I took a whole week off. It was only supposed to be a long weekend, but it turned into a whole week off of work. And writing. And most personal responsibilities. I didn’t even go grocery shopping and cobbled meals together out of stuff I had around my apartment, including a meal that was two bagels and the last of my jam. I did absolutely nothing that didn’t need doing and, honestly, it was kind of nice. Between actually getting some REAL rest, with proper seven-to-eight-hour nights and having an antidepressant that is (now unequivocally) working properly, that sure solved a lot of my active problems. Not all of them, mind you. It turns out that, by my approximation, eighty percent of my stress and exhaustion was actually burnout, not depression, so a single week of rest isn’t going to fix that by a long shot. It did still help a lot, though. Between having my first genuinely good birthday in at least a decade, maybe my entire life (can’t have a bad birthday if you don’t really celebrate it), taking time to sleep, allowing myself to just do whatever I wanted (which was only MOSTLY Final Fantasy 14), and reaching a point in my rest where I felt comfortable just sitting on my balcony and reading, I think I’ve gotten the most rest I’ve had in about two years. Turns out it’s difficult to rest if you have to spend a bunch of energy every day fighting your own mind in order to not be lethargic and miserable constantly and that removing that extra bit of effort can really help kickstart your other resting efforts.