unwell
I feel so off today. I'm utterly exhausted. I'm more anxious and panicky than I have been in a very long time - to the point that simple tasks (empty the cat food bowl into the trash can) overwhelm me and cause me panic.
Part of it is definitely yesterday's murder in minnesota.
I think most of it is what I did today.
I edited a resistance article a friend contributed, and I wrote a resistance article myself. I published both. I logged into BlueSky to tweet them. I hopped on my public Facebook to share a Letter to the Editor I submitted to my local newspaper. (Last time I hopped on was after Charlie Kirk was murdered)
I got done with these tasks and felt utterly fried, frazzled, frankly frantic. (ok maybe "frankly" doesn't fit there, but it sounds nice!)
This is why I stopped doing journalism and why I stopped volunteering and doing most other productive activities.
It was like 2 hours of work ... maybe less. And it turned me into a panicked mess.
Not because I'm anxious about something. I do get anxious about things like any person does, but the anxiety I deal with, the one I'm concerned about, the one that is my mental disability ... It's not "about" something. It's just a state that I'm in.
It causes me to be unable to make decisions, to be sent into a panic over things that are typically very simple.
And the primary cause of it is ... productive activity, as far as I can tell. Some kinds of productive activity are worse than others.
Programming does it a little bit, but not much these days. It used to cause it to a huge degree. It helps that I know my limits and don't push it.
Even things like mowing the lawn can do it - though I think it's more because of how toxic my mind is when I do that than because of the labor itself. I get done, and I've spent 30 minutes in mental agony and then I'm not well. It doesn't always go like that. But sometimes it does.
I don't miss this.
I'm not going to give up the limited projects I have these days. I'm still going to do my resistance work. But I can't go full-speed-ahead like I once could. I need rest and recovery time. And I took that today. Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow. I won't be ready for more resistance work though.
This reminder of my illness is nice to have though.
I'm often like "oh am I really sick? I don't know, maybe I'm fine." It can be hard to tell because I don't push my limits. I stay stable and relatively okay BECAUSE I don't push my limits very often.
Then I have a day like today and it's like OH YEAH THIS IS REAL.
I didn't know I was pushing my limits today. It wasn't that much work. I felt well equipped for it. It doesn't help that I am emotionally charged. But then again, that's a big part of what pushed me to do be productive.
I'm also sad. I just feel unhappy tonight. depressed. deflated. A little lonely, I think. uninterested in things I normally enjoy. I did watch a movie tonight and that was nice.
It was about a guy who wrote a book about pinball machines in the 70s and helped get pinball machines unbanned in New York (which cascaded across the country). Yeah, I bet you didn't know pinball machines were banned for 30 years in New York and many other cities. Me either. Wait until you learn about past bans on dancing. Interesting movie. Well told. Entertaining. Enjoyable. Probably fairly loose with the details, for entertainment purposes.
I've been watching a lot of movies recently.
I'm trying to learn how to relax again. It's been years since I've been able to relax. Like I do seemingly relaxing activities and I just literally cannot relax. Like relaxation is a distinct sensation, a distinct experience. It's hard for me to experience it. Movies seem to be kind of the right vibe.
They're long. They require a longer attention span. They don't addict me to a million subsequent episodes like some TV shows do. There's no ads (thank you mom for paying for ad-free streaming services). I eat popcorn or another snack (popcorn on the stove is SO good! Plus it's less plastic and paper waste, and it's vegan.)
And I'm trying to (and somewhat succeeding at) LETTING THINGS BE.
Like after a good blog post, I like to check my Toast count. But lately I've been resisting the urge, especially later in the evening. Not always ... but sometimes, more than usual. Same goes for Facebook notifications (speaking of my PRIVATE facebook here) and the endless news feed the app gives me (please god if you use facebook mess with your notification settings so you ONLY see when people comment on your posts or reply to you. All the extra shit is so obnoxious. And then block the app from actually pushing notifications to your phone. You can see that shit when you open the app).
I'm gonna read now. It's a book by Stacey Abrams (yes, the American politician. Governor? Legislator? I forget rn). I like the story. It's interesting, compelling. She uses too many fancy words. Like, I get iitttt you're smarter than me. I do like the book. But yeah I'm critical. Some of the characters and dialogue are a bit ... cheesy too. I think it might be her only fiction book. Idunno. She's no N.K. Jemisin, that's for sure. But that's not a fair comparison because Jemisin is a god-tier writer. GO GET ONE OF HER BOOKS AND READ IT NOW. You will be happy. She's a fucking rockstar. You can start with my FAVE, The Fifth Season, or literally any other book (but be sure not to start in the middle of a series). I'm excited to continue Abrams's's's's's's book though. (I fucking hate when non-plural possessives end with just an apostrophe. It's truly evil, despicable, deplorable, the work of a Satan I don't even believe in. Maybe Nazis did it. Truly the worst thing anyone's ever done is not put the s after the apostrophe in a non-plural possessive. We should ban it and hang people for it. Bring back the guillotine. Yeah you didn't think it was going there.)
bye for now