It's 2018.

I was primarily looking forward to this holiday break for the time off of work. I'm tired. Work has been stressful, I've had issues with my manager. All of it as a long story, with detailed explanations of why I think she's not a good manager, and how I feel she clearly dislikes me, personally.

I spent Christmas cooking for my brother's family, then headed back home to sleep for two days. I go back to work tomorrow, January 2nd. I'll have had a little over a week off, which is most definitely better than nothing.

It's been difficult though since I've been cooped up inside the house. It's been -20 to -30 these past few days. 

Having Buddy around has helped. He's a booger sometimes but he doesn't have a mean bone in his body. He's been a nice distraction and a cuddle buddy.

The manager I don't like is leaving in January, but I don't know who is replacing her, and what will be said of me to her replacement. I'm only on a one-year contract so it's stressful not knowing what's going on. We should know in February or March if we'll be re-contracted.

I'm trying to focus on my health but it's been hard lately. I feel bloated and exhausted. Seasonal depression on top of already being a depressive fucker doesn't seem like an ideal situation.

I'm still alive and kicking. I'm just not kicking too hard or too high. Limping and bunting.

I'm not a carpenter.

It’s a difficult place to be, taking stock in your life, knowing you’ve spent so much of your limited time in these immeasurable periods of waiting. A purgatory with no context.There would seem to be an entire decade of my life spent in waiting. I had these milestones I thought were necessary, not unlike a body grows up and out, so should there be measurable achievements in aging. For thousands of years they’ve been marriage, children, and prosperity. Now what?

And if I reject the more traditional roles and goals, then the means of production I do value - independence, art, critical thought - I should have in abundance. Shouldn’t I? Isn’t the goal always more? Aren’t there immutable ways one has value? Beauty? Skill? Health?

But here I am, the same age as Jesus. Nobody seems to ask if he was a good carpenter or not. I do. I hold no real importance to his value as a messiah since I prefer my fairytales with more whimsy. But, what if he was an excellent carpenter? It must have taken years to develop that skill, that's an impressive feat. What kind of tools did he have access to, B.C. (before, Christ!).

Is there truth in the notion that people aren’t moved by your credentials, but how they felt when they were in your presence? She was funny. She was warm. She was nice. She was well-read and interesting. She was kind to me. She saw me. She fed me cake.

I am not a carpenter. I’m employed as a graphic designer. It’s on my resume, and it’s on my current contract. It pays my bills. I spend my days doing little design work, but it’s the title attributed to me. Designer. But what of it? In our culture, we often ask what someone “does.” What we do for a living. What we do to pay the bills. Is this what I do?

40 hours a week to make a living. The rest of the week to carve out a life.

In the past, it’s been difficult to feel I was of any use. I felt so much pressure - self-imposed (?) - to be productive. Of use. Of value. I reject that now. There is a freedom in being able to go unnoticed. I do not want to be the hero of your story, I’d rather lazily stumble through mine.

What kind of world is this? So surreal in its magnitude, as in its infinite minutiae. So much matters. So little matters. Flip a coin. The micro and the macro. It depends on how much you can take in, and your ability to zoom in and out. Are you aware of your point of view? Can you change your perspective?

Looking at myself and my own life can be difficult because I’m just too close to it. On paper, things are such a way, but subtext isn’t always obvious. And whatever skill it takes for a literary mind to craft that subtext into a narrative, a similar craft is necessary in un-coding the layers of your own psyche.

If my mind is troubled with the impaction of years of soot, where do I begin?

If my feet are dirty and my hands blackened, how can I try and keep clean?

And if I reject my deep desire to understand myself and my dilemmas, how can I see outside of my ingrained constructs?

I slept for 100 years, will it all follow me?

If I woke up 100 years from now, would I feel rested?

A proclamation of inflammation.

This morning I had a doctor's appointment. This past November I saw Dr. Rishi at his new clinic, and he said it was time for my yearly blood test, and I mentioned testing for inflammation, since my mother has been struggling with that recently.

We went over my blood test results, and we've finally stumbled across something that isn't right. I can understand that to someone who isn't sick, or who doesn't feel like shit, that might sound off. But if my bloodwork points to there actually being something wrong with my body, it validates me. I'm not entirely crazy, I do have symptoms and difficulties that stem from somewhere.

According to Dr. Rishi, my blood's sedimentation rate was alarmingly high.

