The department has been trying to host a series of professionalization workshops/meetings this year, and today's theme was managing and dealing with stress/mental health issues.

A lot of it focused on what we can do when we have students who are stressed and become a possible concern.  Part of me was listening but kind of was thinking how all of the ways we can help them sounds easy but is actually fucking difficult when you are dealing with your own mental issues and are burned out in every possible way imaginable.

Then, after faculty left and we were left with someone from the counseling center (whom I've seen before but never really spoke with often), we were able to talk about our own issues.  One would think that I would find a weird comfort in knowing that I am not alone in my anxieties and fears and all that, but on some level the whole thing just made me more anxious and everything.  We did an activity where we had to write down on big sheets of paper around the room about how we were feeling in different areas/what we do when feeling stressed, and I found that I couldn't write anything down if people were standing nearby.  Despite my trying to tell myself that all these people are feeling similar and will not judge me, I kept thinking about how awful I felt and how I just didn't want people to know things, even though I have shared a lot before.  Perhaps I shared more with them when I was feeling a bit better, but I've gotten into a bad slump again that I haven't been able to pull myself out of.

Or maybe I've just become comfortable in it, in a way.  Feeling incredibly happy just seems like something that is rare and unusual, and my default is to be melancholy, but put on a fake smile and just do shit that needs to be done.  And there are days I try and fight.  I really do.  But then if and when I lose those fights against myself and that inner voice of mine, I just get exhausted from trying to put up a fight again.  It is a vicious cycle.

I did describe my burnout; that I have been unable to get interested in anything and then instead of doing anything productive or fun I instead lay in my bed or on the couch or do stupid mindless shit on my phone or something.  And then I get mad at myself for not doing anything.  Which makes me want to do things even less.

Once, I think my perfectionism fueled me.  Nowadays, it has backfired; maybe it has gotten so extreme, in its own way, that I just tell myself that I can't make it perfect so why bother doing it because either way it is going to be a failure.

And I definitely do that with life shit.

Anything I can't fully control I don't want to really be a part of anymore.  I look at my past relationship: no matter how hard I tried, it was all for nothing.  Why did I even bother trying, if this was to be the end result?  Why bother trying again?  I have no interest in it.  Philosophically, yes, I suppose I am interested, but emotionally I feel dead inside most of the time.

Sometimes I think I am getting better and then I start writing in here and things start pouring out of me and I realize I'm just as fucked up as ever.  I just pretend like I'm not, when I talk to other people.

Maybe I just don't want to even try anymore.  I can't really tell.