When 2020 becomes 2021.

I have been off of work since the 23rd of December. I am, 8 days later, still exhausted. This year has been difficult. The quarantines, working from home, job stress and job change, health concerns, the American election, racial justice protests / the murder of civilians, the climate crisis, my body, my health, my limitations, my damage, all of it at once, and yet sometimes only one of those things, very loud and in painfully great detail.

I've not written much this year, as I've been tired and feeling generally untethered. I spend my day sitting at home, in front of a computer - so to continue to do that in my off time, I hold no desire for. I sit and think and compose thoughts to myself, but do not want to sit in front of a computer, again, so everything just drifts off. 

The last few months have been about accepting a new position at work (a one-year contract) which will increase my salary by about 100$ a month. Not nothing when all you have is debt. 

In a few days, I will have a room-renter. In her early twenties, she will rent the room for a few hundred dollars a month, which will help me throw money at the ever-present aforementioned debt. 

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how the things you own end up owning you. How these social contracts of ownership and adulthood, only ever just reinforce dependence on a system that uses you so fully. I think of the alternative, working hard on the land and isolating yourself - but being fundamentally lazy, that only seems like an answer for the highly skilled and motivated. I am neither of those things.

I've been watching a lot of horror films over the holiday. Zombie films are always fascinating to me, because of the way in which people are represented as ultimately selfish and child-like. Yes, but also, there is so much reassurance in the group, which really is dependent on the reproduction of invisible rules. How these invisible rules are not necessary, but are, in a world that reproduces them daily. 

I think of a mortgage. I think of borrowing large sums of money from a bank in order to slowly and painfully, reimburse them. I do not own my home. The bank does. I take out a loan, in order to pay for repairs and improvements. I have hundreds of thousands of dollars in mortgages and loans - and who am I? My job isn't great. It's an entry-level clerk job. I have no wealth. I've only been able to access these funds due to the government's name on my cheques and the amount of capital my mother was able to bring to the transaction. 

I think about if a bomb hit tomorrow. With the world in disarray - would all of the automatic payments keep taxing my accounts? What are the financial rules when we are so close to it all falling apart? 

This past year has been difficult.  It's been confusing and anxiety-provoking. This isn't unique to me. I think we're all looking around and seeing how fragile all of it is. How neighbors can be helpful, but they can also be fucking anti-masker idiots who would risk us all to not be inconvenienced or directly interpellated in any way. 

This year has further isolated me. It's been difficult, but on some days, not so much. I have, after all, lived this way for over a decade. 

I look at some friends differently. Some are incapable of being alone. Of making small sacrifices. Not many people are able to stay home, alone, for the greater good. That speaks to a great weakness. We all have our frailties, being alone is not mine. 

Looking forward to 2021, I do not expect much to change. I will be working from home until at least the summer, I will be working this new contract, and learning new things, and being challenged. I can, however, return to my clerk job if this new job does not work out. A subtle safety net that makes all the difference for me. 

The winter and the dark make quarantine harder, so as we push through 2021, the weather will improve and the sun will come out. 

I don't know that things will ever go back to how they were before 2020. Too much has happened. Political systems have been shown to be lacking in a way that even the obtuse can't ignore. The fragility of it all, is so obvious now. Our dependence on commercial systems. How quickly panic can spread. How little it takes for things to get scary. 

I don't expect 2021 to be any easier. Just different. 

For now, all I am is exhausted. 

Ghost of a Podcast - How To Face My Face

In a Crisis, We Can Learn From Trauma Therapy by Eva Holland, and EMDR links.

In a Crisis, We Can Learn From Trauma Therapy by Eva Holland on the New York Times website. The article talks about E.M.D.R. I listened to a podcast episode by Rich Roll where EMDR was discussed briefly as well, apparently, it came about through the studies/practice of a therapist who would take walks with their patients, and the discussion coupled with looking around had interesting effects.

Anyway, Eva's article is about cultivating resilience in difficult times. It's an interesting thing accessing all sorts of media about wellness and mental health now that the usually neuro-typical are living through the 2020 quarantine and general garbage fire. 

How to Help Someone With Depression - a guide.

The Cut published How to Help Someone With Depression and it has some helpful, broad guidelines for someone who would like to know what it is that they can offer friends and family who are suffering. 

Quitting Sex Was The Best Thing I Ever Did For Myself by Laura Bogart.

