Last week ended with me feeling incredibly overwhelmed and struggling to deal with what had mostly been a week full of good things [and I am once again reminded of the downsides that come with writing these things a week ahead of when they post since the week before this got posted went VERY DIFFERENTLY than the week before I wrote this]. A four-day work week, a week totaling only forty hours of work instead of my usual fifty, getting to leave work while it was still light out, some major changes at the company I work for, and even a new work computer and related peripherals. The whole week had a lot going for it, even if the exchange I’d negotiated with myself was that I could take it easy for a week in exchange for doing my taxes and taking care of the final receipt submissions for my 2023 Flexible Spending Account, and I got to end the whole thing by spending my weekend buried in video games with my friends, prep work for a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, and then a successful (and incredibly delightful) first session of that Dungeon and Dragons campaign. Unfortunately for me, this did not fix my burnout. It did lessen my mental load by a huge amount [to be honest, I probably would have had a mental breakdown if I hadn’t had this weekend before everything went to shit], since I was able to take care of a bunch of tasks that where weighing on me (like activating my new FSA card, dealing with some junk mail, sorting through the records I needed to keep to close out my pile of 2023 documents, and ordering some replacement items for stuff that had worn out and I’d been meaning to replace for almost a year), but it was definitely not restful.
Continue readingMental Health
Late-Winter Depression Posting
Thanks to a bit of foresight at the outset of my current surge of depression, I switched up my therapy schedule so that I’m seeing my therapist every week for the time being. I had no way of knowing during that first week that it would last this long, but I already knew that this surge felt different than most and managed to push myself through the lethargic, unfeeling haze to ask for something I felt I needed. Which, you know, is impressive on its own, considering how difficult I find it to ask people for something I want or to assert my right to take up space when I’m at my best, let alone when I’m doing this poorly (even if, in this case, I’m not really asking for a favor from my therapist so much as offering to exchange money for a service more frequently that I usually do). Still, I was able to anticipate a need before it came up and take the steps required to get that need met, all despite the overburdening press of this current bout of depression. While these sessions haven’t exactly helped me get through this extended wave of depression (there’s a reason I used to compare my experience of depression to being caught in a storm at sea with only a raft and that’s because it rose and fell in waves without me ever being able to get away from it), they have helped me figure out what combinations of influences, events, and various life factors probably contributed to it. Unfortunately, knowing why I’m currently incredibly depressed isn’t super helpful when there’s nothing I can do about it.
Continue readingUsing Kirby Music As An Antidepressant
My latest musical obsession (when I’m not subjecting myself to the 10-hour version of the “He-Man Hey Yeah Yeah” song), is a pair of videos by a music compilation channel on YouTube. The first one, appropriately titled “30 minutes of kirby music to make you feel better” is a collection of bright and cheerful tracks from a variety of Kirby games, classic and current (though it leaves out some of the latest games to avoid the litigious arm of Nintendo), that absolutely lives up to its name. The second one is the sequel to that first, wonderful video, titled “45 minutes of kirby music to make you feel even better” which also absolutely lives up to its name. There’s a lot of familiar tracks in this second one, showcasing songs by the same name that had been updated or changed for newer games, along with a collection of new ones as well. The channel can get away with these videos because it is not monetized and exists solely to create these compilations of video game music according to a central theme. There are a lot of channels out there like this one, but this one takes it all a little step further. Rather than just posting a static image, there’s a little animation of Kirby wearing headphones and bopping along to the music on the first one and, on the second one, fifteen minutes of bright and happy comments from the first video showcasing just how warmly this collection of music was received. The bright and cheerful music the compiler chose for these videos is enhanced by the cheerful and friendly nature of the comments they selected for this video and, for the most part (more so than any other video I’ve ever seen on YouTube), further enhanced by the bright and cheerful comments below the video.
Continue readingWaiting Beneath A Heavy Silence
I spent most of my idle thoughts today thinking about someone I haven’t spoken to in almost nine months. I have a lot of people from my past that I haven’t spoken to in various lengths of time, most of them greater than nine months, but this one occupies me in ways that the rest don’t. Most of the rest of these long silences are the result of walls I built or deliberate choices to make a change in my life that took me away from people. Some are the notable ends of long-running and incredibly unhealthy codependent relationships that I was unable to change for the better as I changed for the better–it takes change on both people’s parts to better a relationship like that and I’ve only ever been able to control my own behavior. Some were relationships I ended because they were unhealthy for me, because the other person only ever took from me, because it was clear I could not rely on them when it really mattered, or because I simply grew tired of needing to overlook the ways they frequently hurt me without ever learning to treat me better. Some just faded into silence as time and distance took their toll. Only one was because someone else set a boundry and I have kept my silence for these past nine months out of respect for their request.
