Mid-June Monte Report

My mood is notably more depressed than it was when last I posted to my blog. Occupying myself during my free time has been a greater challenge than usual, making it pretty hard to get out of bed in the morning. A conflict with my boss a couple weeks ago put a huge damper on my mood for a while, although we have since worked things out. More importantly, though, the reality of the future that I'm facing at work is weighing heavily on me -- despite the fact that any potential changes are months away, at least. My fear of failing for the zillionth time is pretty strong, and that fear is making it hard for me to see myself succeeding in an advanced position at work. But I am taking baby steps in the direction of controlling my depression and anxiety, as Dr. Allen encourages me to do in Coping With Depression:

"[Y]ou cannot recover by one monumental act of will, but you can recover by many acts of will over an extended time period. . . . Despite your depression, you remain a free agent, to some degree. . . . You must distinguish between difficult and painful choices and no choice."

Choosing to pursue advancement at work is indeed a difficult and painful choice: it opens the door to once again failing to succeed. I've been voluntarily demoted no less than four times in my life, and I'd rather not go through that again. Perhaps this time will be different, though. Perhaps, if I do manage to advance, I'll be better equipped this time to overcome the challenges that face me. Dr. Allen:

"You can use elbow room to expand elbow room, building agency on agency; the more you recover, the easier it becomes to recover further. . . . Ideally, by appreciating the extent -- and the limits -- of your agency in your illness, you will feel challenged, not reproached. . . . [D]ifficult as it may be, you can do something to pull yourself out of depression. The constraints of depression make exerting your agency challenging, but your remaining agency gives you some elbow room to exert leverage over your depressive symptoms."

My psychiatrist led me to the website coping.org/growth/success.htm which provides exercises in exploring the "fear of success." I'm unclear on the distinction between the fear of failure and the fear of success, but I'm going through the exercises anyway, with the hope that they'll provide me with some insights into this struggle. So far I haven't had any (insights, that is), but I imagine it will be helpful as I continue to explore this issue with my psychiatrist and my therapist. In the meantime, I can only do my best to not worry about the future, and to try to trust that I'll be ready to make the necessary choices when the time comes.