Hi all,

I've struggled with depression for 10 years, and the more time that goes by, the more I believe I will carry this illness for the rest of my life. And why would I not believe that. You'd think I welcomed this depression, by the life style I've chosen and the lack of making any efforts to change things. The most effort I've performed is countless "how to be happy" google searches and reading up on "top 10" life hack articles on my iPhone before bed. But to be honest, I don't have a terrible life. Because I've had depression for 10 years, I don't know if it's any particular aspect of my life that is the problem, since my life has cycled and changed a lot within 10 years, but depression remains a constant. Lately, I've been zeroing in on my job being the problem, but I've only had it for a year. It may not be the rootcause, but I think it is prompting a rough patch. I work in actuarial = crunching numbers in excel for 10-12 hours straight and my entire day's feeding is one scoop of peanut butter at 10:30am because I forget to get up or take a lunch break. I've lost 15 pounds since I started, which may be because I need to take adderall 3x a day to even meet all my deadlines. On top of work, my employer requires us to take and pass exams every 6 months. These exams require hundreds of hours of study, so I don't even have weekends to look forward to for unwinding. I spend 7 hours both Sat & Sun studying math. I live alone and I work from home, so I'm living in complete isolation. Sometimes I forget the last time I've left my apartment. So, I don't know where to go from here. I can complain all I want, but I'll probably never grow the balls to quit or find a diff job. And I think this is a norm for our culture... Work consuming our lives. I just don't know how to be strong about it.

This felt good to type out and vent.