According to Wikipedia:

The erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) is the rate at which red blood cells sediment in a period of one hour. It is a common hematology test, and is a non-specific measure of inflammation. To perform the test, anticoagulated blood was traditionally placed in an upright tube, known as a Westergren tube, and the rate at which the red blood cells fall was measured and reported in mm/h.

Again, according to the same page on Wikipedia, normal rated vary between 20-30 mm/hr.

In 1967 it was confirmed that ESR values tend to rise with age and to be generally higher in women.[5] Values are increased in states of anemia,[6] and in black populations.[7]

Age	20	55	90
Men—5% exceed	12	14	19
Women—5% exceed	18	21	23

According to my reading, I'm currently at a 75. That does seem very high. So, Dr. Rishi asked for an extended blood workup, and if I can get to bed early enough I'll go tomorrow morning. We then booked an appointment in 2 weeks to see what the results are. From there we can either do further tests or he can send me to a specialist of some kind.

I'm happy I'm getting some kind of answer, and that this might lead me to further discoveries that might help my health, but I'm also tired and discouraged at this new chapter of work, emotional labor and advocation that will come from new tests, new doctor's and just more time spent in the medical establishment.

My buddy JD said the anti-inflammation diet did wonders for her and her fibromyalgia. This is also a possibility for me, but it makes me nervous because of the cost, and the time and energy it takes to cook in such a precise, clean way. No wheat. No dairy. Whenever someone says the word "diet" to me I worry, I always feel I'm quite close to returning to ED territory.

I still think about it, and I still remember the high it gave me, I also know what it feels like to jump ship into the deep end, and remembering those sensations makes me uncomfortable.

AS usual, I'm getting ahead of myself. For now I'll start with a blood test. I'll try and go tomorrow morning. All I have to do is get up at the crack of ass.

It's not what it isn't.

I get very philosophical at night. As I quiet down my mind wanders and I'm able to think cohesively. Being tired brings with it a type of slow-form lyricism and I think to myself that what I'm thinking is beautiful and I should write it down.

Alas, it's bed time, and I shouldn't be pulling out a computer, or getting out of bed because of a thought I'm barely hanging on to.

When I was a child I would write in my diary every night before bed. Maybe that's what I should return to. It's difficult now, since I don't have my own space, but maybe I could try it out, here and there, and see how it feels.

This past weekend was my birthday. I spent the day with my friend S. We ordered food and watched Swiss Army Man. It was the perfect film for me. Dark and flatulent.

It was probably the most successful of birthdays I've had in recent memory. I usually try and avoid any ceremony. I always end up disappointed. People are broke and tired in early January and I don't get much attention - and isn't that what you're supposed to get on your birthday - attention?

This year my two closest friends are the only two who got me anything. Solid gifts too. S got me tickets to see Amy Schumer and C gave me a 50$ amazon gift card, which was perfect since I had about 400$ of books in my cart when she sent it to me. All of the best of 2016 / what to read in 2017 book lists are out and they make me crazy with book lust.

C also took the time to film her dog in a birthday hat while singing happy birthday to me. That made me happy. I mean, that's all I want, really.

I always feel like a birthday is really a test of who knows you, and who doesn't. And who will take a minute to care, and who won't. Both C and S know me well, and it showed. And I appreciate it.

I'll most likely write them each a note about it. Maybe I'll do that next.

My mother will be heading to Cuba for about 10 days, so I'll have some quiet and some space for a little while. That might be good for me. I like being able to stretch out a little, and the quiet is good for me.

Here's an excerpt from my letter to C:

My birthday brings up a lot. First and foremost, it’s right after the holidays and people are broke, tired and generally annoyed. It’s always been impossible to plan anything and in general a lot of people forget.

I think it’s also that birthdays are generally meant to be a time for socializing and “going out” and stuff and I don’t really do those things. And although I have no desire to go out and do certain things, I do get lonely. And sometimes a part of me thinks that there’s a distinction between “not wanting” to go out, and not being able to, and that really I’m just not part of that world. It’s not that I want to go out. It’s that I want to be someone who is capable of fun.

My birthday being right after new years means it’s an extension of what new year's evokes, culturally speaking: a desire to look over the last year of your life, and to plan for the upcoming year.

2016 was rough for me. I’m tired. I have a lot of worries about my job and working, and my ability to work in general. So looking forward to 2017 means extending that tangle of fears, since I am looking for employment in order to ideally quel some of those anxieties. I try and let it go as much as I can, but sometimes that’s really hard.

