not sure what is this emotion

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you'd think as a psych type i would know.
but for both depression and anxiety you can have a pain in your chest. i am thinking more depression though because i am not someone who cries and i did for the second time in 5 months. to give you an idea, before that it was 2003. though i really want to go out and mail my mom a valentines day card, i am not wanting to go out, which i think is depression. it could be anxiety because that is usually what happens when i go out because i get overstimulated from noise, people, etc.
i feel sad so it could be depression. but usually i am not this uncomfortable.
the reasons are i have three jobs and one is the job with the bad people which i went back to this week. one is a job with good people who don't understand sensory integration problems so stressful for that but otherwise some really good people. the third is a kind of self employment venture that right now is going badly (or so i catastrophize).
i had a scary time on the highway night before last when my tire blew out - luckily rear tire.
i had another shock paying for new tires - $400. means no radio in the car til next month
and because i couldn't get home i had to spend the night with someone who badgered me about dating her and hinted that i should lend her money so she can buy a car.
my ex, who has a boyfriend, keeps calling me to do things for her. why can't he?
valentines day highlights my aloneness. no cards for me this year because i forgot to send myself one.

i think i will force myself to go out and see if it helps.
here it is the last nice day before the snowstorm.
i can still buy myself a card and if i mail it monday i will get it in time.
that would be nice.

but i wonder what is this i am feeling? maybe it doesn't matter and the same things would fix either one.

I'd suggest that there are a few more emotions out there than anxiety and depression. I tend to come up with my own words for emotions anyway because I can't see how mine fit people's standard definitions.

There's yearning aka the Walmart effect, which seems to be a combination of overstimulation, music, and the sense that there's a massive beautiful world out there, an intricate web of connections like a fractal, if I can only get there. The cheap music in the background channels itself through the chaos and makes my throat go tight and feel like I want to cry, even though I know it won't happen.

There's shieldedness, where my mind is running on two tracks, one computer-rational and the other like fire hovering below the surface, ready to strike out and go feral at the slightest chance, but knowing there's too much control for it to actually happen.

There's something that may be related to grief, where my body is shaking, the desire is to curl up into a ball and hide, but I'm not actually a part of it, and I start getting the desire to reach into the past or into myself and start tearing things apart until I've found something I can concretely do about the situation.

I can only speculate about what might be going through your head, but I think there's a different kind of sadness that can come with realizing what you're missing, aka Evanescence. Instead of blank defeat/ignorance of possibilities, it's more like "why can't I get there?" As far as I can tell it comes with being awakened to a new plane of reality and then getting struck for the first time in this new form.

Don't know if any of this makes any sense, I'm just rambling, trying to quantify semi-intangible things.

i just want to warn people this is not for the squeamish or those who might be triggered hearing about bad things that happened to someone else.

pyraxis,
i think it is missing something, knowing something is missing and not being able to figure out what it is, much less get there.
and wondering if i didn't miss it all these years, why now?
confusion.
sadness.
fear.
and stuff from my past that i did not realize would come back to bite me.
today i had what i know is a ptsd symptom. i know that i am avoiding things from my history but i have always figured that i would remember them when i was able to deal with them.
i guess its time.
instead of thinking about these things, what keeps coming to mind is a night when i was going to manhattan and walking to the subway i saw a man throwing firecrackers. i thought one went off in his hand; the illogic of this made me realize he was shooting a gun and the light i saw was because it was pointed in my direction. people around him started falling and i ducked behind a car. for some reason this is easier to think about than my father torturing me because he did not trust or believe me because i was telling the truth and not saying what he wanted to hear.
some kind of paradigm shift, i think, so my vote is anxiety mixed with grief and confusion. the man i am will not allow this. the man i am will grab his arm to stop him.
not sure how this will translate IRL. perhaps already it has.

yes. but what now? i wanted to sleep for the rest of my life, no need for further paradigm shifts.
now another one.
i am awake again, and different.
it is not depression.
it is not anxiety.
it is not sadness. maybe a frustration/sadness, like why did this happen if i can't get there? why can't i just not care?
and i never can stop.
all my life i wished i could just stop. and i can't. i keep walking and thinking what is wrong with me for continuing?
i know this does not make sense. it doesn't make much sense to me either, but then i am not too used to making sense of feelings.
change is an odd sensation.
i think it is change.
i hope it concludes soon because i am getting a little ill from not sleeping or eating.

Ouch. Not a good time to have to be going back to your old job tomorrow.

I wonder if it might be that you're just not far enough along in the cycle yet. I remember not being able to sleep when I was de-repressing myself of some past stuff, it was like having infinite energy for a while, feeling immune to the usual bodily needs. I don't think you should wait till you feel hungry to eat, or till you feel tired to try to get to bed. Like go through the motions of a regular schedule just from the rational knowledge that it ought to be good for you. But I don't know, maybe I'm preaching to the choir.

And by not far enough along I mean that it comes in waves... near-overwhelmed with this new unrecognizable stuff, then life gets its way and you have to stabilize for a bit, then you feel safe enough to start asking questions and the whole thing starts up again. You can't get there yet, but if I recognize this pattern (and I could be way off base, it's not like I've ever had any professional training), you will soon. I say keep caring. I say it's all worthwhile in the end. I'm also an incurable optimist. What has to stop is not the caring, but the channelling of it into paralysis.