In perhaps the least-expected twist of what increasingly seems like an effective antidepressant, while I am actually regaining my ability to do things at what feels like a nigh-miraculous rate, I’m actually doing a lot less Final Fantasy 14 stuff than I expected to do. I mean, I’ve spent so much time on the game lately that a lot of my considerations for what I might do more if I had the energy was stuff like “get back to my daily level-grinding work” or “finally work through a bunch of the job quests for fishing that I’ve been ignoring because fishing isn’t fun” or “return to my old days of constant resource collection.” Instead, my apartment is (mostly) clean, my dishes are done, my laundry is folded, work is less productive than ever, I’m more tired than before, and I’m sleeping less than I should. Turns out that stuff piling up on your mental to-do list starts to reassert itself pretty heavily when you finally stop reflexively flinching away from the thought of doing any kind of extra work because even considering the act of thinking about it made you so tired you wanted to lay down on the floor and not move for a week. So now I fill my “spare” evening time with cleaning tasks around my apartment, spend more time preparing myself decent food, and then realize I had a list of Final Fantasy 14 chores I wanted to get done such that now I’m staying up even later to do those as well. I’ve spent so much time over the past few years (and probably even longer) so incredibly tired in body, soul, and mind that now I’m starting to mistake the mental drive to do things returning for the physical ability to do things. Wanting to do stuff is unfortunately not the same as not being tired, much less actually having the energy to do stuff. Which is a mistake I’ve made three nights in a row.

It’s difficult to blame myself, though. I haven’t felt this focused on anything or had the drive to do things in long enough that I’m not sure I want to spend the effort to figure that out since I’m pretty sure the answer would only make me sad. I’ve already reflexively flinched away from saying “this is making me feel like a version of myself that you never got the chance to meet” to people in my life multiple times today alone. Not that I can’t admit that fact to myself and to the people I care about, just that, well, it’s kind of a heavy thing to have popping into my mind almost unprompted. I don’t need to think about it now since this return of my executive function, focus, and ability to push myself are probably not going to just vanish into nothingness at this point. I kind of want to let myself enjoy this moment and this feeling before I start to grapple with the fact that I’ve been a slowly fading shadow of myself to the extent that I’m not sure what it means to even try to recapture the person I once was even a decade (or thereabouts) ago, let alone actually succeed at it. I mean, I’ve had periods of my life where I had this kind of energy, focus, and drive (and the ability to back them up with action) but it’s been so long since that was a consistent part of myself.

So now I’m mostly just taking advantage of this energy to clean my apartment to a degree that it has not gotten in a long time (it doesn’t hurt that I’m preparing to host my two friends-as-family over my upcoming birthday weekend, so I’d need to be cleaning anyway) and then stay up too late because I got into the flow of whatever I was doing and lost track of time. I mean, I sat down to play some Final Fantasy 14 at half-past-ten last night and it was two in the morning the next thing I knew. I got too focused on what I was doing and my general mental wearing-out that I’ve come to rely on to get me off my computer and into bed didn’t show up. Typcally my mental energy and focare are resources on their last legs by the time I get home, let alone after I’ve done any evening chores. Typically even the thought of doing any kind of substantive labor after work is so exhausting that I specifically avoid it. Now… Well, it’s still a struggle to do things, but it’s a struggle that I can easily succeed at and one that doesn’t spend as much energy as it did even five years ago.

It’s possible this is a mix of sleepiness, caffination, and a small boost from my antidepressants. This phase might not last. Or it will and I’ll be back to doing things like writing for twelve consecutive hours like I did before the modern world chewed me up and spit me out as the barely-focused husk I was for most of the last decade. I don’t know. This is literally unprecedented for me. I’ve never just felt like this. There was always something going on to help boost my mood or prop up my energy levels. Now, I feel like this despite everything happening in the world and despite being so tired that I could fall asleep right this minute if I just closed my eyes. I feel like I could actually make plans for the future again. I can work on goals. I just need to rest first. I need the energy and rest to be able to do these things, not just the willingness to, and I also need to give this medication it’s full four weeks before I say if it’s definitely responsible or not because, if you look at the last few days of my blog posts (today included), it paints quite a varying picture. Even if all I get out of this is some of my resilience back, I’ll still count it as a major win. I miss being able to take breaks from stuff and then feel ready to dive back into it again later that same day. I miss a lot of things that it’s difficult to not expect now that I’m starting to feel a little bit of something, so I really need to pump the brakes and continue to let things play out as they will for the time being. Especially because all I want to do is declare victory, take a couple days off to rest in order to recharge, and then come back to my life swinging for the fences. Mostly because even if my antidepressants are working properly now, I’m still super burned out and need to be cautious with my energy and well-being. Better safe than sorry.