I also think that now, for the first time ever, really, I think about what I’m missing by not having a partner. I’m able to live alone, and am nearly resolved to the idea of it, but there are times I miss the comfort of being cared for, and having that favourite person you’re intimate with.

In a lot of ways, as I become more resoundingly myself in a lot of ways, I also question what parts of my character are set in stone and what remains malleable. Over the last year I have worked on my compassion and kindness, and I’ve also taken a step in trying to more actively live my values.

And though the parts of me that always ask questions, and is curious and existential, is a fundamental part of who I am, it’s also alienating, and I grow tired of it.

In terms of how this relates back to my birthday, it leaves me asking myself about what I should and shouldn’t expect from the people around me. What do I expect from my friendships? From my family? I am not owed. I do not deserve. But there are ways people show care, and do these people care about me?

It’s just so ironic. I want things to be light and easy - but I am not light an easy, not really.

My frontal lobe is throbbing. Sometimes I feel like my desire to understand and organize information is infinitely larger than my ability to learn and understand, and so my brain just gets overwhelmed.

I think right now my hang-up is questioning what parts of me keep me lonely, and if I’m willing or able to do the work to live differently.

I’m just so tired these days.

It's 2017. This is the future. 

Chronic Depression Fatigue.

A friend sent me What It Feels Like to Have 'Chronic Depression Fatigue' by Olivia James.

I've really been struggling with exhaustion and hypersomnia this past year. I mean, it's been ongoing, it's not new, but this year I was trying to change my eating and sleeping and found that no matter what 8 hours of sleep was not enough, and that there were some days where I could easily nap twice on top of a full night of sleep. 

James mirrors my experiences:

This is what I like to call “chronic depression fatigue.” In my experience, it’s the longest lasting of all my depressive symptoms, and unfortunately it’s one that affects my ability to do the things I want and need to do in a pretty serious way. No matter how much distance I put between myself and the more obvious symptoms of depression (anhedonia, listlessness, negative self talk, black and white thinking, isolation), I find that my energy remains low, and my body just can’t keep up with other people.

I’m a relatively young, physically healthy person. There is no reason I should wake up every morning feeling miserably tired. There is no reason I should regularly find myself so tired at work that I’m fighting my eyelids closing. There is no reason I should have to down cups of coffee to stay aware enough to make it through the day. 

For me, work has been an issue. Every afternoon I need a nap. I get slow. My eyes close. I feel as though I'm fighting the urge to sleep and thus feel blinky and impaired. I don't want to drink too much caffeine though because that aggravates my anxiety.

It’s frustrating to realize there may be no end to struggling with energy and sleep. I feel less intelligent than I used to be because I always feel as if I’m barely awake. Am I going to be stuck as a subpar version of myself forever? Especially as someone with a history of an eating disorder, exhaustion can really screw up my self-care routines, as it makes exercise and balanced food difficult. Exercise is a good preventative measure for me, and having to skip out on the gym to go take a nap feels awful, even when it’s necessary. 

I'm still navigating this reality. Eating disorder, exercise, exhaustion. Right now exercise is getting no time or space, I can't even fathom it. I walk when I can. I cook to try and eat in alignment with my values and budget, but it takes so much time and energy. On the Sunday's I volunteer I can't always batch-cook afterward. It becomes about choices. I completely understand that exercise will benefit my mood and my energy, but if I'm running on empty the thought of exercising is inconceivable.

I’ve heard from others that they have this long-lasting fatigue, even when the depression is in remission. And yet I’ve never heard a therapist or doctor mention it or potential solutions other than treating it like any other exhaustion. I feel bad even bringing it up because I know compared to being in the midst of depression, this is a cake walk. But even in recovery, I think we can advocate for improved quality of life, and helping those with mental illness manage energy is huge to keeping us on our feet and fighting our brain demons.

I think my depression is more of a constant. It's cyclical but on a monthly cycle - not over a period of years, now that I understand right now anyway. Exhaustion and managing my energy is a major part of trying to figure out how to live my life.

That's where I'm at now. Still trying to figure it out. How (increasingly) exhausting.

Back to broke.

Well, it's been a time.