Article by Laura Bogart, Quitting Sex Was The Best Thing I Ever Did For Myself - hit the nail on the head when it comes to being a fat heterosexual woman. 

It's terrifying and exhausting even thinking about joining a dating scene that hates fat people, especially women. And with social media, it's so easy to just get pummeled ("UR FAT KILL URSELF").

Nicole Byer and Roxane Gay on Fatphobia (and more, just a great conversation).

 Currently listening to Roxane Gay on Nicole Byer's podcast.

Oh boy this is a juicy one. Author Roxane Gay (Bad Feminist, Hunger) joins Nicole to discuss their experiences with institutional racism, dealing with fatphobia in interviews, and how she treated school like a videogame. Then, Roxane shares the story behind eloping, how quarantine is testing the strength of relationships everywhere, and how her wife woo'd her through podcasting.

"How To Lose 155 Pounds Happily."

I have been thinking a lot about my body, and my weight, and my necessary weigh-loss (for longevity and not dying before my father did).

Currently listening to How To Lose 155 Pounds Happily from How to! With Charles Duhigg.

Ashley thought by now she’d be on top of the world. Once severely overweight, Ashley lost 155 pounds and recently ran her first half-marathon. But when she looks in the mirror all she sees are the imperfections. In this episode of How To!, we bring in Brittany O’Neill, the real-life inspiration for the hit movie Brittany Runs a Marathon. Having undergone a major transformation herself, Brittany knows what it’s like to feel unhappy after you’ve crossed the finish line. Constant self-improvement doesn’t necessarily lead to self-acceptance, Brittany says. Instead, learn to view yourself through your loved ones’ eyes—even say their praises aloud—and soon, you’ll see what they see.

I mean, the podcast showcases a lot of my fears. There's this feeling that I already ruined my body, and there's not much to do about it. There's the pre-exhaustion of knowing how much work it is - I know how hard I worked to weigh 150 pounds - it was an eating disorder and daily exercise. 

It's also just emotional to hear something I already know, which is that the weight loss doesn't somehow placate existentialism, or living in a misogynist world. It won't make me love myself, or my body. 

It just will address certain aspects of my health, and the reality of having to live in a fatphobic world. 

I'll always be a "big girl."

Another day.

It's July 6th 2020. Tomorrow, I will be seeing K and her baby for the first time since she left for Victorica before Christmas 2019. She'll be one of the first friends I see since quarantine began in March. I've seen J for short spurts outside, but nothing lengthy or substantial. 

It will be good to see her and little A, who is about 6 months now I believe. Last time I saw him he was about a week old, and I laid on her couch with him on my chest while she ran some errands. He was warm and soft. And having him on my chest was very soothing. 

Tomorrow is also the first say that the local second-hand store opens. It's been difficult getting by without it since I try and buy most home goods second-hand. K needs to furnish her new apartment, as well as cloth the baby, so hopefully, the line up won't be too crazy. I expect it to be though. 

I had taken Mondays off for all of June, os this week is the first week where I go back to a full five day a week workweek. It's hard. At least I am not too busy at work these days, so I can breathe and walk the dog and puts around a little bit. End of year was pretty brutal, so I appreciate the slower pace.

I feel as if I am getting dumber. I haven't read a book in months. I have trouble committing to television and movies let alone anything more complex. I am trying to make a point of writing more often, but I am still in the stages of forced automation and not anything beyond that.

When I lay in bed at night, I feel as if I could write so much. I have these thoughts I always feel could be stretched out into something poignant, but maybe that's just the lucidity of incoming unconsciousness. 

The tedium of every day is something I need to plan for. I started setting my alarm in the morning again. For the last few months, I have been letting myself sleep in, but I can feel my days getting shorter and going back to work will get difficult if I just give up completely on acting like a functioning human. 

I am now on the last of my Effexor,  I am pushing it to one 37.5 mg pill every 4 days. I guess I will eventually go to 5 and maybe cut from there... Not too sure. 

It's difficult to say if I feel more depressed. I just feel depressed - but differently. I don't feel as clouded. I don't know what the major differences in me or in my demeanor are. It's difficult to really assess. I started weaning off right before the pandemic hit - and then I was quarantined and isolated - so those who would usually be in a position to comment on my mood are all at home, texting me. 

