Mood Swings

Do you ever have those days when you are just moody and feel almost diseased without any good reason?  No root cause as it were?  That's how my day is going so far.  I feel tired and depressed and it's a struggle to even think properly.  My thoughts are struggling along as if through some viscous liquid.  Trying to think clearly today feels like how I imagine it must be for a person with asthma to breathe on one of those "smog warning" days.  I can do it but what should come easily is suddenly difficult and irksome.  

I have no good explanation for this, but there are a few things that seem to be feeding into this feeling.  I started the day at work today by hearing a conversation about a coworker who committed suicide over the weekend.  No one I knew personally at all.  Couldn't even picture a face to go with the name.  However it was strange because two people were talking about him and describing his traits, both physical and personality-wise,  and it occurred to me that they could easily have been describing me.  I could clearly picture almost the same conversation at work a morning or two after my own death.


While that is certainly enough to weigh on my mind for the morning, I also got really depressed when my favourite character in the book I'm currently reading was violently killed, suddenly and senselessly around page 300.  I know how foolish it sounds to be sad because an author stopped writing about a girl he made up, but regardless it had an effect on me.  The character was a 15 year old girl who'd already survived the end of civilization as we know it and managed to maintain some trace elements of both kindness and naivete.  She got hit in the head by a brick that was flung from a speeding car and lost both an eye and her life, about 12 hours later.  Anyway, I think subconsciously I am relating this character to something deeper in my own psyche.  I tried to figure out what and why, but as I mentioned, my thoughts are cloudy and impotent this morning.  Perhaps I'll figure it out later on.


Finally, I ran into a friend of mine on my break, which was nice.  Unfortunately she was called into work early today because her boss's father passed away.  Not so nice.  Another death mention, again in no way related to me.  Still, it's wearing on me. 


So I guess I have reasons for feeling as I do.  However, I don't feel that they are particularly good reasons.  I seem to have a low emotional tolerance or something today.  Sometimes I worry that I may have a chemical imbalance in my brain.  Things that should strongly effect me emotionally often fall flat, and other times I feel like life is completely pointless and meaningless without any good reason for feeling this way.  Perhaps I need therapy or medication.  Should I seek professional help?  I don't know.  These moods have been coming on strongly and frequently in the last few months.  So I ask again, is this common?  Do you ever feel this way?