Depressed... again

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I've been doing better with depression for several months now. I have been feeling pretty neutral, not happy but not depressed either. I was starting to get some motivation back and beginning to desire things. I'm starting to get nervous because I have been feeling depressed again for the past several days. I am still taking my antidepressants as directed and I am still trying to think positively but I've been feeling depressed anyhow. I have lost the desire to do anything. I'm supposed to be getting ready to move back out of my parents' house and maybe even go back to school next year. Right now it feels like none of that matters, like I don't want any of it. I feel like I should just go live in a shack in the woods. I realize that wouldn't be very practical as I'm not sure I could survive living in a shack in the woods, but the idea sounds quite inviting. I suppose I feel hopeless right now. Everything I am supposed to be doing with my life seems so difficult and not very rewarding. And I'm just so lonely. On the one hand, I feel like I need people. On the other hand, I feel like I need to be alone. I don't want to have to experience these feelings, but there is no escaping them. I really hope this is just a little "blip" and I'll go back to feeling neutral in a few days. It's strange how when the depression hits it is hard to imagine it ever going away, it feels like it's permanent. I have to keep reminding myself that it CAN go away, even if it does come back at times, and it is NOT permanent. I fear, though, that it will never leave me alone long enough to get anything done, that it will resurface every time I start feeling capable of achieving something.
If I were psychotic nobody would blame me for being incapable of living a "normal" life, but since I seem so "smart" nobody can understand why I am not capable and feel that I must just be lazy. I wish people would quit blaming me, I wish I would quit blaming myself. I feel like I should be able to be just like everyone else and live like everyone else and feel like everyone else, but I can't. But I'm so "smart", so why can't I just figure it out?

Wow. I really know how you feel. Same position more or less.

The only constructive thing I can say that the winter makes it worse so maybe look into using a broad-spectrum lamp.

I hope you feel better soon.

I think I know just what you mean. But you're not just like everyone else. I'm not just like everyone else. Everyone else is not just like everyone else... There are so many individual differences, it's hard to make sense of them all. So people develop these schemas to try to understand different people, i.e., smart... underachiever... lazy. You seem to fit the pattern otherwise, hence you must be lazy. Of course, what's really going through your head is much more complex. But a lot of people can't make those complex connections, so they stick with the simple (flawed) pattern. They can't help that, but it's their failing. Not yours. Don't blame yourself for the flawed perceptions of others.

Thank you both very much. I will try some light therapy, I might not be able to afford a lamp but I can get a couple tans pretty inexpensively. I know I need to be kind to myself and I'll try to keep that in the front of my mind. May be I'll put a post-it note on the bathroom mirror! I just hope that this passes quickly so I can get back to my normal-for-me, quirky life.
I did consider making a t-shirt that says "I'm depressed and I have aspergers so please be nice" but I figured that might not go over so well, lol.

Hi Muffinn

I suffer with depression on and off.

This time of year it is generally with
Me like a restless cloud.

I was really interested in yr very last line
of yr first post here "so why can't I just figure it
all out"........here lies the essence of many
a poor soul in the spectrum.

So many of us are so gifted with our brain
Yet so susceptible we can be to the brain
turning against itself and thus trying to figure
everything out..........I suffer from
"Tryingtofigureitallout-itus" But seriously,
trying to figure this out all the for people in
the spectrum (especially those with histories
of emotional difficulties or OCD can be Hell.

Wishing you well.

lol, no, probably not in the way that you'd like. Wherever you go, you'll likely find people who don't understand you. (And hopefully, also some that do.) Often, the only way to change mis-perceptions is to PROVE them wrong. It takes actions, not words (or t-shirts.) But first, you have to know who you are... and what you have to prove.

Or at least, that's how it worked for me. I struggled with clinical depression on-and-off for years, and then constantly for over a year. In retrospect, it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I'm sorry for your depression. I hope you manage to get through it okay.