It's also been an especially stressful and depressing couple of months. I've been on social media a lot, following Black Lives Matter protests and the resulting increased police brutality and overall fuckery of Karen's and Trevor's and those who refuse to wear masks and those who like calling the cops on black people in public spaces. American politics as a whole has been a garbage fire for years now, but every day is a fresh hell. And Canada isn't perfect. Things happen here. There's always something.

Apparently, it takes me a lot of time to process things because this isn't new. It's been 4 months. I guess now the dust is starting to settle and I'm beginning to accept that the new normal is going to be working from home.

I have to think about what I want my days to look like, long term. Not just in survival mode.

Writing and living, but also not living.

I am on the last few weeks of weaning off of the drugs. I am taking 37.5 mg of Effexor every three days. I am trying to push it to more, but the last day (day 3) is pretty sketchy. I might need to wean off for longer.

It's been a few brain zaps here and there, and feelings of disembodiment. Sometimes I get dizzy or feel nauseous. But we've also had heatwaves on and off, so that could also be contributing to the feelings of nausea.

What a time to be alive.

I have been working from home since March, so we are coming up on 4 months. At first, it was just trying to figure out what was going on. But I am going to have to accept that this is a new reality. If I stay in my current role as a Financial Clerk, I can, in theory, expect to work from home in permanence now, or, potentially go into work only a day or two a week. This has benefits and drawbacks.

Only one friend has been laid off, but work insecurity has been an ongoing stressor. Friends with kids have had to live with their kids 24/7. Travel has been canceled, stranding one friend in Victoria with her parents, with a newborn. School closed. Daycares closed. Isolation. A web of stressors and pitfalls.

I have a job and a steady income, so I am grateful for that, but I also feel guilty about the job insecurity of most, and my feeling stressed at all, considering my relative safety.

I am grateful for my brother's solid employment as well - so our family is well supported.

I am grateful for my mother's health, and for our ability to afford our mortgage.

It's difficult to stay abreast of the news. Black Lives Matter protests are daily, and it seems every day there is a new name immortalized as a hashtag by police violence and murder. The sick irony of being "immortalized" as a hashtag for being murdered by police.

Living through a quarantine means also living with videos of people acting like utter psychopaths about wearing a mask in public. Why is it so difficult for so many to just be decent?

Today's dystopian news includes Johnson and Johnson's baby powder being a confirmed carcinogen that has been causing cancers for decades, and though it will no longer be sold in North America, will remain available everywhere else in the world, because corporations are without scruple. There's also a large number of elephants that have died and scientists are trying to figure out why. This is everyday life. Staying home. Working. Reading the news. It's difficult.

I am trying to take some time today, now to write. To journal and to just start a daily practice again. When work is slow, I can take a few minutes and write on my laptop (not the work computer) and try and just purge some of this internalized nonsense.

Before this quarantine, I had plans to start a new kind of therapy and to start getting my shit in order. Life is a mother fucker, and I should not be surprised.

Let me work from a prompt, this is my horoshope from Chani:

Over the past couple of years, what you’ve been able to eliminate from your life is as powerful as what you’ve added to it. What you said no to was hopefully a statement of affirmation to yourself.

Major advancements are a compilation of many small decisions over a long period of time.

With July’s eclipse in Capricorn and Saturn spending the last 6 months of 2020 here, the finishing touches that you are putting on your recent self-improvements are mighty and magnificent. In order to fulfill such a task, you’ll need to get incredibly honest about the parts of your life you’ve been too afraid to tackle. The patterns that you no longer want to repeat will now be pronounced. It will take a practice of consistent and considerable mindfulness to do so, but you are built for that kind of intensity and this is the moment to apply such talents.

I think what I find especially difficult is "over a long period of time."

I don't know if the story of my life is just one of the struggle of my weight and of my traumas. Is that all I'll have focused on? I'm 36 man. Thirty fucking six. I am approaching 40. Mid-life. 16 years of my life have been void of romance and companionship, sex and joy because of one fucking problem I cannot seem to let go of. Is this it? If I have not been able to move on for 16 years, does that I mean I am resigned to another 16? To the rest of my life on this earth - as just giving up and being unable to enjoy something enjoyed by billions of other people? 

This intensity of mine - it is isolating on a good day. I am hard on myself. How do I disengage from patterns when they are so well entrenched in my being?

Here I am, stuck at home, with myself. How is it I can love myself in some ways and hate myself so profoundly in others? How am I so disconnected from my body, and how can I learn something new? 

