For as long as I can remember, I’ve never been a fan of the seventh day of the week. Or the first, depending on which way you look at it.
No, I don’t want to shoot the whole day down, and the prospect of the supposed day of rest being everyday somewhat frightens me, due to how my physical and mental mood carries me through such a day.
I know where it comes from, but have yet found a way to shift out of this mindset, despite attempting multiple solutions (this included!)
Childhood (obviously), and always without fail between 2:30pm – 4pm, and again between 8pm – 9pm. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I would begin to dread Monday, the first day of the school week. I haven’t been to school for nearly 14 years, yet here this still is!
I can’t exactly pinpoint at what age, this started, but remember this becoming a real prominent occurrence during the salad days of Secondary School. Even before the tale of Three Houses!
Homework was deliberately done in time so it wouldn’t exacerbate this sensation, and there was always something to do in or around the house, but there it was. Like the squatters of the two other houses, something or someone was perched at the back of my mind, filling my mind with pure dread for the next day to come, and yearning for it to be over as quickly as possible.
When it rolled around, all was as well as was possible. The usual tales of; social awkwardness, exclusion, self-imposed isolation, and digging myself a deeper hole trying to be someone I wasn’t to fit into a crowd of people who pretended to like me out of pity, until Friday. I was still settling in my house. Never any dread on the Friday afternoon or Saturday, always Sunday afternoon onwards.
The typical Sunday morning would also be OK. MSN Messenger and Myspace were commonplace stomping grounds on the computer when nobody else was using it. Used more at weekends than evenings. Sometimes a quick log on and off. Other times, hours spent talking to people, attempting to share my developing mental health plights, but simply being greeted by “Oh not again!” “Ur always depressed!” “Wot u got 2 be depressed bout?” “Cheer up FFS!”. The frugal character limit dependent on credit from the mobile phones of the day, carried over into the chat boxes. And yes, I was endlessly mocked, because I never reciprocated the abbreviated talk. I’ve never sounded where I was born and bred accent-wise either!
In hindsight, I wish I wasn’t on either, but the fear of missing out between the ages of 11-16 more than clouded my judgement, ensuring I had to have my list of friends to talk to and make plans that would never happen, and in turn, make the social situations even more uncomfortable than they were online, when I was sometimes fine to talk to online, but never said a word in person...or worse, never shut up, something that’s took me a long time to finesse, and even now still get wrong!
The feeling would roll around on time at both times, regardless of all the distractions that was in and out of the house for me during the Noughties. Ride a bike, games with my siblings, walk the dog, Playstation 2...The sensation would be draped over me, feeling as heavy as a throw blanket or as ubiquitous as the accompanying aura that signifies the start of a migraine…And migraines are another wetting altogether!
Sunday 8pm was also particular, because it would usually be the time (whenever the series was airing) my brother and I would go and watch Top Gear on the TV in our room upstairs, whilst The Royal, Heartbeat or Wild At Heart was being watched downstairs, depending which one was airing at the time. No iPlayer or ITV Hub to watch another time! It was either then, or the episode was missed and I was left out of a potential discussion of it on MSN Messenger after, or the next day on the school bus or at school.
Top Gear was the particular go-to, because of my love of cars from a young age. I had a collection of toy cars that (when I was about 2-3) would line them up along the floor and lay there with them and stare, kicking off if anyone dared to move them!
Of course my petrol-head status progressed alongside my ever expanding encyclopaedic knowledge of cars, which is perhaps why Clarkson, Hamster and Mr Slowly fed into it, becoming a religious viewer of all the 20-odd series that passed.
It was somewhere I could escape into for the hour. Learning about supercars I’ll never be able to afford or drive, and laughing at the trio’s hi-jinks that continue to entertain now, but elsewhere! I could forget my troubles that were around at the time. But as the bombshell was dropped, the feeling of dread filled me once more at 9pm and was something I took to bed with me for the next morning.
So why then, did I and do I continue to feel like this? This Seasonal Affective Disorder of sorts (substituting the word Seasonal for Sunday), still occurred during College and University, despite looking forward to the pair of them, and continues even now in my early 30’s as a man in different circumstances, with different responsibilities more pressing than an episode of ‘some pokey motoring show.’
Could it be related to the sensation of still mentally feeling 16 years old? Carrying that level of youth into adulthood as a means of cushioning the hard blows of adult life? Is it a result of the state of my mental health and how I’ve grown over the years?
Whatever the answer, I one day hope it’s resolved. This regular depressive episode is no fun at all, no matter what I try to deter it. At the very least, (like with all other wettings), I hope there's some relatability to anyone reading this. Whether it's a particular season, hour, minute or day of the week.
As for the rest of the weeks these days, (without any ruination) I seem to be fine. Except Thursdays. Don’t get me started on Thursdays.