Depression, Frustration, and other states of mind

I ran 6.5 miles (I think) today during my break at school - I'll have to look up the exact details on the AutoRoute at home, but I know I did more than 10K in about 48 minutes. The best 48 mins of the past few days, really.

I haven't had a good week, let alone an okay one. Depression is getting me down. The problem is, the depression isn't mine. The weather's been crappily cold this past week and people around me, family and work colleagues, have been complaining about the general state of things. I know the lack of sunlight makes people depressed, but what about the lack of warmth? I find it difficult when people get into a state like that, when nothing ever seems positive, and they just keep finding stuff to complain about, running it over and over in their minds to make themselves and others miserable. Even though I try to "switch off" in the interests of self-preservation, there are times I get really fed up when people get into that sort of mood. Nothing you ever say seems to get people out of their funk; you just have to let them work their way out of it themselves. I know it's selfish, and unkind, to say this - but I can't stand being around depressing people. And it's frustrating because I know I can't help them.

At one of my former schools there was this stereotype about music and PE teachers having little work to do, because these subjects were seen to be "non-core" subjects, having little academic weighting and not being intensive or challenging - the other teachers in my school would come up to me and continually remind me of what a "soft" workload I was getting, or the Heads of Department would assign music and PE teachers extra duties to make up for the perceived lack of work. I'd hear all this "You're really getting it easy. If you had my teaching load...." depressing comments. Frustration is good mental fuel, if you know how to use it - I would run and think about all these people or situations and channel that anger towards my running, and at the end I'd feel better. Hooray for endorphins.

And so it was like this today. Fuelled by frustration I ran and ran. It was nice to be selfish have the better part of a free hour for just myself, without having to listen to all that depressing stuff; just me, rhythmically jiggling keys and footsteps.