I spent christmas sleeping and watching movies with my family at my brother's house. The gift exchange went well, I love giving presents, and they all seemed to be a hit. Even all the books I got my nephews, they seemed happy with them, which was a surprise. I got one of my nephews a large jar of pickles from Costco as a joke and it was a real hit. The holiday season cost me a fortune. I have to try and by little-to-nothing for a few months in order to get back to broke.

We then came back home, my mother and I, on the 27th. I updated my Etsy store and did a few things, but mostly I slept. My birthday/christmas gift this year was a Fitbit, I thought it might be helpful to track my heart rate and sleep patterns, try and get more walking in, try and have a way of following my (physical) health since it's been such a crap-show. It's kind of sobering to see how much I've been sleeping. Hypersomnia is real.

I have one day in which I slept for 11 hours over night, then took a 2 hour nap and a 1.5 hour nap. That seems excessive, doesn't it? But I couldn't wake up. I had that "impending sleep" feeling where you eyes are heavy and you just need to find a safe space to pass out.

On new years eve I babysit my nephews, went to bed early, and made a big breakfast for my family, they left around 11 in the morning, and again, I took a nap, then took another nap. I slept most of the day, and was still in bed by 10 pm. Today I got up around 9 and went for breakfast with my mother. I made a point of walking home from a nearby strip-mall to get some sunlight, some fresh air and some walking in.

Here I am now, it's 12:26 pm and I'm writing, seemingly alert and functional, but I'm worried I'm going to hit a down and have to nap again. How the fuck do I get through a workday?

I never like the beginning of January. It's the new year, and in a few days it's my birthday. Both bring with them a lot of reflection, and with reflection comes a lot of self-judgement and criticism. I try to limit this, I try to change the narrative, but it's there. Just in the last few days my day-naps have brought with them dreams of public nudity, exams I don't understand, living in a basement garage forever, being engaged in some type of turf war with a large violent group of teenagers and a string of other fucked-up dreams that scratch at my neurosis and lack of self esteem.

It's hard not to take stock of my life, and it's hard not to be hard on myself. My heart hurts.

I'm exhausted. I am feeling the weight of my body. I feel stuck and sad.

Every body goes haywire.

Finally found the time to read Every body goes haywire by Anna Altman. A friend had shared it with me months ago.

Joanna Kempner, a sociologist at Rutgers and author of the recently published Not Tonight: Migraine and the Politics of Gender and Health, writes that “people worry when they cannot fulfill their end of the so-called sick role, an implicit social contract in which sick people are given leave of their everyday duties, as long as they adhere to certain rules like seeking appropriate medical care and working hard to get better. But these obligations are difficult to meet when there is no effective treatment.”

Ooooof. This has been a bit point for me the last two years. Getting it into my head, and accepting that I have a lifelong, chronic condition. There is no endpoint, other than the big endpoint.

THIS INHERITANCE AWAITS MANY WOMEN. Almost 20 percent of women suffer migraines, and 75 percent of migraine sufferers are women. That same group of hard-to-diagnose and hard-to-treat diseases—lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis, but also chronic fatigue, chronic headache and fibromyalgia—primarily afflicts women. “Women are more likely than men to be disabled by chronic illnesses,” Susan Wendell writes, “and women (including women with other disabilities) suffer more ill health than men. Women live longer than men, but much of that extra living is done with a disabling chronic illness.”
...
Wendell points out that those chronic conditions bring with them the kind of invisible impairments that can cripple a patient without appearing notable. “Pain and/or fatigue are major sources of impairment in many chronic illnesses that are more common in women than in men,” she writes. It is exactly these impairments that are easiest to dismiss or misperceive as psychosomatic.
...
And doctors treat complaints about such conditions differently when they come from women. Kempner cites studies that show physicians prescribe less pain medicine to women than they do to men, even though women are more likely to suffer chronic pain. Other studies show that women are more likely than men to be prescribed antidepressants and tranquilizers—rather than pain medication—for their migraines. Add to this the fact that migraine is more likely to occur in people with mental health diagnoses like depression and anxiety, both of which are more common in women. All of this makes it hard to untangle migraine and other chronic pain conditions from stereotypes of female weakness and hysteria. The characterization perpetuates the notion of the migraineur-as-malingerer, the sensitive soul disabled by everyday disruptions.

