I am preparing for a bit of a long car trip. I’ll be driving about two thousand miles, all told, over the course of a week, so I’ve been trying to get some things in order to make this trip happen in a way that isn’t going to destroy me. Primarily, I’ve taken my car in to get serviced. Thankfully, despite passing 111,111 miles just the other day and being almost twelve years old, there’s nothing really wrong with it. An oil change, a new oil filter, and an appointment to change out the weatherproffing seal around the driver’s door for after the holiday. Pretty small stuff, all told, and little enough that the anxiety I’ve been ignoring about needing to replace my car any time soon (which I absolutely cannot afford to do) has faded thanks to its clean bill of health following a full inspection. It is, of course, entirely possible that some significant issue is just one pothole away from bursting this sense of security, but I’ve been going to this mechanic for nearly a decade and they came well reviewed when I first started bringing my car to them. I trust their work and their thoroughness when I asked them to make sure I wouldn’t run into any problems during my holiday travels. I might still need to check the air in the tires since I prefer to put them at a higher pressure than I think they put them at (I like the top of the range of the acceptable tire pressure and they usually only fill them to the bottom), but I did forget to ask about that this time so I wouldn’t hold that against them.
Continue readingDepression
I’ve Even Stopped Wishing I Could Put An Optimistic Spin On These Posts
It has been a rough… Well, couple of months in particular. Years. Decade. Etc. But the last couple months in particular have been very draining and extra exhausting. Having all of this stuff with my family hanging over me isn’t helpful at the best of times and these are not the best of times. The world looks increasingly awful as fascism continues to rise. Sure, we had a really good set of election results this past week, but we’ve got a long ways to go before anything starts to really change and the actions of various senatorial elected officials have made it pretty clear that this doesn’t change anything in their eyes despite how clear of a call to resist this should have been [I wrote this before they gave up, too, but more on that next week]. I don’t know how it could be any more clear than it is that the people of the US want our elected officials to resist every single one of Trumps moves, heinous or mundane. Throw is increasing work loads, a messed up sleep schedule, and it’s no wonder that I can’t seem to shake the dogged exhaustion I’m feeling. What the hell am I supposed to do about any of that? It’s all I can do to even think about sending a letter back to my aunt, the one who responded in what I’d call a positive manner, let alone write it and manage all of the other stressors that are taking up space in my mind with no relief on the horizon. All I want to do is lay down and surrender to unconsciousness until something has happened to resolve at least one of these things because I’m not sure I’ve got it in me to actually do anything about any of them.
Continue readingThe Power Of A Laboriously Prepared Meal
In my many years of living as an adult in this crazy world of ours, I’ve learned that the number one thing I can do when I’m stressed or feeling like I have no control or just too anxious for my usual methods to handle is to take some time to rest and, most importantly, to spend some of that time cooking a large, elaborate meal. Growing up as part of a Catholic, Midwestern family, providing people with food was an expression of love, with more volumnous and/or more elaborate food making a statement about the depth of your care for the person (or people) getting the food you’ve made. After all, the much/elaborate food acts as a display of the time and resources you’re willing to spend on someone else’s fleeting, but still life-sustaining, experience. This hasn’t always turned out well for me, considering how much it ties into the whole “earn love through service/giving to others” thing that has fucked me up my whole life, but I’ve been able to reclaim it as an adult as a means of showing myself, in a way that hits all my senses and displays a degree of care about myself, that I can afford to spend a decent amount of money, time, and effort on something I absolutely do not need and merely want. It’s a lot like retail therapy–an assurance of your comfort and safety–but with the explicit reminder that this will only ever be a fleeting thing you’ve done for yourself. Additionally, the engagement of the senses is an excellent grounding technique, the effort of cooking an elaborate meal is involved enough that my mind can’t wander elsewhere, and I usually wind up with a bunch of good food to eat over the course of a few days.
