My sleep is shit. It’s always been shit, but there are ups and downs to it. Now, I’m in a down time, and I’m having such difficulty going to bed. In the past, I’ve had trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, and getting enough sleep (though not necessarily at the same time. Though also not NOT necessarily at the same time).
The only time I have not have problems with my sleep was in the hospital and about a year following after I returned home. I was heavily drugged, and it was so wonderful. I understood why people did drugs after that. I felt like a million bucks and nothing hurt. About three weeks after i returned home, I started feeling my body again. Little aches and pains, and I realized, “Oh, I acutally have to return to my body.” I was not happy about it, but there wasn’t anything I could do.
My point is that my sleep is on difficulty mode just like everyithing else in my life. It’s been my nemesis since I was a kid, and I haven’t made much progress in all the years since.
That’s not completely right. I have times when I make painful progress with my sleep, only to fall back into a terrible pattern once again. Then, I berate myself for not getting to bed earlier. It’s six-thirty in the morning. I should be in bed. I am not, though, and I will probably not be for another half hour at least. More like an hour.
I try not to beat myself up because that doesn’t help. In fact, it hurts in that the shame makes me even less likely to go to bed at a decent time. Normally, I can make incremental changes, but I don’t feel capable of doing that right now. I’m not sure why, but I have a hunch it has something to do with the hopelessness I feel at the world around me.
When I got a tight eight hours a night after my medical crisis, I felt amazing. I could not believe how good it felt because I never get that much sleep a night unless I’m sick. Or if I hadn’t slept in a very long time. Otherwise, though, I am lucky if I get seven hours in aggregate. This is me reverting to the mean, and I’m not happy about it.
It’s a great indicator of most everything else about my life, though. I make everything so hard, no matter what.
On the sillier side, look at the games I choose. I like cozy games, yes, but I also like From games. I sometimes wish I had never played Dark Souls for the first time. Barring that, I wish I had not played it a second time, either. Or played Dark Souls II (Scholar of the the First Sin).
I know when it all changed, though. Up until that point, I wasn’t all in. By the time I finished playeng SotFS, I was hooked. I’ve said it several times. SotFS is not a better game than the OG DS, but I have played it probably twice as many times as the first game.
Playing Dark Souls III in real time with other people was such a formative experience for me. And then doing it with Shadow of the Erdtree while being in a Discord with other people playing it at the same time, it was a magical experience.
But, my god. The last boss of the DLC….I talked a bit about it in the last post. That boss stood out in my mind, and not in a good way. I mentioned that I could get one-shot by one of his attacks. I didn’t mention that I respecced about an hour into the DLC to give myself 60 Vigor beacuse I was being one-shot by the first field boss. This boss was a real ‘welcome to the DLC, fuck you’ moment. After beating my head against the boss for an hour, I made the decision to give myself 60 Vigor (recommended for the base game. I had 18 for the first 100 hours and then got up to 38 by the end of the base game).
So the last boss was wiping me out when I had 60 Vigor. That is unconscionable. Granted, it was rarely a complete wipe, but it was close to it several times. There was nothing fun as I fought the boss over and over and over again. I limited myself to two hours, then two hours, then one hour (three days in succession) before finally beating the boss.
I let out a stream of curses, felt briefly elated, then pure relief. then numbness. I was just glad it was over and that I never had to fight the boss again*.
That is not the mark of a good boss. But it’s how I feel with almost every end boss in a From game. I undrestand wanting to leave your mark on the game at the very end. It’s a statement. It’s your stamp on your game. But in my opinion, it’s getting stale–and predictable.
I do this to myself in real life. I really wish I could just call myself a woman and be done with. And be gay or straight. And a Christi–scratch that. I never want to return to Christianity–ever.
I have more to say, but it’s late. I’ll write more tomorrow.
*I did fight the boss again, but mostly with human summons. Stil lhard, but not nearly as difficult as it was to do with Mini-Me. I think I might have done that twice? Maybe once with my Strength character? But after that, I jsut did not care about doing it ‘pure’. Or as pure as it got in this game for me, anyway. Meaning with a spirit summon, which was how theboss fights were meant to be fought.**
**I am not going to talk about this at leength, but it’s so annoying when the bros (and in this case, it’s gender-neutral bros. Definitely more men than non-men, but some women also think they have to prove how hard they are) look down on people who use spirit summons. i don’t give a fuck what they want to do, and I wish they would offer others the same courtesy.