I Pinpointed It

I've been thinking a bit lately about what has me depressed. It all started at work a few weeks ago...

A new guy started. New Guy is perfectly nice, and this has almost nothing to do with him. HPLC Chemist also has a teeny role in this, but of course it's not at all his fault, either.

So HPLC Chemist is still in school and is always asking me chemistry questions, and I don't know the answers because I've been out of school for five years and because these damn drugs...well, I'll get to that in a moment. Either way, he asks me a question and I have to say "I'm sorry, I don't remember..." and then I feel like a total dumbass.

New Guy is not fresh out of college, but more so than I am, so he remembers things and picks up everything super fast. This is a good thing, for sure. It's also a good thing that HPLC Chemist is always trying to learn more about not just his classes, but his job and the chemistry it entails. These really are good things.

So I feel like an idiot. That's what has me depressed lately. I pinpointed it. Here's the thing: I know I'm smart. I know that. I have a degree in chemistry, for hell's sake.

Have you seen the movie "A Beautiful Mind"? Now, I am in NO WAY comparing myself to John Nash, because holy hell would that be the height of hubris, but in the movie, at one point, he started to take antipsychotic medication and found that he could no longer think clearly, especially on matters mathematical. This is how I feel. I feel dulled. I feel cloudy. I try to do math in my head that used to be so incredibly easy for me and I have to stop and write it down, because I can't hold the numbers in my mind.

I used to be smart. In college, I was in no way a Sheldon Cooper (I didn't go to college when I was 12), but I was at least a Leonard Hofsteder, however you spell his name. I got my degree with minimal effort because things just made sense to me. The math just made sense. Chemical processes made sense. It all just clicked. I loved it all so much. And now it's just lost. All the things I knew, everything I memorized and learned and studied so hard, it's all gone. I don't remember things anymore. And if I try to re-learn something, it doesn't stick.

I feel so stupid. I hate it.

And it doesn't help that I was walking New Guy through how to do my job for when I'm not there (he's going to learn everyone's stuff so he can sub when we're sick or vacationing), and I realized that with few exceptions, I do the same damn thing over and over every single day. I try to tell myself that I work for yarn, and to get myself out of the house every day, and to be social, and I work for the weekend, but I can't help but feel like I've wasted my hard-earned degree with a position as nothing more than a glorified lab tech. Now don't get me wrong; it's a good job. I get paid more than I need, I have great benefits, and for the most part I like my coworkers. But there's no challenge. And I'm not sure I could handle a job that was a challenge, since my mind has turned to muck.

Damn drugs.

But I can never go off of them and hope to have even a shred of a decent life, not to mention a decent relationship with Scott.