The Upside to Work-related Depression

First of all- the title.

Are you done laughing yet? Seriously, wipe those tears of laughter away and quit cackling. Your cubemates are getting pissed.

So here's the deal- for the past few months, the urge stand up on my chair and start screaming in rage and frustration has become stronger and stronger. Aside from the shitstorm that is my personal life (which is making it even more difficult to focus on reports, plans and color-coded grids), I feel like work -the people, situations, everything-is finally beginning to wear on what little is left on my soul.

And there's only a little left, I tell you.

I've never looked for meaning in job. After all, it was just a job. But I've been thinking lately that when I die (and it's looking like it's soon- work onsite heart attack, maybe?), I will have really wished that I did something else with this life.

I'm not a religious person, nor am I really spiritual. Maybe if I was, I wouldn't be struggling so much right now to find meaning in... everything. And as most people know, work is probably the hardest area to find any true meaning in. Unless you work for a non-profit, or are doing what you really love, then meaning is something you have to pull from work and not the other way around.

For the longest time, work=money to me. It still does. But lately, work has been cannibalizing whatever little bit of personal life I kidded myself into thinking I had. If my job is going to do that, then shouldn't I be able to find a modicum of happiness, or at least contentment, from my job?

I used to not care. Not care that I felt sick everytime I thought about work, much less wake up in the morning to come in. I thought it was just work and that was the way things were so supposed to be. But my medical bills are racking up and the one thing I keep hearing from all my doctors is that I am way too stressed out. Like, "maybe you should consider a life change" stressed out.

Oh trust me, doc, I'm thinking the same thing.

There is no such thing as a work-life balance for me and it's beginning to get to me. Work has become life and vice versa. I know I have control of my life, but I feel like work has control over me.

This is how I feel: My friend broke his arm in a pretty bad soccer accident a few years back. It was so bad, part of his bone was... um, exposed. Aside from the, you know, extraordinary PAIN he was in, he said the feeling of air on his bone was the worst. That's how I feel. Exposed and turned inside out, like the air at work is almost unbearable.

The world is so big. There's so many things to do and so many interesting people to meet and help and stories to hear.

The upside to work-related depression is this- it forces you to ask questions of yourself you normally wouldn't.

I'm working to make money but what I am staying alive for? And is it worth staying?

-Signing off in Seattle