I’ve come to understand (the hard way) that feeling and processing negative emotions takes a lot of energy. I’ve been questioning why I’ve been so exhausted since the beginning of this year, and I think it’s simply just because I’ve had to receive bad news so often since the beginning of the year.

January 19, 2023 – I notice my energy levels have decreased since the beginning of the year. After not seeing any improvement, even when the weather stopped being gloomy (because I thought it was just a lack of vitamin D), I made the difficult decision to talk to my psychiatrist about increasing my antidepressant dosage. She agrees and we increase my dosage to 100mg.

January 21, 2023 – Lunar New Year, but also a mass shooting occurred within the Asian American community in a place that my family frequents: Monterey Park Mass Shooting. Although unrelated, the shooting occurred a few blocks away from a Lunar New Year festival.

January 23, 2023 – Another mass shooting: Half Moon Bay.

My family and I were supposed to go to our temples together, but after hearing about the mass shootings on the morning on January 22, 2023, I was too scared to even leave my apartment. There wasn’t much information at the time because the suspect was still on the loose, so we had no idea if the shooting was fueled by racism. The shooting occurred on the night that many Lunar New Year festivals were occurring and in a community that has a dense population of Asian Americans. Out of precaution, we decided not to go to the temples. We had to postpone it for another week.

February 1, 2023 – My wisdom teeth extraction. My recovery was excruciating and I still have some residual nerve damage in the lower left part of my jaw. Luckily, it seems that the nerve damage is temporary, because about 90% of the feeling has come back in the area, but the days after the surgery were filled with a lot of complications. When I left the dentist’s office, they did not tell me or my mom that I needed to pick up any medication. The first day was still anesthesia-filled, so the first day was fine. The second day, the anesthesia wore off, but my lower left jaw still felt completely numb. This is when I discovered that I had nerve damage. Cue anxiety. Of course, I was warned before the surgery (and I also researched some) that nerve damage is a possibility with wisdom teeth extraction, but the chances were so slim. But of course, it would happen to me. I was told that there was no way to know if nerve damage would be permanent or temporary, so the waiting game just started. Third day post-op, I was in excruciating pain and this is when I discovered that I was supposed to have four medications. I took my little pain-ridden body to the pharmacy, picked up my meds, and immediately took the ibuprofen. An hour later, I was still in a lot of pain, so I took the hydrocodone I was prescribed. I was still in pain, but there wasn’t anything else I could do, so I tried to sleep it off. The next day, I woke up with the taste of blood in my mouth. I rinsed by mouth and voila, a blood clot dislodged. The pain fluctuated for the next seven days. Additionally, my body naturally has a fast metabolism, so even if I took my pain medication before bed, my body would metabolize the medication within 4 hours, and I would wake up around 3-4 AM in pain – and I was only able to take the pain medication every 6 hours. So I didn’t sleep well at all since my surgery. Because of all my complications with my surgery, I had to take some time off from work, which stressed me out more because my paychecks were getting smaller and I needed to pay rent, utilities, etc. I can barely make it by paycheck to paycheck as it is, with my full hours.

February 24, 2023 – February 28, 2023 – I start spotting. I haven’t spotted or had a period in about 2 years because I intentionally use my birth control to skip my period (ok’d by doctors by the way). Of course, this causes me to stress. Why am I spotting all of a sudden? The spotting is also accompanied with pelvic pain on my left side – something I never experience with my period or spotting. Any cramps I get are usually where they’re supposed to be – in the cervical area, and usually dead center.

February 28, 2023 – Follow-up consult with my psychiatrist. The 100mg seems to be working well so far. My energy levels and motivation did increase and I was able to function and work my full hours again.

March 5, 2023 – Pap smear. This is already anxiety-inducing for me because I resulted in an abnormal pap smear and positive HPV about 1.5 years ago. This was a follow-up pap smear to ensure that I tested negative again.

Sometime two weeks later – Normal pap smear, but positive for HPV again. Cue stress. HPV is common that almost every woman experiences a positive test at least once in their life, right? So why am I testing positive twice in two years now. Because there is so little information about HPV, I can’t have the most important questions answered like, why am I testing positive again? I received the vaccines after my first positive, so is this infection a new strain or did the first strain just go dormant and is now reactivating because of all the stress? There’s no way to answer my questions.

April 8, 2023 – I notice fresh blood after I urinate. It wasn’t blood mixed in with my urine, it wasn’t my period, it was a stream of fresh blood that happened after I urinated. Of course, cue panic. At this point, I’m also experiencing excessive thirst and dehydration on alternating days and polyuria, which wasn’t really a cause for concern until the blood. Do I go to urgent care? What does this mean? Is it my kidneys? My reproductive organs? I research and console myself with my findings: it’s not serious if I don’t have any other symptoms. The blood eventually decreases and disappears upon every subsequent urination. Crisis averted? But why did it happen in the first place?

