I am slowly discovering that most of my mood disorder is rooted in anxiety; depression is only a secondary expression of the primary problem. That's just my own version of what my brain does to me. I haven't checked that with a trained professional yet, but it seems plausible.
See, what I'm doing now is an example of my problem. I have this writing assignment due tomorrow morning. I've known about the assignment for a good three weeks, and I did some quick research (20 minutes worth) about two weeks ago. Since then, I've done practically nothing, except obsess about the assignment: Have I found the leading cases? What if I haven't found the leading cases? Why haven't I been taught how to recognize the leading cases? What can I do to find the leading cases? In short, I work myself up into a froth through my fear of failure and drive myself into a depression (or something like it) because I've been paralyzed by my fear and become so distressed that I'm able to accomplish nothing in relation to the assignment.
This fear of failure is obnoxious, and for some reason my default response is literally to hide under the covers. Not terribly productive. Really, counterproductive. I would rather be doing anything than working on that memo. After sleeping until 3:00 and skipping First Amendment, I've gone to Starbucks. I've gone to the post office. I've gone to get a sandwich and spent an hour watching TV with my roommate. I've surfed the Internet. I've checked three different e-mail accounts. I've posted this entry.
I see a trend developing.
In the immortal words of Mel Brooks (which I spent at least 20 minutes trying to find on the Internet):
High Anxiety - Whenever you’re near
Ooh, ’Xiety - It’s you that I fear
My heart’s afraid to fly
It’s crashed before
But then you take my hand
My heart wants to soar
once more. (key change!)
... High Anxiety, you win!
