I had a whole different post planned for today. I had a nugget of inspiration while I was at work earlier, but by time I got home, it was gone. At this point, my mind and body are both exhausted. I’m not down, but I’m also not at baseline or neutral. I talked to my therapist about it today, he called it malaise. Basically, just an ill feeling. That’s how I feel. I’m just in a state of sadness. Work seems to be dragging, I always hit a point around 3p, where I just hit a wall, nothing seems to make time pass faster, I’m just watching the clock.
This weekend was rough, I was recovering from heat exhaustion, so I spent the whole weekend inside, drinking lots of fluids, and just basically not moving. I know that had some impact on my mental state. I also just felt, bad. I have no inspiration right now I just want to sleep, I’m so anxious, showering and laundry are not an option. It’s like depression, but it’s not a magnitude to which I would consider myself depressed. I used to call this feeling, meh, like I didn’t have a name for it. It just kind of was.
The thing is, my heart has been hurting a lot lately. According to many people, I’m an empath. My empathy has no bounds. When something happens that I have no control over or watching things that shouldn’t be happening, I don’t like to say it makes me sad. Sadness, to me, is a feeling that I associate with bipolar, as an emotion on my spectrum. So when I’m feeling empathy for certain situations, or people, really anything that I don’t have any direct relation to, I say my heart hurts. I don’t really know how to explain it better than this. Just know, that my heart has been hurting a lot lately. I think it’s finally taking a toll on me. My heart isn’t broken, it just hurts. With everything that’s going on in the world around me, it’s hard not to sense what other people are feeling.
So, pretty much, I’m exhausted, my heart hurts, I’m sad..all adding up to malaise. I don’t have a true grasp on what it is, but I just know that it doesn’t feel good. I’m going to just take the night to relax and try and recharge. Probably eat some ice cream, of course. Maybe one day I’ll write my philosophy of ice cream.
A Delicate Odyssey 
Wow, I absolutely relate to the whole sadness vs. heart hurting distinction. I am also bipolar and find it quite difficult to explain to people what my mood spectrum is vs. what my emotions are. So many people confuse the two. So glad I found your blog, and am excited to read more! Hope you will keep posting through the malaise; keep on keeping on ❤
I’m glad you can relate! I’ve had the same experience trying to explain the difference between the two as well.