It never ends. There is no off day. It doesn't get any easier. Maybe it does, for some and those able to move forward, up and out. But I am not one of those people. 

Some days I feel like I am losing my mind with patterns of the same day over and over. The same problems, the same coping mechanisms. The same pains. How can 16 years have passed both so quickly and so slowly?

Are my only two options resolving myself to being lazy and fat, or re-committing to an eating disorder mindset that had me at a more manageable body weight? Regardless of the choice, my eating is disordered. My eating will always be disordered because I know it's all or nothing. I know where I come from and what happens to me. I know what my coping mechanisms are. 

I had to limit my eating, and workout every day to be large, nut not overweight. I will never be small, or dainty. Never overly feminine or slight. That is a given. I am big-boned regardless of how much fat I carry.

And if I were to lose weight - would the rest of my life be an obsession with keeping that weight off? I think the question is moot and the answer is no doubt a resounding of course. 

My weight is hitting me differently lately. At first, I was in denial of my body and my weight. I just didn't see it. Now I see it. I see it and I feel it. It is difficult for me to move. My back locks. I do not fit in many spaces. There are so many things I cannot do and places I cannot go.

I want to snap it all away. But this is my eternal fucking narrative. 

A collection of tweets that are for me.

i don’t trust anyone who doesn’t feel like screaming

— J. Jennifer Espinoza (@sadqueer4life) September 27, 2018

 

Therapy
-Expensive
-Years of hard work
-Emotionaly draining
-Tough to find

Screaming in the woods
-Free
-Immediate relief
-Scares hunters enough to leave therefore saving innocent animals
-Potential to make friends with people who are also screaming in the woods

— John was laid-off (@john_from_hr) August 8, 2018

 

ive made a meme that describes all of my problems pic.twitter.com/zvTjGyFhYR

— jonny sun (@jonnysun) March 29, 2018

 

Me: Who needs antidepressants? I'll just listen to Hey Ya by Outkast daily

Narrator: But things were not alright alright alright alright

— Abbolish the Police (@a_bi_gal) July 22, 2017

 

"exercise helps depression"
me: pic.twitter.com/BF74bWyQdO

— londz (@linsagna) September 14, 2017

 

Depression is like a frat guy who lives in your head. "Hey, what's up, loser? You writing a novel? LOL. That's cute you're trying, fatty."

— Mike Drucker (@MikeDrucker) September 6, 2012

 

i made some depression memes recently but i was actually cured of depression two yrs ago by a strategically placed live. laugh. love. poster

— giabuchi (@jaboukie) December 20, 2016

 

[picks up crying baby]
it's ok buddy, when you grow up you'll learn how to do this on the inside

— dylan (@dyldonot) January 28, 2015

 

one problem with depression is that when good things happen you still have depression

— so sad today (@sosadtoday) May 5, 2018

No perspective.

Things have been difficult in a mild, incomprehensible way. There is a thread of malice dressed in quarantine and COVID-19. There is overt, violent confrontation I see via social media due to the spotlight on the Black Lives Matter protests and the near-constant shows of police brutality and murder. All of it is both far from me, and yet I am a part of these systems and communities and my actions affect others. 

I am working from home, and have been since March 16th, 2020. It's been three months. I've been anxious and irritated and have felt limited and frustrated. My home is a shared space, we are moving and renovating and nothing is easy. 

I am grateful for the job. For a salary. I am grateful for the health of my mother. For the living space. For the neighborhood and for being quarantined over the summer, and not in the dead of January. I have space to quarantine. I have a bed. Running water. Abundance. 

It's been difficult financially. The moves. The furniture. The renovations. The working from home. Getting a desk. A keyboard. A screen. Having more costs working from home. Eating here more. Groceries are more expensive anyway because of the quarantine. 

I'm sick of my cooking. I want to go to a restaurant with my friends. I want someone else's cooking.

It's difficult managing the renovations and the project file with the city. Their requirements are many and their answers are always vague and in my second language. It's difficult managing my mother and her expectations while staying aware of this being her project and her money. Staying patient is a challenge. Managing contractors is hard. My mother doesn't always understand clearly. She says yes when she should say she does not understand and wants clarification. 

Sometimes I regret taking on this project - because I don't want the added responsibility. If it weren't for my mother, I don't know that I would be here. I would be in a small, manageable place. 

On good days it all feels great. But on bad days it feels like too much responsibility, when all I want is a safe hole in a wall I can crawl into. 