April 10, 2023 – Colposcopy as a follow up to my positive HPV result. I was told that my pap smear was still normal, which means no abnormal cells, which is good. During my colposcopy, the doctor says she saw some abnormal cell changes, but they appeared to be minor. So between the span of a month, I went from no cell changes to minor cell changes. Cue additional stress and anxiety. At this point, I’m thinking, “Am I just doomed to have cervical cancer?”

April 11, 2023 – My excessive thirst and polyuria has persisted so a few days ago, so I go to a doctor. My insurance is Aetna. Aetna is owned by CVS. I go to a CVS. Surprise! My specific IPA may not be covered by my insurance. This reinstates my hatred for any insurance that is not Kaiser Permanente. Whatever. I want to figure out what’s wrong with me, so we do a urine test, we do two different blood tests for diabetes, and nothing’s wrong. Everything’s perfectly fine. I don’t have a urine infection, but I do have occult blood in my urine test. My blood sugar test comes back normal, and my A1c test comes back normal. Great, the doctor can’t figure out what’s wrong.

Present time – I still have yet to receive my colposcopy results. I’ve been experiencing insomnia, mental breakdowns, and exhaustion way more than usual or at all. I become so exhausted that I have the urge to fall asleep while driving to work, especially with the heavy traffic. This is my limit, I need a break. I take days off work again because I just cannot. Being at work makes me exhausted, but taking days off work stresses me out because I don’t have anymore paid time off or sick time to cover my time off, so my paychecks continue to remain small. I have another consult for my medication – this time with Nurx because again, I hate my insurance. I’d rather get consistent care with Nurx, even if my insurance changes than having my insurance change again and finding a new provider. The consult cost for Nurx is only $65/month, which is definitely not bad. My medication was only ~$8 as well. My medication with Aetna is about $20.00 for the same amount. Rip off, much? I digress. My sertraline dose gets upped again to 150mg. I’ve been on 150mg for two days now and it’s probably just placebo, but I feel better. I feel more cognizant of my limits and cautious about my energy so I don’t burn myself out repeatedly again.

I know my colposcopy results will probably cause more anxiety because the doctor did observe abnormal cell changes – we’re more just waiting to here back what grade the cell changes are. Maybe once I get those results, I will finally stop stressing out because I’ll have an answer. I am still experiencing excessive thirst, but my polyuria has self-resolved as well as my pelvic pain. I’ve begun using sleep-aid pills to help me sleep better, and last night was the first night I was able to fall without any aids. I did wake up a few times in the middle of the night, but I was able to fall back asleep quickly.

Today was supposed to be an easy day. My office closed early so we could celebrate Administrative Professionals Day with a bowling event, and we also got bagels for breakfast. Good day right? So why do I still feel exhausted? I feel like I’m out of breath. I only socialized for two hours, and I even declined an additional invitation to continue the outing (which I’m so proud of myself for). I thought about this on my drive home. I achieved my goal of not spending money today, I socialized and knew when to call it quits, I came into the office, so why do I still feel depressed and exhausted? Why do I still feel unfulfilled? It made me realize that I’ve actually been through a lot this year. Beginning with my increased depression, then the mass shootings, then the flux of health complications that I am still experiencing – it took a lot of me to process every one of these changes, and it takes a lot of energy to deal with any negative emotion. And I pretty much experienced wave after wave of negative emotions since the beginning of the year – to the point where I don’t know when the last time I genuinely felt positive emotions was.

I realize I haven’t really had fun in a while, and I don’t really know what my idea of fun looks like anymore. Dancing, sure, but the idea of going clubbing is exhausting. I find peace in being at home and reading, or playing minesweeper and sudoku while binge-watching a show. Is that all there is to the rest of my life? Okay, a little dramatic, but you get what I mean. I don’t find joy in many things anymore. Especially, now that I realize, without alcohol, a lot of things with friends aren’t as fun as they used to be. I had a decent time today at the bowling event, without alcohol, at least. But I’m starting to get tired of, “You don’t drink alcohol?” shock. Can we please normalize not drinking when out/socializing versus drinking? I’m starting to dislike having to be around alcohol in order to have fun with friends. Which again, another negative emotion to process!

So, I guess, at least I know what the main cause of my depression is this year, and why I’m so exhausted currently. It just sucks that I can’t really do anything about it except continued self-care (as I already have been doing), setting my boundaries (again, check!), and hoping my medication changes work. Sometimes I look at people, like my coworker, and think, “Wow, people can just be normal and function every single day without any problems,” because it’s just come to the point where that’s so difficult for me. Even when I do have something positive happen to me – such as: yay, I passed my written test! Or yay, my urine and blood tests came back normal! – it just gives me another reason to be anxious. I passed my written test, now what’s next? An interview? That’s anxiety-inducing. My urine and blood tests are normal? Alright, so what’s wrong with me then, something more serious? I just can’t get a break this year. I even thought to myself, “I just want to take me and my cats and go somewhere to get away.”