/blog

Things have been pretty quiet round here recently, not least because I've started the year as I finished the last — ill. My wife and I have developed bad head colds ¹ meaning putting fingers to screen hasn't been something I've particularly felt like doing. I was still recovering from last month's infection while she continues to improve after sepsis in September.

But that's only part of it. The past week has found me slipping back into some negative thoughts.

Having spent half of December off sick, then being on leave over the Christmas period, meant that I had a lot of time to get used to the idea of not being at work. Yes, I had one day back on the Friday before Christmas but that was predominantly spent triaging my inbox. With other people being out for the holidays it was never going to be a busy day or require much in the way of actual work.

With the new synth as a distraction I found myself increasingly burying myself in making music the closer the new year got. A sense of dread at having to return to work built as the days went by. A 25 day spell (with just that one sorting out emails) was more than long enough to get me in a mindset so far removed from doing my job. An irrational fear set in (perhaps that helps to explain the dreams) which is still there, clawing at the inside of my head, despite having been back for the best part of a week.

It's not just this role, I've been like it for years — an almost pathological fear or anxiety.

I know that it's because, for many years, I have worked in roles that do not really interest me, that quickly become boring, but that pay the required wage. The maxim says that if you do what you love then you'll never work again, but I wonder how true this is? If what you love becomes the way you earn a crust can you retain the same joy and affection for it?

It makes me chuckle when I get emails from recruiters for PHP development jobs just because I've got some PHP based projects on my GitHub profile. I love messing around with my site and coding the other things I share but know it's because I am doing it for myself. If I were a suitably proficient developer and took one of those roles how long would it be before I resented it? Would it kill my enthusiasm for my own projects?

Working on the site and making music are passions so far removed from my day job and serve as an escape. I'm not sure that I would want to do them full time despite the immediate appeal. I don't know if I would retain the same affection knowing my financial survival depended on them, whether they would still feel like fun instead of work.

Jay mentioned taking inositol (otherwise known as vitamin B8 despite not being a vitamin) for anxiety to great effect. The vortioxetine and promethazine I was taking certainly helped while I was in therapy for the depression last year but varying levels of anxiety persist and I wonder if inositol is worth a try. I know the scientific community isn't in complete alignment over its efficacy but surely there's no harm in giving it a shot.