But here we are. I have a dog and my mother, in a duplex we're rehabbing. I don't know that I'd have the will if I were alone. I'd want no responsibility and the ability to curl up and hibernate without too much loss or complication. I don't want anybody to depend on me. 

I've been weaning off my medication, and I now take the smallest dose every few days, until I will have none left. I don't know that I am more depressed than I was - I just think I feel it differently. I feel it in my chest. My body. I don't know what long-term affects have taken root in my brain, or how long it will take to seep out of me. I've always been depressed. I will always be depressed. It just hits differently. It lives in me differently. I think I'm less numb to it. 

All of this feels like a lot, but I don't know that I have the capacity to see the big picture, or to really understand it all. I know eventually I will be able to have some perspective, but for now that feels far away and alien to me. 

I don't see friends. I don't go out. My days are all very similar. I feel stuck and confused. Every day is the same, yet there are also new horrors. Not near me. But horrors I can see, and horrors I can't look away from. 

Time keeps moving forward. I'm 36. I feel as if so much of my life is just trying to get through, struggling up a hill, resting to to survive - I don't know that my life will ever look like anything else.

Even with perspective, the last looks hazy. I don't know what a clear view looks like, or what use it is to me if I am set in my ways, and unable to imagine new ways of being. 

I am my own company, and have been for three months, and I am an intense, dark person to be around. Moments of brevity are not enough to lighten my spirit. I've always been this dramatic. I've always had this weight, only it's been physical for the last decade. My weighted body, that keeps people away and insulates my near constant pain. My low level hum. 

Quarantine, Covid and Lucid Dreams.

I was listening to the latest episode of Staying In with Emily and Kumail, and Emily mentioned an article she read about how folks are describing an increase in nightmares and lucid dreams during quarantine/Covid-19.

I internally screamed, "Me too!"

I would describe them as bat-shit and insanely detailed. Last night I was trying to escape a cult. Every night, a new insanity. It was a very detailed dream. It started with some type of summer-camp social event, and through suspect weaning of the crowd then turned into tests of fortitude and odd psychological games and ended in some type of swearing in ceremony for what I took to be lieutenants (people to recruit other people). I got help getting out of the ceremony, though a cult member who wanted to get out. Then my brother and mom were shown to me as hostages. I hugged them and whispered "this is a cult, be careful, stay together," and then made my way out of the underground layer to fight my way out near the top. Then, as I made my getaway, a large white vintage Oldsmobile made its way to me, driving into the field I was in, and inside it was Tina Fey and driving, Margo Martindale (obviously).

I then had words with Fey about her getting me into this mess and if she was somehow involved in the cult I would "choke her out." She was very apologetic and told me she knew of two other girls who had died.

LOL: "I swear to god Tina if you're involved in this I'm gonna choke you the fuck out."

What fun!

I've long thought many of my dreams could be turned into stories or movies.

Anyway, Emily and Kumail are beyond adorable. They're funny and honest and their podcast has been a god-send during working from home/the quarantine. They even have a rom-com about how they met and fell in love, called The Big Sick. I recommend it, it's great. It's almost too much! Real adorable!

The article is over on the Smithsonian Magazine online, here are some highlights:

... people’s day-to-day lives are becoming paired with an increasingly strange and vivid dreamscape. And a growing group is experiencing insomnia, an inability to fall asleep... Both seem to be symptoms of stress, part of the shared anxiety surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The Lyon Neuroscience Research Center study has found a 35 percent increase in dream recall and a 15 percent increase in negative dreams.

“We normally use REM sleep and dreams to handle intense emotions, particularly negative emotions. Obviously, this pandemic is producing a lot of stress and anxiety.”

There's more over on The Guardian about vivid dreams during this weird time.

Researchers are also using i dream of covid, if you'd like to share yours.

Stanford researchers devise treatment that relieved depression in 90% of participants in small study.

I did TMS from September 2017 until November 2017. I was introduced to it through Neal Brennan, a comedian I follow on twitter. Ignore that this clip is from Joe Rogan (he sucks, and his bro army is gross) - it's what I found on YouTube.

He recently re-tweeted an article out of Stanford Medicine:

Stanford researchers devise treatment that relieved depression in 90% of participants in small study 

Stanford Medicine researchers used high doses of magnetic stimulation, delivered on an accelerated timeline and targeted to individual neurocircuitry, to treat patients with severe depression.

