Doldrums effect sailing ships because they are regions where there are no winds to fill the sails and thus the ship cannot move. This is how I feel right now.

How do I feel? I don't feel anything. It isn't depression as I know it. I spent most of a year with rapid ups and downs, mixed mania and deep depression with none of that "normal" in between. Now for the last few months I just don't feel anything. I can't seem to motivate myself to do anything. It is like my emotions have just been overloaded and burnt out.

The most crippling thing is that I find it almost impossible to "do" anything. There seems to be a disconnect between the part of my mind that decides to take action and the part that carries it out. My therapist didn't understand this at all, but it is the clearest explanation I have. I will decide to do something as simple as make a sandwich, then realize 3 hours later that I never did it. Eventually I will get hungry enough and make a sandwich but it has to be motivated by that primal part of my brain that insists on not starving. I'll run out of groceries, even soda and coffee (caffeine) and live of all the oddball things in my kitchen until nothing is left before going to buy groceries. Forget about doing things such as showering, laundering, dishes, and other cleaning. I've started getting a little better in the last week, perhaps I had to start coming out of it a little just to come online here and complain about it. But a little better is not better and I need to get better and not fall back deeper into this state.

All the coping tools I've used in the past aren't much help because it is just as hard for me to take the action to use those tools as it is to take any other action. I spend most of my time doing things that are escapist activities such as TV, reading, playing simple games. And I don't even remember much of what I've done. Couldn't tell you the plot of the show I just watched or even how it ended.

My strategy with depression has always worked for me, it is based entirely on weathering it out. I would focus on those few things that absolutely be done and let everything else go figuring that I could make up for it when the depression was over. I have never had an episode last as long as this. Started last summer, I was hypomanic and remodeled my entire condo. Then I feel into a depression, then fluctuated between the depression and mix mania complete with hallucinations and voices that forced me to drop out of school and be hospitalized. I'm not even mentioning the panic and anxiety problems I have. Now these doldrums, and I have no confidence that the episode will come to a conclusion anytime soon.

Being socially isolated doesn't help. Since moving here 3 years ago I have made no friends. I talk to my dad and my sister on the phone but they can only help so much. I need to get out and meet people but I don't know how. I even try to go to support groups but they cause me a lot of anxiety and I just return home feeling worse. Need to meet people one on one but have no clue how. Even thought of going to church but I don't have any belief in the supernatural and so it would be a horribly hypocritical thing to do. Even trying to find a girlfriend whether by chance or by a dating site or something is difficult, not like I'm the worlds best catch, and to top it off I have a strong aversion to sex. I used to pretend to like it but I've given that up.

So I'm trapped by my own inability to act, and social isolated largely due I'm sure to barriers I create. I haven't really asked anything in this post, maybe I just needed to put it all out there. Maybe someone will relate and even send a message. I will get out of this, I'm stubborn and I learn from each of my episodes, and I carry on. I also ramble.