I’ve been fascinated with the weather in the last week or so (well, all “spring” really, and spring is in quotes because it’s been anything but) because it’s as if winter is just refusing to leave. We Minnesotans are used to variant weather in March and April, but things are usually pretty settled by May. Here is what I wrote about it (amongst other things) in yesterday’s post.
I personally would not mind if we did not hit eighties or nineties at all during the spring/summer, but I know that would make most other people sad. Since I don’t go outside much, I should just suck it up and wish for eighties and nineties for other people. I have air con, too, which I try not to use. I am conscious that it’s bad for the environment, and while I prefer the cold to the heat, I’m fine up to 76*, but anything over that is unbearable.
Sometimes, I wish I had known shit about me when I was much younger. Such as the fact that I’m very sensitive to any external stimuli. Not just heat, which is my nemesis, but other things such as scents, light, and sounds. Not just loud sounds, but different kinds of sounds. For instance, I hate ASMR. So much. It’s like nails on a chalkboard for me. Even if it’s done by people I adore, I have to grit myy teeth to get through it. Basically, any kind of whispering is irritating to me.
Most fabrics bother me, too. My life is a series of irritating things–physically, I mean. Most of them are on the level of what irritates me in the literal sense, but there are some that just irritate me in colloquial sense, too.
My sleep is such a hot mess right now. I think it’s the worst it’s ever been. No wait. That’s not true. That’s recency bias. It was much worse when I was in college. At least I’m getting sleep now–six to eight hours. Back then, I got four if I was lucky.
I know what I have to do; I just really, really, really rebel against doing it. It really is me fighting my own brain, which is not easy to do. More than that, it’s nearly impossible. Sometimes, it’s physically uncomfortable when I do something that my brain doesn’t want me to do. That’s not an excuse, obviously. I need to do what I need to do, and I need to find a way to make it tolerable.
One thing I’ve decided to do is return to what I used to do that worked for me. There are many things that don’t, but one thing that did was making sure I did what I needed to do before allowing myself to chill out. I mean, this is probably what most people do on the regular, but it’s really hard for me to keep my brain on track.
I don’t want to use it as an excuse, but I really feel this to be true after my medical crisis. Before that, I had discipline to do what I needed to do before relaxing. Since my medical crisis, it’s really hard to keep my focus on one thing. The only exception is when I’m practicing my weapons. Even that, though, is done one form at a time (so a few minutes per form). I will say that when I’m teaching myself a new form, I can focus for up to a half hour or however long it takes me to teach myself the new posture.
Other than that, though, I have to really put my mind to something to focus for more than an hour.
Let me be clear that I’ve always had difficulty focusing unless I was hyperfocusing on something. It’s just that it’s gotten even harder now, and I feel likke it’s not completely my fault. Meaning, it’s not something that I can just fix by pure willpower.
It’s diffiuclt for me to say, but I’m feeling pretty hopeless right now. There is so much I want/need to do, but I have the hardest time doing any of it. My personal life is a mess as is the world around me. I don’t feel like anything I do matters. I came back to life four-and-a-half years ago, and what have I done with my bonus time? Not much of anything.
This is not me being hard on myself; this is me being real. I have wasted my bonus days just as I have wasted much of my previous life. I know that the only answer to that is to actually start doing something–but that’s so much easier said than done. With all that is broken in my brain, it’s hard to think of a way to fix even a portion of it.
It’s the same with the country around me. It’s all fucked. It’s so fucked. We are living in the worst time, and I don’t have the energy to deal with it, honestly. I’m feeling pretty low at this moment, and I’m not sure if I want to claw my way out.
I’ve always suffered from depression and anxiety, and it’s been up and down all my life. Both were bad up until my medical crisis, and then, it was drastically different. My deperession decreased by 90% and my anxiety went down by 60%. These are rough estimates. I would say that my depression has ratcheted back up to be about 90% of what it originally was (so still a 10% decrease) and my anxiety is maybe 80% of what it was pre-medical crisis.
So overall, it’s not quite as bad as it once was, but it’s still bad. I think the worst part of it is that I just don’t have the energy/wherewithal to do anything about it. Each day passes as an imitation of the one before, and I feel helpless to do anything to make it better. I know that one thing that may help is seeing a therapist, but it’s cruelly ironic that the thing that may help the most is often somethnig that seems so far out of reach.
I really am at my wit’s end. I don’t know what to do.
*Fine, of course, is relative. I mean fine as long as I don’t have to move much. Bearable is the better word. And as long as I’m shielded from the elements.