I remember reading about hysteria in feminist health class and man did I not really get it at the time. It took an added decade of navigating the medical system for me to see it time and time again. I remember talking to my most normie friend N when she was on the verge of a burnout from her job. She was traveling internationally several times a year and was working over 60 hours a week. I told her, without mincing words that she should not wear makeup or dress up to go to the appointment (she usually would) because if she looks tired and beat, the doctor will be more likely to believe her. I also mentioned the study about how women often minimize their pain and discomfort out of the gendered habit of "I'm fine" -ing everything. I told her to psych herself up, and not play it off. This is a woman who is neurotically privileged and physically in peak condition.

This is hard to communicate when you appear to be young, healthy, and able-bodied. “To be recognized as disabled, we have to remind people frequently of our needs and limitations,” writes Wendell of women who suffer from chronic, invisible disabilities. The struggle for recognition is constant, even among the most compassionate: “Some people offer such acceptance readily, others greet every statement of limitation with skepticism, and most need to reminded from time to time.”

In my case, much of my close circle has these "invisible disabilities," chronic conditions that do not always display outwardly. There is something especially slippery about mental illness, something we're asked to describe at inopportune times, or when we aren't verbal or when we're feeling better, or when we're in such crisis we're catatonic.

I had my diagnosis immediately. Learning to cope with it takes years.
Illness is the space where I came to understand the limitations of my being. It’s a lesson we all learn but one I learned harshly and twice, first watching my mother and then enduring my own suffering. Now I know that I can lie down for hours without moving. I can meditate. I can stare at the wall and not despair. If I discovered something redemptive in this experience, it’s that capacity for stillness.

Heavy piece, but her closing paragraph really nailed it. There is a natural quiet that comes to you through solitude and suffering. I wish that didn't sound as poetic as it does. There's a resignation in it, an acceptance. But really, what choice do we have?

The pendulum swings.

I've thought about it, and I doubt I'll be applying to graduate school.

Though K really inspired me, once I researched the programs in Montreal, the costs, and the intellectual limitations and rigid guidelines, I got real tired real quick.

My issue with graduate school is that there's so much stuff you have to do in order to do what you want to be doing. Required classes and lectures and work groups. And though I'm sure masters-level theory and research method courses can be very helpful, I also know they most likely are not.

I struggled a lot with my undergraduate thesis because it wasn't about my research, it was about checking off boxes and making sure the i's were dotted and the t's were crossed.

If the majority of the work I'm doing now is creative, thinking of reformulating any of it in order to adhere to ivory-tower standards bummed me out.

I'm not getting a master's degree in order to go up a pay scale as an engineer. I'm a fucking art-bum. Why pay so much for a degree; kill myself for something that has such limited application - when art itself exists well outside of official spaces.

What I'm doing now, trying to write, creating small pieces for Etsy - I did it for me. I do this for me. I need to let stuff out. I need to try and let stuff out, I am encouraged by people's reception of my work - all of this, all of this is for me.

I worry about compromising what it is I want to do for something so fickle. I have a tremendous amount of respect for education, for reading and the arts, for history and engaged critique. But now I also know that that doesn't necessarily live in institutions, and in fact, the halls of academia have been exclusionary than anything else.

Even "mad studies" lives within specific kinds of academic spaces. Spaces you need to pay a price of admission to access. Spaces where your language use and classwork is filtered through a professor's narrative. From my reading of the faculty websites, I don't see flexibility or radicalism here.

I do not want to spend the time I have, the little bodily energy I have and the intellectual and creative energy I have trying so hard to fit into another system that wasn't meant for me.

Let me be clear when I say "wasn't meant for me" I do not mean that this space was destined for specifics kinds of people of which I am not. I mean it isn't meant for anyone, really. It's meant for very specific kinds of knowledge and exchange. There is a given look to what the pursuit of knowledge is, and it looks like a research paper. It looks like deadlines and exams. It's impersonal and cold. And making it anything other than these things is work. Work for myself. Work that is undervalued and patronized.

I don't want to live in that space. I want more free time for my own creative endeavors. I want very little of anything else.

I want to explore things fully, through my own whims, not through pre-set paths off of school hallways.

At least 20 more minutes a day.

Zeitgeist week 31 - FIGHTING THE PATRIARCHY IS EXHAUSTING. Studies find women need 20 minutes more sleep than men.

A photo posted by WEEKDAY (@weekday_stores) on Aug 5, 2016 at 5:36am PDT

My weekend.

On Friday I went to bed around 9 pm, and I woke up Saturday past 11 am.

I then ran a few errands and napped for another 2 hours.

