Edited to add: This post may feel all over the place and have a lack of focus, but that’s okay for me right now. I need to get it out and I hope that someone else feels connected to this train of thought. I used to call it a tornado of thoughts…and that’s just what this post is about.

Boredom and Depression

For the past week I haven’t had much to do. I don’t have much work at my day job and I haven’t had much extra job work to do. I don’t have any blog post ideas or any due dates for a few more days. Sure, I have stuff I *could* be doing, but the bottom line is…I’m bored. In my situation, boredom and depression are not a good combination.

You probably couldn’t tell by looking at my house (it’s messy!) that I like to stay busy. I like to have something to do or somewhere to be at all times. I don’t sit idle much unless I’m working on the computer and I don’t typically sit and just watch TV. Usually if I’m watching TV, I’m on the computer or doing something else at the same time. My boy and husband, on the other hand, could sit and watch TV for hours and enjoy it. I used to be that way, but I think that the more I sit and do nothing, the worse my depression gets.

The thing is, I don’t have the energy and “want to” to get up and do something. I mean, the other night I did get up and clean a section of the house because I have a big project coming up that will require people coming into my house for a full day. I need the house to be clean, but the motivation to get up and do it is tough. This is my depression creeping in.

When I’m bored and my depression is active, my mind starts to wander and bad things happen. I get sad or lonely. I start to feel unworthy and lazy. I feel like nobody cares and my friends don’t want to hang out. The truth is; however, that my friends do want to hang out and hear from me. They ask me to do things and I back out because of shyness or feelings of inadequacy. I start to picture bad things happening to me, my family, my friends, and then I get scared. I start to think of all the bad things that could happen in life and my depression deepens.

I don’t know what is going on with me right now, but I needed to get all of this out. I’m working on getting better. I’m working on writing more. I’m working on a lot of things. You’ll start to see me writing more about my depression in the coming weeks because getting it out (just like in this post) makes me feel better. It makes me feel connected and gets the bad thoughts out of my head and makes them go away.

I want to hear from you all as I go through this purge and this stream of consciousness writing. I want to hear where you are in your depression or anxiety or other mental illness that you deal with. If you don’t deal with mental illness, I want to hear the good things going on in your life, too! I want to feel connected to you, my readers, my online friends.

How are you doing today? How do you deal with boredom?