I just had a couple of really crappy days - my moodswings were pretty alarmingly chaotic even for me. For instance, on Wednesday, I was depressed, so I took a break from work and went snorkeling for the first time. I was euphoric. About 30 minutes after I came home from the beach, I had zoomed across the entire emotional spectrum and I was curled up in a ball crying for no particular reason - my depression even worse then before I went out. Sometimes logic and reasoning are the only things I can cling to as I get through a dark mood (I am an okay person, worthy of breathing oxygen, it'll get better because it has before, etc), but when there is no apparent reason for a dramatic swing like that, it's really hard to deal with.

Unfortunately, my moods tend to regurgitate on the people around me. My emotions become more juvenile and fragile when I am in a dark mood - and I know it puts people off. However, it's quite nice that so many people genuinely care about me, but I feel a bit embarrassed for burdening others with all of this - especially since I am so open about it (this is something a lot of people deal with in silence and alone). When I talk about my moods I'm also afraid I am crying wolf - will I wear out other people by talking about this?

Today I'm pretty mellow and feeling okay. This is where I prefer to be. Not sad, but not euphorically happy either - just mellow and even. I think there are a couple of factors in that. I've been experimenting with B vitamins, in particular B6, which is a crucial building block of the neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine. I went to the vitamin store yesterday in search of a megadose B-complex that my stomach could tolerate, and the salesguy yakked at me for about 15 minutes on the virtues of P5P - which is a form of B6 that is readily available for the body to use, and does not have to be processed in the liver before it can be utilized. A bottle of it was cheap, so I got it. I had been taking B vitamins from energy drinks, but this is free of ginseng (which I do not tolerate will), taurine, and caffeine, so hopefully I stop looking like some sort of fidgety meth-addict.

The other thing that was cool is that we had this cool guy named Olaf come to BLT to talk with us (individually) about how everyone gets along in the company. Olaf talked a bit about himself - he hails from Norway, and fought Nazis as a teenager (stimulating my unhealthy WWII obbession). What was really cool though, is that he asked me about who I am, specifically my work history. I felt weird rattling everything off - though kind of proud when I got to the bit about my book. He said I was a fascinating person who has led a very full life. I thought, really? That was the second time in a couple of weeks someone has said that I'm fascinating, which just shocks me. I'm a black sheep in pretty much every social context - maybe my weirdness is finally paying off. Anyway, the upside was that after talking to this guy, I began to feel much better. I probably labor under an unfair burden of feeling completely unworthy to exist, and never living up to my own expectations.