My experience was positive. But nothing is as simple as just that snapshot of good or bad. I also had just started working for the government, and had solid pay and work and benefits for the first time in my life. I was walking to and from the appointments 4 or 5 times a week, getting fresh air and sun and cutting into my work hours. I was feeling like for the first time, in a long time I was able to seek help for my depression in a tangible (medically recognized) way. So, yes, I feel the procedure helped me. But it cannot be extracted from how the confines of my life changed during that time as well.

I accessed the treatment through McGill University - and have since had no follow-ups with them. Nobody ever called me, or checked in - so I've not had the opportunity to go back in for other appointments. Like many services I've access in the past - I've just been let go back into the world.

I hope word gets out and this becomes widely available. I'd like to go back in. I'd like for other people to not have to work so hard to access relief.

37.5

I've been on the dose of 37.5 mg of generic Effexor for about a week. The initial first few days involved a bit of brain zapping, so one night I took a 75 mg pill in order to soften the withdrawal. 

I'm actually pretty surprised that these are the first zaps I've had since I started weaning off on February 3rd. 

It's been an odd, unsettling time. It's been a benefit to me that the mandatory quarantine came while I was weaning off of drugs. There are days I've napped or laid down to assuage brain fog or dysphoria. 

Then again, how does the added stress of working from home, quarantine, end of fiscal year and the cloud of a global pandemic affect my brain?

Every weekday I watch the national address at 11, and the provincial one at 1. Some days there are new horrors, some days relief packages. I check the CBC tracking system.

They show statistics of infection and death. Reminiscent of a sports stat. 

Every day is absurd. It's frightening. Parts of it are incomprehensible. I am grateful for government work and the stability of it. I am grateful that my mother is well and near me. I am grateful that I live in a country that takes the epidemic seriously, and has enacted measures swiftly, and backed by science. 

I have these personal daily movements, within a fishbowl that is lining a windowsill looking onto other fishbowls and it's unlike anything else I've ever experienced.

I have a few weeks of 37.5 to go, and another appointment with Dr. Paul in a few weeks (Dr. Paul is replacing Dr. Rishi since the latter is leaving his family practice and will be going private). 

I'm at home every day, so you would think I would be able to take the time to sit and write, but sharing my one room kitchen and dining space with my mother means my limiting my common space time to work and necessities. As I write this she sighs audibly on repeat, since she is doing some sort of paperwork that irritates her. It doesn't take much for me to get irritated. 

The energy I do have I try and put on my work hours during the work week. It's difficult. We're in end of year. We're at home. All of our work processes are changed. It's just a mess. It took several weeks before we had a team meeting, and even longer to get any sense of what was expected of us from management. We are considered essential services since we're finance, and it's been a shit-show of patchwork and problem solving. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to navigate. 

I walk the dog twice a day, at least. Trying to get some air and break up the weekday. 

We await the apartment downstairs, which should be vacated for May 1st. That, with it, will bring a few to pay the former tenant off (a long, arduous story that has been) and after it the forthcoming bill I shall expect from our lawyer. How much will be reclaimed of me? I expect several thousand. Will it be three or five? Only chaos knows.

I no longer have one thought at a time. I don't know if I ever did before. It will be a question of time and experience to see how I feel weaning off of the drugs will affect me, both mood and personality wise. 

I've been at home, quarantined since March 16th. The first three weeks of which my mother stayed with my brother. I was lonely, but content. Having her here brings both benefits and irritations. Once we have the empty apartment downstairs, she will have a project, which will help me immensely. 

Forward. 

COVID-19

As of Monday, March 16th of this month, I've been working from home.

The week before we were starting to hear about the possibility of schools being closed and other precautions being taken for the cities, provinces and the country as a whole as a way of "flattening the curve" of the corona virus infection.

Right now, as, the statistics in Canada are 8,612 of the 857,487 global cases. These numbers are taken from the Corona Virus Tracker on CBC. 

Of those cases in Canada, 4,162 total cases are in Québec and 31 people have died.

Overall, I think the Québec and Canadian governments have been pretty pro-active.  The week before work shut down for me, people were already starting to work from home. It's only as of March 16th that it was no longer a suggestion but a requirement.

All of a sudden, people got laptops (who never would have had them otherwise). There are still people on-site, but that's because of certain positions that require 24-hour on-site, human intervention and support.