Continue readingWeird Anxiety Spikes Are Still Less Trouble Than My Depression Was
Two months into my current dose of antidepressants and I’m pleased to say that my old misery/constant depression has stayed consistently gone. I’ve had my ups and downs during this period, my sleepless weeks that make the whole world seem darker, but it has been a weight off my shoulders to not have to fight myself every step of the way. Well, mostly. I’m still fighting myself occasionally, in ways that I was only sort of prepared for, and that by only one weirdly intense interaction with someone and the constant refrain of people complaining about weird increases in anxiety. Turns out, one of the side effects I’m experiencing is irregular but intense anxiety spikes. My brain will pick one specific thing and get incredibly bent out of shape about it no matter what that that thing is or what I tell myself. The first one was about a weird experience I had in a discord server and how I should have responded, where I worked myself up like I haven’t in a decade despite my best efforts to calm down and work through it myself. The second one was about my birthday, though I didn’t recognize it for a strange anxiety spike given how negatively I normally feel about contemplating my birthday. Currently, I’m struggling to contain the anxiety I feel about knowing that the world population status on Final Fantasy 14 has changed as part of today’s update (the day I wrote this) and the intense feeling that I need to take this time to make alternate characters because there’s no telling when the world will close again or how long it will be until it opens up again in the future. I’ve had a couple other spikes here or there, but they were all easier to work through: things that took a few calming breathes or waiting a few minutes for my mind to calm down rather than the day or days that these other ones are taking.
Continue readingGetting Back In The Saddle After A Decent Rest
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.
Continue readingSummer Days I Can Finally Enjoy As It Comes To An End
After months of constant heat and too-warm mornings, we’ve finally had some days with lower temperatures. Heck, it even dropped into the low fifties overnight, just recently. We’re finally back in the range of what I’d expect for mild Summer weather and I’m only slightly worried that it’s happening in late August rather than September when I’d start to expect days like this [of course, this week, it’s already going back to temperatures in the mid-to-high 70s]. It’s nice, though. To be able to enjoy the breeze without tons of wildfire smoke, to be able to exist outside without sweating, to be able to bask in the warm sun while the cool breeze blows past… I’ve been missing weather like this for a long time. We used to see it more, but now we tend to leap past it, either because Winter ran long and Spring catapulted instantly into Summer or because Summer arrived early and ate what little Spring we might have hoped for, so I’m trying to enjoy it while I can. Not by opening my windows, of course. That would be a disaster for my allergies right now… I’m just trying to get back into the habit of my daily walks now that it’s less punishing to even step foot outside. I’m hoping this weather will stick around for a while, and that it’ll lead into a nice, gentle Fall, but I’m not holding my breath. Nothing about the seasons has been “gentle” in years.
Continue readingApt And Timely Metaphors In Final Fantasy 14’s Endwalker
I’ve been slowly progressing the Main Scenario Questline once again in Final Fantasy 14. A little bit at a time. A few quests here or there, a dungeon, a trial, a little bit of support work, and so on. Slowly but surely, I’ve been getting closer and closer to the final parts of Endwalker–little threads that need wrapping up as whatever is next gets slowly referenced and eventually (I’m assuming) revealed. It’s been nice to move at a moderate pace, to make steady progress as I continue splitting my attention between a few different activities or goals, and it has given me plenty of time to chew on what’s been happening. I’m going to avoid details because I’m getting pretty deep into spoiler territory for the events that have been unfolding for the past four major updates to the Endwalkers expansion, but I’ve been having a lot of conversations with one of my Final Fantasy 14 friends about the story that have also given me plenty to think about. For instance, while I instantly agreed and had thought about it much the same way, I didn’t think of the conclusion of Endwalker as “fighting depression itself” until she put it that way. This particular vein of thought prompted me to take a step back from my “what does it mean to be a hero” line of thinking and consider other elements of the story that I hadn’t focused on up to that point. All of which feels a bit silly to admit considering that one of my favorite jokes about the Final Fantasy franchise is that the conclusion to most of the games can be boiled down to some form of “attack and dethrone god.” Which is kind of what happened in Endwalker, if you get just a tiny bit more metaphorical with it.
