Would you classify this as depressed behaviour? Or not?

I think due to having to be sociable and completely on the ball constantly through the week at work you take the chance at the weekend to be more relaxed and not having to be aware of people and their expectations of you being sociable.

It doesn’t have to be depressed behaviour at all and is more just preference due to how you have to be during the week.

It sounds nothing like depression. It sounds exactly like a preference. Relax, and don’t let yourself be bullied.

To me it sounds like your own personal ‘relaxation time’. Do what makes you happy, and if it makes you happy staying home then go for it!!

It sounds like you have a busy work week and just want to relax. When I was 21 I wanted to go to parties on the weekends(after working a 60 hour week). Now I’m 32 and just want to relax and read when I have spare time. I have a GF. I don’t need to hook-up anymore. I’m happy being alone until my GF shows up.

Enough about me. Really, If you are happy keep on keeping on.

And a good sign of depression is lack of appetite. If you still want to sit on the couch with a bucket of ice cream and a movie you are simply happy and not depressed.

It sounds like perfectly reasonable wind-down time to me. Being on the go like that can be draining and it’s natural to want time to yourself.
If you feel happy to spend your time this way and you don’t feel down in yourself, then I think it’s fine.

I would worry if you lost interest in things you usually enjoy, change in sleep pattern, have a feeling of hopelessness or worthlessness.

It sounds normal to me. Whenever I worked at a job that was busy the last thing I wanted to do on the weekend was run around and be around a bunch of people.

Yeah I think maybe you just need your personal time on the weekends to unwind. If you star not taking care of anything at home though, chronically skipping cleaning, doing laundry, and generally not taking care of your personal necessities, then you might need to be concerned about depression. But if all your doing is giving yourself some personal time on your days off that is actually healthy for you.

Socializing to be social is crap. Do what feels right to you.

This is a pretty simple thing to determine. If you don’t think about what you should or shouldn’t do, how do you feel? If you are not feeling sad and if you enjoy your own company and are able to find things to keep you busy, then you are not depressed.

@Just_Justine are these friends who know you really well? Is this something that you usually do or just started?

I have gotten the impression, form other things you have written, about your relationship with depression that you would recognize it.

If you want to stay home and prefer that to going out, then you are perfectly right to stay home.
You are allowed!

@PattyAtHome good point that about skipping important tasks, as I am not skipping them because @gemiwing got me thinking, I don’t know what I enjoy I know it sounds odd but I am trying to think of what I enjoy that I am missing. I love the net (clearly) I love TV, bit of reading. I am still doing that, I like the beach but haven’t been much at all. So not sure. I think getting dolled up and being super ready all week for demands has me burned out or something. @Adirondackwannabe yeh you right @liminal you mean because I am bipolar? yeah that’s why I am checking. @worriedguy thanks for the permission :P

@LostInParadise love my own company

Its important to look at your past behaviour. If you previously enjoyed going out every weekend and seeing your friends on a regular basis, and then it just stopped, then yes maybe it is depressed behaviour.

Stopping activities that you used to enjoy is a negative depressive behaviour.

But if you have always been a “me” time person, it is perfectly healthy.

@Just_Justine not that specifically, I was being encouraging, I was having a vague recollection of an exchange you had with someone on fluther who was feeling depressed. I remember thinking “she knows her stuff” (meaning you).

I also recall you having a good handle on evaluating yourself and expressing what you like to do and not do. I was trying to think along with you.

Why a hard working woman who knows what she wants to do with her time? Now that hardly sounds like depression to me. ;)

@liminal Hmm can’t remember that? but thanks for the encouragement :) I do have bipolar, I also have a major in Psych. But it’s hard I guess to be objective when assessing oneself. But you right, I think I am fine loll. I don’t feel down, I just feel like because of what people say I might be letting myself down, you know “you must go out, you must party like @steve_A says I should know what I want ;). I feel I need to check though bipolar is an odd illness at times.

@Just_Justine see, you do know your stuff ;)

You are not alone. this situation occured for me each day. i would drive approx. 100 miles a day. my cellphone never stopped ringing and it seemed as though every person on earth wanted a part of me, all at the same time.