Early March was spring break here. March break with the English schools was the week before work was closed, and in the French systems it was the week before. This could explain our larger-than-average infection rate, since so many people were traveling.

It's been two weeks that I've been working from home. The only reason I am writing right now is because a good friend lent me a screen, and I was able to order a keyboard online. Otherwise I would be on a teeny laptop that is nearly impossible to work on.

The first two weeks, on that tiny laptop, were very difficult. I was annoyed all the time. It was nearly impossible to work, and hundreds of e-mails were coming in.

I've only had the keyboard and screen for half a work day, and I already know it's going to improve my work situation 200%.

I'm focusing on work stuff right now because it's my everyday. I'm quarantined with my dog. But this past weekend it rained for two days straight and we got no sunlight and no walk outside time and it was brutal.

I am not really lonely, since everyone is at home, so I get FaceTime calls, texts and e-mails - I can easily reach out.

A lot of my friends are at home with their kids and no daycare/school and they sound like they're going fucking nuts so I'm happy to only have the irritation of a pug who wants my snacks and wants constant walks. At the end of the day I could lock him on the deck and nobody would call child services on me. So there's that.

My mother is staying with my brother. The kids are off school, so she has more to do and more people to spend time with. We're still relegated to one main room, since the back room is all storage for boxes and furniture until we reposes the downstairs apartment on May 1st.

My mother would be around while I was working, so I think she'd rather be at my brother's house - where there's two floors, two TV rooms and lots to do.

It's been a lot. The last couple of weeks have been high stress. But, considering I've been weaning off of my medication, I've been doing well. I haven't had any significant side effects.

The main side-effect of quarantine is never knowing what day it is.

It's still early days. This is unprecedented on a global scale - though parts of Africa have had outbreaks, and I read recently that Ebola was only recently eradicated there. But this is global - and the infection and death rates are increasing - so people are worried.

Maybe in a few weeks from now, the measures put into place by our elected officials will have played their part, and we will avoid major catastrophe. But it maybe not. It's a big wait-and-see and it's good days and bad days.

What is especially difficult to watch is the slow-moving train wreck of many parts of the United States.

There are a lot of issues being discussed though, that would push things left. Health Insurance in the U.S. Minimum wage increases. Paid sick days for minimum-wage jobs (Tim Horton's, McDonald's, Wal-Mart). Folks are organizing rent strikes.

People who are attempting to take advantage of the situation are being called out... Hopefully that extends to the American presidency, and corporate interests of all kinds.

It's just a weird time, and it's unprecedented, and there's nothing I can do but wait.

Jocelyn K. Glei: What if you’re not broken?

These are hard times, in general, but being quarantined (I'm on my 2nd week) highlights our ability to sit with ourselves (or not).

Currently listening to Jocelyn K. Glei: What if you’re not broken? 

My self-hatred and shame, are on my list as my issues I would like to work through actively this year. They were my main goal, before COVID-19 happened.

I relate to what she posits, that we have this habit of saying, I'll do it, when...

For me, it, romance and love have been blocked by my body, and my shame. My pain.

I have a lot to write these days, but because I stay on a computer all day in my work-from-home-quarantine, I am staying away from it. I am just taking things one day at a time and trying to get through the work I have to do to stay employed and paid.

PTSDiva.

I adore Scott Thompson, this is a link to his podcast, PTSDiva.

Some people skate through life with nary a bump. Others are knocked about like kittens in a dryer. And then’s Scott Thompson (Kids In The Hall, Buddy Cole), who has suffered more abuse than a Lars Von Trier actress. But none of those calamities have kept him down for long! He has instead emerged, if not better, then at least not worse - and always with a funny story. On PTSDiva, Scott talks to other comics about their lowest points, as well as surgeons, priests, and other experts on the human condition. Along the way, he'll share stories from his life, and how they've made him who he is today.

Putting this here so I can listen to his episode with Andy Richter, since I am currently listening to his episode with Richter on Richter's podcast Three Questions.

Host Andy Richter asks the same three questions to each guest: Where do you come from? Where are you going? What have you learned? These three simple questions, when answered honestly and thoughtfully, are enough to provide a pretty complete picture of who a person is. The answers are what Andy always wants to know about people. This will not be a one-sided process, as Andy won’t shy away from getting personal himself.

I love them both!

What's Your Ailment with Maria Bamford.