Continue readingSometimes You Have To Argue Even When They Won’t Listen
My most popular post over the last two years is “Don’t Argue If They Won’t Listen” and I honestly find it kind of funny how perennially relevant that is to my life. I was spurred to write that post after being talked over by someone who continued to insist I was wrong despite having no evidence or relevant experience to back up their claim. They were never able to provide a reason for this assertion and their subsequent insistence on ignoring my advice (that they had solicited) on a topic I happened to know a lot about forever changed the nature of our relationship. I was no longer willing to engage with them on anything but a surface level and I let distance grow between us since, prior to that point, I was the one doing most of the work to keep conversation going and make contact. Now, we rarely talk (this greater distance helped by the fact that this person also moved away a few months later) and while I miss the friendship, I do not miss the way it made me feel all the time. Unfortunately, as I’ve come to realize in my professional life, walking away or keeping your silence isn’t always an option.
Continue readingMid-Winter Depression Posting
Content Warning: I’m pretty depressed right now. I’m not, like, despairing or anything, but I’m pretty miserable and this post is about that. Best avoid it if you’re not up for reading about someone else’s experiences with depression.
Continue readingHiding From All The “Year In Review” Messages I’m Being Sent
It seems like everything has a “your year in review!” thing these days. Sure, I get it as far as Spotify is concerned, since they’re all about music and basically stealing from musicians, and having all of that data is a great way to generate some buzz and attention to your platform, even though they share the data before the year is over and don’t include your entire year’s worth of listening. Nintendo started doing the same thing, but with video games, showing the number of games you played and how much you played them. My podcatcher app (Podcast Addict) doesn’t have one, but it does compile your stats in a menu somewhere so you can look any time you want rather than needing to wait for the end of the year. Amazon has one, if you use any of its media services. Barnes and Noble even sent me some kind of email about it that I instantly deleted. I don’t want to know how much money I spent on books this year since I know precisely how many books I actually read and the disparity would probably make me sad, especially after I was finally able to get myself back into a place where the quiet I needed for reading was within my grasp again. Honestly, the only services that don’t seem to do this kind of year-end review are social media companies, which I really appreciate since I would hate to see just how much I posted and how little interaction I got.
Continue readingPushing Back Against My Loneliness
Last night, I had a call with one of my friends. I think it was the first time I just sat down and had a chat with someone in at least six months (the last time was when I got to see a friend in-person for the first time in years and we met up after a wedding to get lunch and just talk, which was honestly really great except for the fact that I don’t remember half of it because I was so tired that my head was full of cotton). Most of the time when I talk to people, it’s to serve a particular purpose. Sometimes it’s to plan an event, sometimes it’s to play a game together (video or online tabletop), and sometimes its to provide emotional support. Rarely, these days, do I ever sit down with people, in person or on the phone, to just shoot the shit. Which, in retrospect, is probably part of the reason I’ve been struggling with feelings of isolation for a while now. I love talking to people for no purpose other than to talk, but it’s really difficult to do since most people are busy and it’s much easier to plan an activity with other people than to just set aside time to exist with each other in companionable conversation or silence, whichever happens.
Continue readingI’ll Be Home For The Holidays
The holidays are here. Some are already happening and some are swiftly approaching and yet I have no idea what I’m going to do this year. Since I went no-contact with my entire family except my younger siblings, I’ve celebrated with two of them, observed it via discord calls during the start of the pandemic, joined my local friends’ family at their house, and then spent it with those same friends who had to cancel their travel plans due to the nasty weather. I thought I might travel to visit some friends (the ones on the east coast that I’ve drived to visit twice this year) but the thought of going anywhere far away fills me with preemptive exhaustion so severe I had to take a fifteen minute break from what I was doing when I idly considered doing another pair of one thousand mile drives. Sure, I’ve got my longest break from work in years thanks to some extra holidays my employer gave all the US employees and a few days of PTO I have to spend before January nineth (a whole twelve consecutive days), but I REALLY need to take some time to myself. I’m incredibly burned out and I could really use some actual rest. Sure, I’d love to see my friends and I’m sure I’d have a great time visiting them, but it would probably not be terribly restful, regardless of whether I drove or flew. Not to mention it’s a bit late in the year to be making plans like that.
Continue readingThis Moment And Place In My Life
This morning, as I prepared to take my post-workout shower, my morning playlist cycled over to a song that’s been on there for a while. I added “Wherever We Are Now” (from the game “Cassette Beasts” and the EP Same Old Story (from “Cassette Beasts” Original Soundtrack) to my daily preparation playlist this summer, during July, when I finally had the time to make some decent progress in the game. I then promptly stopped playing it on the weekends where I could be bothered to turn my PC on because I developed a crippling addiction to Baldur’s Gate 3, which took over my life for quite a while. Still, I’ve really enjoyed the soundtrack for the game and plan to get back to it eventually, if only because I’m limiting myself to songs from the soundtrack that I’ve already heard in-game and I really want to listen to the rest of it.
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