I figure you are probably used to seeing subject headings like this, but this probably isn't the kind of post you're used to seeing under them.
I'm a law student. I'm happily married. I have a several good friends that I enjoy spending time with and see regularly. I see my family regularly, and enjoy seeing them. I do not hate my life. I do not have stressful relationships with people. I'm not swamped with schoolwork. I'm physically healthy, I have a relatively healthy diet. I'm always happy with my life overall, and I would even say that the vast majority of the time I'm even better than "happy."
But sometimes I am miserable. Oh, so miserable. It's connected to going to school. I've got about 30 minutes until I need to head to class, and when I think about that fact... I get a knot in my chest, I get sick to my stomach, I feel like I'm withdrawing into myself (a feeling that I am quite familiar with as an extreme, though healthy, introvert).
I've felt this way with regular jobs I've had in the past. I would lay down at night to fall asleep and be up for hours, nearly at the point of tears, at the thought of having to spend 8 hours the next day at work.
I don't hate lawschool though. I'm not particularly fond of it, but I've never been particularly fond of any work or education I've ever had in my life... they're just something I've had to do, ya know? School is easy for me. I put in a fraction of the time and effort that most people do to end up with the same kind of grades. And I don't feel this dread (and I mean DREAD... not just "Oh, I really wish I were doing something else." or "Gee, I wish I didn't have to go to school today." DREAD.) if I'm just taking 1 or 2 classes a semester, usually. But if I try to take a classload that I should probably be taking... 3, 4, 5 classes... I'm miserable.
Once earlier this semester I drove to school, an 85-mile trip, walked into the building... was literally standing at the door to my classroom looking into it...... and I turned around and left, then spent the rest of the day hiding from my wife so she wouldn't know I skipped. When I was standing there, I KNEW I should go in. I knew I could get dropped from my class for absences. I knew I owed it to my wife to work hard at school just like she works hard at her job, so that I can end up with a good job to support our family down the road. But I just couldn't do it. This dread is crushing and overwhelming... in the face of all reason I couldn't fight it. And when I turned away from the classroom and towards my car, I sighed in relief, even though I knew I would feel just as terrible later when I had to tell my wife about it (eventually).
Am I depressed? Is there some type of depression that is triggered by a situation/event/thought, which leaves just as quickly as it comes when I turn away from the trigger and to things I enjoy in life?
Or am I just pathetic? Am I just a wimp who needs to buckle down and go do what everyone else does every day, work? I refuse to believe that everyone else who "hates" their job feels as terrible as I do when they go to work everyday... but could that be the case?
Or is there something else wrong?
I really have no idea 
Post Edited (fischsemmel) : 6/8/2010 10:14:09 AM (GMT-6)