will admit, back then, communication between us was already pretty sporadic, and I was going through a period of sadness at that time as well, but it isn't as strong as the sadness now. I knew I wasn't going to Laderach to get any chocolate today that's for fucking sure. I walked around Orchard a little but it was really way too crowded for my comfort, so I left after a while.

It's currently 6.12pm as I type this sentence out, that overwhelming sense of melancholia I had felt yesterday happened around 7pm, I am not sure if that feeling is triggered by the timing, but I am definitely feeling a lot more depress right now, especially after writing out this post about how down I was feeling. Everything is triggering me right now. 

Oh, I also messaged the therapist in the middle of my meeting with the client and she was able to slot me in for Monday morning, so I will be talking to her very soon, I hope talking about all of this to someone and letting it all out will help, I will probably start crying during that chat because I already felt like it when I was sharing what I have been feeling with the Polyclinic GP, my Sister and my Boss. I hate this feeling so much!