Hypersomnia is real.

I then went to bed around 10 pm on Saturday since I had a morning volunteer shift at the refuge, so I was with the dogs 9 am - 12 pm and then got home, napped for 2 hours and got up to try ans do some cooking and meal prep for the week.

My weekend was an unconscious one.

Every day.

This week at work I'm replacing the receptionist, who is on vacation. This means I don't have access to any of my marketing programs (the design stuff) and I'm mainly answering the phone and receiving mail.

This also means I have more "free time" - since the majority of my work day is me being at the reception, available.



I've been in a bit of a fog lately. My brain has been slow, and I'm just being, I guess.

I need to be more vigilant about the thoughts I feel warrant being put to paper/screen. I'm often lost in thought, but I don't take the time to write down a certain turn of phrase of idea. I let it go.

I get lost in myself a lot these days. I fall down a rabbit hole, wondering what and why.

I'm trying to live my life daily, and it's been difficult. The fact is, I may never get a decent job. Never have a good schedule or a comfortable salary. I will always struggle with my attention span, with my memory. I keep telling myself that a better job situation will change everything. And though it would, in allowing me certain lenience, it also couldn't.

I've got this terrible habit of putting my life on hold. It's deeply ingrained in me.

It's common among the fat, from what I hear. I'll go on a trip once I lose some weight. It'll be different once I lose some weight. I wouldn't feel this way, if I wasn't fat.

So there's that side of it, yes, but I think it's also a result of compartmentalizing how to get through life. It's difficult for me to think long-term because I find it painful. Parts of me, the parts of me that staggered into adulthood did so through just letting time pass. I got by. I took things one step at a time, and then I was 30. I tried to access help and support and some bits worked and some did not. And over time I met some people and learned a certain kind of language and some basic skills and I got enough in me to continue to get by.

And yes, part of my life will always be about getting by. But on good days, I'll have the chance for things to be about more than that.

Right now, these days, my struggle is work. It's what to do, and where, and for how much. A work-life is 40 hours of your week. It's significant and I'm struggling with what I should be doing.

Right now I'm working a 37.5 work week as a "marketing assistant." I was hired as a graphic designer and through a series of colleague lay-offs and quits, I'm taking on administrative work and grossly under-used and under-stimulated. I am not doing any creative work.

These days, I am contented at finding a job that's stable, and leaving the creative work to my evenings and weekends. It'll be Etsy and writing, as long as I have a 9 to 5 that can pay for me to live my life.



I'm not doing that right now. I feel stunted by living with my mother, paying my half-rent and saving up while I can. The saving is eternal. Coins meant to fill a jug. The rattling of it all, a drop in a bucket.

It's long. Saving. Working. Working on myself. None of it has been quick or easy. So in the meantime, what I have is this meantime. It's the everyday. So if all I have are these days, then all I have are the choices I make within these days.

What is it that I spend my time doing?

Who are the people I make a point of seeing?

It's part of why I started volunteering at the dog shelter / animal refuge. If volunteering is part of my values, I need to live that, or else it isn't a value of mine, it's just something I talk about.

And if that principal can be applied to all things - what should I be spending my days doing?

How do I extend that practice? The practice of living my values.



I feel successful with the volunteer work. And I feel successful when I am able to prioritize and accomplish things for myself. Yesterday I did some meal prep. I made healthy lunches, and I made a healthy vegetarian lasagna. It's taking care of myself. It's helpful. I know what I'm eating. I'm eating in line with my values (vegetarian, clean) and I feel pro-active in regards to my health.

There's always a shadow of guilt though. Of not doing enough. And it's difficult to rid myself of that impulse.

I know my next challenge is a physical one. I know physical activity and exercise are my next steps. My goal is to become more physical. To stretch. To work my heart. To be able to purge certain kinds of energy and to sweat out toxins. To court the calm that comes with exhaustion. Something I haven't felt in a very long time.

It's difficult. The every day. How is it a moment can seem so eternally long, and yet so painfully short? How is it my mind can wander so much? How can I truly harness the powers of my faulty brain. Some parts don't work all that great, but surely, some do. Maybe ability to concentrate isn't great, but my empathy is strong. My sensitivity is strong. My dreams are wild. What does that make of me and my brain? Of my potential?