Continue readingStaggering Over The Finish Line After Today Kicked My Ass
Some days just kick your ass and all you can do at the end of the day is stick to the list of chores you gave yourself and hope that tomorrow will suck less. Today’s one of those days for me. Got to work a bit late (but no big deal, I’ve got no obligations so I can just stay late) and immediately got plunged into the shit. Catching up coworkers who were out, starting on things that I’ve been waiting for people to get back into the office to do, having to chase people down to get my testing setups fixed, losing hours and hours to a problem no one can figure out, having my boss skip our one-on-one meeting when I’ve got stuff to talk about, and finding out that my coworker who has been out a bunch will be out even more (and I can’t even just feel angry at him because he’s getting surgery to fix his knee, so I’m also a little scared about what this will mean for him since he’s nearly sixty and this could have a huge impact on someone who is, sure, a frequent source of frustration for me, but also someone I care about since I’ve worked literally side-by-side with him for the last eight and a half years). It’s all been a bit much today and yet I’ve still got to go grocery shopping since I won’t have a chance to do that again until thursday, I’ve still got to do my chores because I’ve got other ones every single day between now and when my friends show up (which I’m very excited for), and I still have to find time to eat dinner and have at least a little fun somewhere in there so I don’t go to bed hating my existence as much as I do right now.
Continue readingPumping The Brakes On Optimision In The Name Of Due Caution
After a few months of trying slowly increasing dosages of an anti-depressant, I might have finally found one that works. “Might,” being the operative word. I’m only a week and a half into this new dosage as I’m writing this, but I actually have had bursts of adequate executive function in the past few days and while the biggest bursts of it could be attributed to the common early side-effect of “manic energy,” I find myself wanting to feel cautiously optimistic about it. Well, cautiously willing to consider that this might be the medication working. I’m not sure I can call myself optimistic if I’m essentially trying to prove to myself that something other than the medication might be responsible for my buoyed mood. I mean, there’s been all kinds of studies in recent years about how eating a reasonable amount of ice cream every day can have positive effects on your health, so maybe my recent little treats of just a little ice cream every couple of days is responsible. Maybe it’s my improved sleep. Maybe it’s the fact that absolutely nothing horrible happened last week and all I have to deal with was the normal stress of a very busy work week. There’s a lot of things it could be. But its still probably the medication taking effect, even if I’m nervous about whether this feeling will last, grow, disappear, or whatever else could happen. As a teen, I had a really bad experience with mental health focused medications and my experiences so far this year have done little to resolve the general trepidation I feel at the thought of altering my mental state with outside chemicals. A trepidation I’m willing to forcefully overcome since that effort is so much less than the effort it takes to not look and feel miserable constantly that I’m spending just about every single day.
Continue readingI Just Can’t Make Myself Care About KotOR 2
The first roleplaying game (RPG) I ever played was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The second one I played was the sequel. To say that they have had an impact on me would be underselling the truth. Recently, I’ve been trying to replay KotOR 2 alongside A More Civilized Age and haven’t been able to really stick with it, despite enjoying my recent playthrough of the original KotOR, and I was at a bit of a loss as to why this was the case. Why have I been struggling with KotOR 2 when I’ve got such fond memories of both games and, in my memory, clearly preferred KotOR 2 over the original game. Despite there being plenty of opportunities for me to play KotOR 2 without even interrupting my Final Fantasy 14 time, why have I been unable to even force myself to play the game? I went through all that trouble to mod it for the first time ever and while I’ve been keeping up with A More Civilized Age’s coverage of the game by following Austin Walker’s Let’s Play of it, I keep internally rebelling against how much stuff he’s got rattling around in his inventory that he will probably never use to the degree that I keep thinking about playing it myself just to scratch the “hyper efficient playthrough” itch that’s been growing. In theory, I should be spending all of the time I’m not paying attention to Final Fantasy 14 playing KotOR 2 and yet I’ve gone back to playing Wildermyth instead. Only last night, as I was staring at my computer screen without doing anything while Final Fantasy 14 sat untouched on my monitor following some encouraging personal news, did the answer occur to me.
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