I'm quite keen on work in general terms. I started working whilst still at school, paying for my horse riduing lessons by helping out at the riding stables and around the farm it was based on. I was about 13 and every weekend and school holiday I would be putting in 14 and 15 hour days. This continued when I left school and went to University. I filled up all of my free time with work, earning my keep as I studied. After University I went straight into employment, starting out temping in accounts department before making the breakthrough into sales and starting my career proper. I managed to stay in continuous employment until I had to take a career break to nurse my father through terminal cancer. I would never describe myself as a workaholic, but I do enjoy work, and the time I had to give it up hit me really hard. I became depressed, or perhaps more accurately my depression had been masked by constant work, and when that was taken away the depression revealed itself.
Eventually I managed to find work again and have been at it ever since, and gradually getting to feel better and better about myself but I have found that if I stop for any length of time, even for a long weekend I can end up in quite a dark place and it can be difficult to drive myself out of it. This was one of the reasons for writing this blog in the first place. It gives me an outlet to explore my thoughts and express my feelings, and to maintain the flow of work when I am away from the office. It has also opened a world of opportunities in terms of socialising online. As part of writing this blog I am exploring more fully the online world, and particularly facebook, and I'm starting to get some really good constructive and creative feedback on my writing which is making quite a difference to how I'm feeling.
By having something to keep me occupied when I can't work, I am finding it easier and easier to keep the work flow going and to keep myself towards the higher end of my naturally depressive state. I would thoroughly recommend finding a creative outlet of some sort as a means to a healthier turn of mind. Perhaps not as excessive as this particular blog, which is getting to the stage that it is approaching 50,000 words in three months, or to put it another way, getting on for a decent length novel! But as an exercise in self-therapy, doing something constructive seems to be better than doing nothing.....
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