I find myself rooted by the knowledge that there is such a thing as neuroplasticity, and that there is such science that says trauma and habit form pathways that become ingrained so that the brain becomes incapable of taking other paths. These are things I can logically know. But then what? How do I apply this knowledge to my life?



So the times that I remember things I don't want to remember, and they call up in me feelings of shame and guilt, or rejection or embarrassment, how do I respond in a way that challenges those set pathways, those painful roads.

How can a decade of self-harm be quelled?

That's where I am right now. I'm in the every day of it. I find it hazy with familiarity. It seems redundant. Here. Again. Always. It's always the struggle of being here, now.

It's difficult to follow my thoughts when things are muddled, and it's harder to focus when that muscle has atrophied.

Sometimes it seems so easy. Just keep it simple. Minimize. Breathe. Sleep. Take it easy.

Other times, I am astonished it isn't more common for a person to lose their fucking minds.



I think we do. I think we lose is periodically and in moments and then a sensation or familiarity brings us back to wherever it is we are and we're distracted from that insanity. It's the familiar that comforts us, even if that known thing is objectively sick in itself.

Is all this neurosis based in the apathy of privilege? Of access? Of excess?

I make these lists of things I should be doing to be okay. Is that a trap? I'm not okay, and it's my fault. Is anybody okay? Surely, some must be. Or else how would the world work? How would it keep going? There are investments made by those who are invested in it all.

I float too far from my own life.

Sometimes it's just so absurd. Then it's so simple, and beautiful and sweet. Then it hurts so much, my hair, my eyes, my bones. How is it I can feel everything and then feel nothing?

How can I live in this world?

How can I best imitate those who do?



This is my gobbledygook. It's nearly incessant.

All of today's GIFs by Jason Clarke.

Toronto graffiti.

Source.

The brain fog.

I'm foggy today. I feel slow and kind of impaired. Kind of like I'm a sleepy baby.

Specifically this sleepy baby:

It's difficult to explain, but I guess being sleepy is the closest reasonable comparison. It's very much like when you're trying to stay awake, but you know you're tired and need to sleep, and your body is starting to shut down regardless of your intentions to stay awake.

It's like an early stage of that. I'm not nodding off, but I can feel the heaviness in my eyes, and everything has a slower, languid pace.

I'm having coffee now, hopefully that'll help a bit. I'm limiting my coffee now though, so I can't just count on that.

This upcoming weekend is the labour day weekend, so I'm looking forward to having the extra day off, and then also having that shorter week next week. I'm tired.

Have I mentioned I'm tired?

Don't think about it too much.

Art by Anastasia Tasou.

The discomfort of looking forward.

During my last session with Dr. Rishi, he mentioned trying to look forward, something I've not done in nearly a decade. He mentioned trying to plan a trip or a vacation, something that I can look forward to.

So, I officially booked tickets to (and from) Victoria to visit C. I can't technically afford it with money, but to my surprise I was able to trade-in airmiles, which covered about 85% of the cost. So with service charges and insurance, and the missing airmiles (about 300) it'll cost me about 300$ instead of about a grand.

When I told C she seemed super excited, which is nice. I know she's been homesick out there, and it'll be great for her to show me a bit of her life, as well as the area. I'll be there for a solid 7-8 days, so when she's at work I'll be able to walk around Victoria and sit by the water. That'll be nice. I need a break.

I didn't expect the lack of vacation time to affect me so much. I'm tired. I think about running away and sitting in the woods more than I probably should.

These days though, I can't get enough of The Noonday Demon. I've been burning through it. It's as if it was written specifically for me. It's a brick of a book, which initially put me off, since I was worried about my attention span, but it's been a really poignant, fucking spot-on relevant book for me.

I'm currently listening to one of his Ted talks. It touches on some of his work, but it's under 30 minutes long, so it's not as thorough. Here are some highlights for me:

And one of the things that often gets lost in discussions of depression is that you know it's ridiculous.You know it's ridiculous while you're experiencing it. You know that most people manage to listen to their messages and eat lunch and organize themselves to take a shower and go out the front door and that it's not a big deal, and yet you are nonetheless in its grip and you are unable to figure out any way around it.And so I began to feel myself doing less and thinking less and feeling less. It was a kind of nullity.

Nullity is a great word for expressing the sensation of being absent and despondent.

One of the first people I interviewed described depression as a slower way of being dead, and that was a good thing for me to hear early on because it reminded me that that slow way of being dead can lead to actual deadness, that this is a serious business. It's the leading disability worldwide, and people die of it every day.