My offtime, i do not answer the phone(i have caller id). i stay out of the drivers seat of my personal car. wife drives, if i must go somewhere. and, if we do go out somewhere, i cannot wait to be back at home and solitude. this is not depression, this is what mother nature intended for us to do. its in everyones DNA. some people just reach this point in the their lives quicker than others.

Is this caused by our older age? yes. i have been a “person on the go”, since the day i was born. maybe, it is time to “set the bucket down”.

@john65pennington aw thank you John, just hope I am as frisky as you at your age :)))

Justine. thanks for the comments. i am 66, but the good Lord has given me the ability to stay young and i thank him for it. hope you have a great day! john

Honey, if you want to spend your weekends recharging and relaxing with “me” time, I see nothing wrong with that. Stephen Covey tells us we need to “sharpen the saw”. I concur.

@Just_Justine It’s interesting that you would ask this question b/c I deal with the same issue. I prefer being home and I hate going out. I want to WANT to go out, but I have a hard time doing so. My husband is a homebody and I enjoy his company so it’s easy to stay home with him. But before I married him, I was single for 5 years and was still a homebody. I think everybody is different and some people are just content to be less social. You get 5 days of human interaction, so home is an escape from having to get out and deal with other people. After having being “social” for 5 days, I don’t think there is anything wrong with wanting to spend 2 escaping that environment and unwinding in your personal haven. I’m going to read the responses now and see what others have to say about it.

@Exhausted I kind of had an epiphany when I read your post. I think for me, obviously not for everyone, but for me personally I find life racy. In terms of my job is very demanding, two phones going like mad, messages beeping, emails, driving, people, shops, offices, to me it is one racy blur. It must be the bipolar in me!!!! I guess when I say I want to wind it down I really do! Plus every day I am dressed up, full make up, suites ugh! I just wanna be a slob on weekends!

If you are “enjoying” yourself then I would say you are not depressed. So if you enjoy your time at home on the weekends, and are not just laying in bed with all of the lights off, I think you are ok. When you are depressed nothing makes you happy, it is hard to enjoy anything. Sounds to me like personall preference more than anything.

You sound fine. There is no law saying one must have fun socializing on weekends. Your life seems very full of social activity and if you just want to quietly enjoy your own company on the weekends, more power to you!

Doesn’t sound like depression, sounds like down time for yourself. I am actually somewhat “antisocial” I guess. I prefer to be at home. I like vacations and everything but then I feel like I have to unwind from the vacation afterward. I like going out sometimes, but those times are rare as I never seem to be in the mood. I don’t feel depressed; I like my life and the people in my life, I just prefer the comforts of home.

I agree, it seems to me it is more about preference than age or depression.

I just had this same conversation with a friend of mine who took offense last weekend when I declined an invitatation to go out to a bar for some dinner and music on Saturday night.

I told her that I was just not that into the bar scene, short of a couple of summertime moments at some local hubs nearby.

She launched into a frantic ramble about how she refused to become ‘rigid’ and old and a homebody. I told her that there was a big dif. between rigidity and stupidity. lol

Driving on deer infested mountain roads with somewhat comprimsied night vision these days and to have a couple of drinks and drive home…well no, not important enough for me to risk stupidity.

I’d rather have a drink and sit in my hot tub. :-)

Of course, this is a woman who is very fearful of her aging and loss of sex appeal, she needs to be out and ‘seen’ to validate her fragile self esteem.

I think she reacted so strongly because she resents my self assuredness and contentment because she is not coping well with being single and reaching her wilted flower stage of life. hahaha

It’s sad, but, truthfully I think she takes way too many risks and has had some close calls, falling asleep at the wheel, hitting deer that have damaged her car, running off the road and hitting boulders in the night.

I handled it well but had to really bite my tongue to not say..’ yes, well…and you just wrecked your car two months ago excercising your right to fight rigidity. lol

@Coloma hahahaha… and nothing worth than a wilted flower lmao

@Just_Justine

Haha..yep, this woman scares the crap out of me driving stone cold sober in broad daylight. lol

She’s a sweet person but I have never met a more scattered and unfocused person ever! It’s already a wonder she navigates the basic driving to sustain her world let alone a meader home after a nightclub moment. lolol

@Coloma “not coping well with being single and reaching her wilted flower stage of life” how beautifully said!

