The Comforting Ache of the Summer Holiday

I am sure I have no lost my entire readership after ignoring my blog for a couple months. That presumes that I actually had a readership, though, which probably flatters myself. Anyhow, here is what is up with me:

It's the second full week of summer for me after school (finally) finished a couple weeks ago. Naturally, (because my one talent in life is writing essays, apparently) I pulled some great grades last quarter, so I am happy about that. Now, I'm just sitting at home trying to balance relaxing, reading for my BA thesis, and doing housework. It's not an exciting life but it's pretty stress free.

The lack of stress is important. What I find amazing about last year is that I did much better academically than I did in either of my first two years and I did so while displaying almost every classic symptom of clinical depression. I felt worthless and hopeless and wanted to sleep all day and occasionally fantasized about ending it all and yet I still managed to pull straight A's. The came at a cost, though. School is a highly stressful environment for me. I struggle to make all the personal relationships work.

Home is a more pleasant environment for me. I get enough social interaction to keep me from going crazy from my parents but I don't have to deal with a lot of people all the time. I am shy and I have a fair bit of social anxiety. At home, I don't have to worry about being "on". The effort of being personable takes a lot out of me. I don't make that effort at home, so it is less stressful.

It is nice to be home because I am happier here but I find that happiness bothersome in that it is strictly localized to home. I am not happy when I am at school. I feel like I'm not really depressed if I can be perfectly happy at home but I can no longer cope with the school environment. I was about a week or two from a mental breakdown when school ended. If there had been another three weeks left in the quarter, I fear something terrible may have happened. I definitely feel like I need help so that I can deal with school when September rolls around. I just fear that doctors will say that I am fine and that I am not depressed but that I will once again struggle during the school year like I have the past three years. I would rather be clinically depressed and on medication than a supposedly normal person who just hates his life 9 months of the year.

Beyond the drama of my mental capability or incapability not much is happening in my life. I've started a workout plan, hoping to add some weight to my pitifully thin frame. It's going reasonably well so far although I generally don't appreciate the constant soreness. We'll see how it works out. I find that the hardest part of the whole equation is just eating enough to provide my body with the calories necessary to gain way.

Other than that, my life is a whole lot of nothing right now. To further quote Maximo Park's "The Kids Are Sick Again," which is quoted in this post's title. I'm just spending "pointless days pining, afternoons whining".