I haven't had a chance to watch this yet, but I adore Maria Bamford.

Check out her talk show, What's Your Ailment?

Maria Bamford on Three Questions with Andy Richter.

Not everyone has an internal monologue. . . (!!!)

This article has blown my mind, as a tweet blew the mind of the author of the article. It's a chain reaction, brains popping off one after another.

Check out Today I Learned That Not Everyone Has An Internal Monologue And It Has Ruined My Day, where the author of Inside My Mind, well, learns something, that he then wrote about, that then had me learning something.

He mind exploded after reading this - brace yourself!

Fun fact: some people have an internal narrative and some don't

As in, some people's thoughts are like sentences they "hear", and some people just have abstract non-verbal thoughts, and have to consciously verbalize them

And most people aren't aware of the other type of person

— Kyle🌱 (@KylePlantEmoji) January 27, 2020

It is, indeed, blowing my mind. The author went on to ask around about this:

Literally the first person I asked was a classmate of mine who said that she can not “hear” her voice in her mind. I asked her if she could have a conversation with herself in her head and she looked at me funny like I was the weird one in this situation. So I began to become more intrigued. Most people I asked said that they have this internal monologue that is running rampant throughout the day. However, every once in a while, someone would say that they don’t experience this.

I e-mailed myself the article so that later on today I can text all of my friends and ask them about this.

Check out the original post.

Weaning down: Day 9.

Checking in.

9 days in and no side effects so far.

Extremely surprised - but hesitant to even mention it since I could potentially lose my frigan mind at any point in time.

Cautiously optimistic. But barely.

Weaning down.

I asked a GP to write me a subscription for a lower dose.

I was on 150 mg, I'm now on a 75 and a 38.5, totaling 113.50.

I will try this for 6 weeks.

I am on Day 3.

So far so good.

Early days, real skiddish about what tomorrow brings...

The Challenge of Going off Psychiatric Drugs

I'm putting this here so I can take the time to read it through later.

The Challenge of Going off Psychiatric Drugs, by Rachel Aviv.

I'm looking into weening off my medication. I've been in a good place depression wise, and I'm reading all I can and trying to find a psychiatrist.

From the above article:

David Taylor, the director of pharmacy and pathology at the Maudsley Hospital, in London, and the author of more than three hundred peer-reviewed papers, told me, “It is not as though we haven’t been burned by this before.” If he hadn’t experienced antidepressant withdrawal himself, Taylor said, “I think I would be sold on the standard texts.” But, he said, “experience is very different from what’s on the page.” Taylor described his own symptoms of withdrawal, from the antidepressant Effexor, as a “strange and frightening and torturous” experience that lasted six weeks. In a paper published last month in Lancet Psychiatry, he and a co-author reviewed brain imaging and case studies on withdrawal and argued that patients should taper off antidepressants over the course of months, rather than two to four weeks, as current guidelines advise.

The article also links to two resources:

The Withdrawal Project - which seems to have outlines and resources on what to expect in withdrawal, as well as ways to prepare. I'll have to read through this when I have more time. Oooooo Withdrawal Symptoms - the fun part. They have my brain zaps! I feel so seen. 😩

and

The Inner Compass Initiative, which funds that project, and describes its goal as to help people "flourish beyond the mental health system."

- - -

I know it's been a very long time since I've written anything here. I'm on my break at work, so I am taking 5 minutes.

The last two years has been all about new jobs (2), buying a duplex, moving, issues with a tenant (super long story, a real fun ride), and all sorts of just drama and life stuff.

Take this past holiday for example. This would have been my first holiday in years. I took two weeks off of work over Christmas. Instead I got a really bad cold that turned into a Bacterial lung infection and was on my ass for three weeks. I just finished taking the antibiotics.

My aunt passed away right before Christmas, so the 28th we were at a funeral.

And last week my brother was in the hospital for a perforated bowel.

2019 was busy and similarly intense, and 2020 is starting the same way.

I just hope (in a desperate way) that the issue with the tenant will be resolved sometime before this summer, because it has been a tremendous amount of stress on me in every way.

In 2020, I would like to start working on myself and my physical and mental health in different ways and try new things. But that takes energy. And the last two years have been a straight sprint "into adulthood" and adult-issues (death! mortgages! debts! parents dying! parents sick! divoce!).

I miss writing, I miss the practice of it and the expulsion of my incessant, racing mind.

I will try and make the time to write.