I love everybodys posts, and agree that it’s a preference.

Depression is living in the pain of the past. Not letting go. It sounds like you are very much enjoying the weekend activities of your choice, so it does not appear to be depression to me.
I do the same thing. not a noisy barsy type. i enjoy a meal with a cocktail out with a friend.
but not just because it’s the weekend, and not every weekend.

Well, it depends.

Are these things you used to enjoy doing? Depression for me is signaled by a lack of desire to do something that I usually enjoy. I almost become disinterested. It also takes too much energy for me to do those things when I am depressed.

However, as I got older I did lose interest in going out and hanging in certain social groups. It’s maturity and reprioritizing.

It sounds like you are pretty busy with work. Could it be that you are maturing faster than your social group?

you clearly stated that you hate going out to places like that.
so, why would it be sane to do things one hates?

I second enjoying these posts. :-)

I think it’s all about balance and yes, not doing things that do not appeal to one in the moment to simply say you can or to appease others.

Maturity is also about recognizing and accepting your limitations, knowing yourself.

I KNOW myself very well…I KNOW if there is a cheesecake in the fridge I WILL eat it, maybe sooner, maybe later, but it WILL get eaten. lol

Same with my night vision these days and my party preferences.

I KNOW if I am feeling energized and go out it is best to have a designated driver, because I probably WILL want to have more than 2 drinks.

I also know and accept that I much prefer to feel good and rested and staying out till 3 a.m. results in days of recovery, is it worth it? Once in a great while, like the big outdoor party I threw last summer, otherwise mostly not.

oops I meant worse not worth

It’s kind of humorous if you think about a woman with a wilted flower.What could be more of a bummer. Well I guess a man with a wilted flower isn’t much better.

Deltaaaaa Daaaawn, whats that flower you have on?

Could it be a faded rose from days gone by?

OMG! THAT is THE worst song ever composed and now it’s in my brain..shit…is it time for wine yet? lololololol

I’m the same way. I work 9–5 all week, and on weekends I stay at home and write erotic/horror/thriller/sf stories. The only times I go out on weekends are the occasional times I get to NSFW with slave girls who read my stories, email me, and offer their bodies to me :-p

Maybe its a part of growing up. We get over all that socializing stuff to feel cool or to fit in. I have gotten to the that point right now too that i don’t need to go out to be or feel satisfied with my myself or with my life. i enjoy staying in, while i have friends who go out almost every day of the week. and maybe they will tell me i missed out, yet i never feel like i did, because in the end i didn’t really care much about it. it has no more importance to me. We don’t have to do anything people expect us to or want us to.

@HungryGuy lucky you loll

You know, it’s only a problem if you think it’s a problem. I take moods where I’m much more sociable than other times. In winter I tend to stay at home much more bc it gets dark so early. Also, as I’ve gotten older I don’t seem to feel I have to fill every weekend with social activity. Tell your friends you’ll be in touch soon & do what you want to do.

“Not right”? How about uncommon. Your work requires so much of you, your friends should know better than to say your behavior is “not right”. I have certain days where I feel I should be doing something but don’t. Are you happy when you feel this way? Or are you convicted? If you are convicted I suppose it would be a problem.

No I don’t think it’s depressed behaviour…. let’s talk!

I woke up at least twenty times in the early hours of this morning wishing for me not to wake up until everything was better…it wasn’t..the day was still on it’s way.and eventually the day came… that’s depressed behaviour

I don’t go anywhere and don’t want to go anywhere…at all… you sound perfectly normal to me… xxx

Just because you like spending your weekends quietly at home is not a sign of depression. You are around people all week.

Sounds like you’re having great weekends. I have those often as well, and I don’t think I’m depressed.

screw everyone else it is your life.

I come back to asking you what your friends who know you and your patterns really well say? Of course dismiss those who are toxic and pissy about you taking care of yourself. Yet, don’t automatically throw out the opinions of those who love you for you and have been riding life’s roller coaster with you for a long time now.