Running through the fog

I’m in a difficult to describe mood today. I suppose the best way I can explain it is frustration turned to anger turned to depression and it’s getting worse as every minute passes on this slow march towards 4PM when I leave this place. As a big fan of music, I read a lot about artists writing their best material when they’re depressed but I find it impossible to create anything when I feel this way so I’ll go the route of the tormented musician, pour myself out onto a page and hope for the best.

It’s interesting that I chose a car breaking down on a foggy road as today’s topic because it’s an appropriate metaphor for how my mind feels today. I feel like no matter what I think about, no matter what I try to focus on, I’m absolutely unable to think clearly through this fog in my head. I can’t talk myself through this, I’ve tried all day reminding myself how great my life is and how I’m on a fantastic career path with growth potential that should satisfy me until retirement but I absolutely cannot shake this overwhelming feeling of helplessness.

I feel like I’m running through a fog, through woods, trying desperately to get somewhere clear so I can see but I keep ending up back at my broken down car, frustrated. It’s a cycle. When I’m depressed and I try to use logic to shake it, the frustration from not being able to come out of the fog makes me feel helpless.

I think a lot of this has to do with frustration at my job. I was passed over for a director position that my agency hired externally for because I’m “not quite ready yet.” The new director is absolutely incompetent. I feel worse than being picked last at dodgeball, I feel like there are uneven teams and I’m the odd man out while everyone awkwardly shrugs their shoulders as I turn to walk home.

I’m another name on the miles long list of people who can’t stand their boss. I tell myself that, but it doesn’t work. It’s another vain attempt at running blindly through the fog. Sometime in the middle of writing this, I ran straight into a tree and now I’m lying on the ground in the middle of the foggy woods, eerily complacent with the mood I’m in but no happier about it.

There’s something lurking in this fog, something sinister. My greatest fear is that if I can’t get out of the fog, it will get me. I don’t know what ‘it’ is, but it terrifies me. I think I’m most vulnerable to it when I’m lying down among the leaves because I’ve given up. I’m trying my best to get on my feet but I don’t have the will to. I’ll go home, taken an ambien, block the light from the bedroom windows, go to bed early and try again tomorrow like I always do when I feel like this. That normally works.