
My Monopalooza 2011 fog cleared a bit last night (finally) and today I've been able to stay awake all day and even had enough energy to leave the house.
At some point early this morning a thought about my general personality crossed my mind: could my life long lack of ambition really just be depression?
Don't get me wrong, I've had times where I've worked extremely hard to prove myself and done things I didn't really want to in order to show employers/friends/family that I was serious about work/opportunities/connections. But? I've never had the kind of drive that makes people mention 'ambitious' as one of my attributes.
It occurred to me that, instead of a character flaw, my semi-drive-less state could be my depression hanging around. I know for a fact that I've been dealing with depression since I was around 11 or 12 years old. Isn't that about the time kids start wanting to accomplish things on a higher level? Thinking about their hopes for their college-bound and adult lives?
All I remember thinking is that I wanted to finish school and go to Georgia Tech because my godmother lived in Atlanta. That was it. I had no dreams of how I wanted to live my life (none that were realistic, anyway). And there was, throughout college, no idea of how to get from point A to point B. In fact, I was so focused on getting out of college that I graduated without the barest hint of an internship or career in journalism.
Granted, college was one of what I'll call my depression 'peaks', but I totally flaked on my own future. Was it just stupid laziness, or was it depression? I don't know how to tell the difference.
The thing I'm having the most trouble with now is networking. Back in June, prior to Monopalooza, I was able to go to two networking events even though talking to strangers without context is hard work for me. Since then, though, I haven't had the energy for socializing. Is it the mono? Laziness? Or, am I still depressed even after years of therapy and medication? Or...Oooh! New Thought! Or, is my lack of ambition something that's been leading to my depression all these years?
Crap. I could stand to go back to therapy, couldn't I?