It is a disability, and I feel so unsupported by the structures of my world.

Depression is so exhausting. It takes up so much of your time and energy, and silence about it, it really does make the depression worse.

This is a big part of this blog, and why I write here. It's my way of voiding my thoughts by letting them all out and purging my brain from these experiences and neurosis.

It's a strange poverty of the English language, and indeed of many other languages, that we use this same word, depression, to describe how a kid feels when it rains on his birthday, and to describe how somebody feels the minute before they commit suicide.

Preach Mr Solomon.

What is the mechanism of resilience? And what I came up with over time was that the people who deny their experience, and say, "I was depressed a long time ago, I never want to think about it again, I'm not going to look at it and I'm just going to get on with my life," ironically, those are the people who are most enslaved by what they have. Shutting out the depression strengthens it. While you hide from it, it grows. And the people who do better are the ones who are able to tolerate the fact that they have this condition. Those who can tolerate their depression are the ones who achieve resilience.

I think this is part of what I'm working with now. This being conscious of my depression, of what it means, of what living my life means, of what it takes from me to get by. I am no longer in denial. I think for years I was in a state of despondent ignorance, and I've moved through that.

Looking forward is very difficult for me. It's just a muscle I haven't used in a very long time. It feels dangerous to look forward, as if I'm tempting fate to expect things to go a certain way. If I'm looking forward it means I'm expecting things to go well, well enough to plan and to move towards that plan with possible excitement and maybe even glee.

With Victoria, I'd be going in February of 2016. So of course this does pick at certain strains of anxiety, namely financial stress and body stress. They're things I'm trying not to focus on. But they do carry with them, some fear and resistance to the idea.

I don't really know how to look forward anymore. I don't know how to be excited about my future. Right now, all it does is make me pre-emptively tired.

Me, around 2 pm.

A video posted by Bentley the Golden Retriever (@bentleygoldenbear) on Jun 4, 2015 at 3:47pm PDT

Constant exhaustion.

This is pretty much how I feel these days.

Like this, but less cute. I feel totally useless and like I'm disabled but that disability is unrecognised.

Via. I can't actually link to the source since the name of it is blocked by my work server.

Tired.

This sums up the last few months for me.

On dominant thoughts and being "thought out."

Here we go:

Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts. 

– Søren Kierkegaard

I came across this quote on some random quote-regurgitating Twitter feed. This is where gems are hidden these days…

Re-reading this quote now, weeks after I pasted it in what I affectionately call my “blog topics dump” text document on my google drive, I can’t help but think of that whole “the secret” fad. Remember that fad? Where you used a vision board to project into your own future?

Look, I can understand, logically, that the lens with which we perceive, sort, and react to the world directly affects that same lens (re-creating and enforcing itself).

Getting up, and being positive, and feeling that the world is nothing but possibilities, no doubt leads you to trying more things, and taking risks, and thus gaining more out of life. Alternatively, feeling downtrodden and crippled by life and its obstacles will lead you to remain on a more limited path.

So where does this leave me? If I'm struggling with my depression, and constantly (these days) thinking about my reality as a “depressed person” does that equate “dominant thought”? Right now, I would say it feels like it does.

I've felt, possessed by a hyper-tenderness to my depression. These last few weeks have been rough. I've been tired and just, so depleted. I equate it to feeling “talked out” only of my thoughts. I'm “thought out” of it. I've just been too aware, to sensitive, to worried, to engaged in access resources, too disappointed, too self-reflexive.

I'm thought out.

So if my dominant thoughts are now no longer if what ails me, but of how weary I am of it all, how thought out I am, what life is expressed? Is my life right now, the embodiment of a sigh?

Is that what I am today? A walking sigh?

*I shouldn't have to point-out that I don't own the rights to Peanuts... But I don't.

*sigh*

This was my Sunday.

Having an all I wanna do is sleep but I know I'll get depressed so I'm trying not to kind of day

— Sarah Silverman (@SarahKSilverman) June 22, 2015

...except I did sleep most of the day. I just had the heaviest eye lids and could not muster up any energy.  On days like yesterday, I find it extremely difficult living with my mother. For me it's about harm-reduction and just doing what I need to do. But she sees laziness and just gets frustrated and passive aggressive.

I ended up getting up in the afternoon but I didn't do much. I have to be careful not to sleep all day since I have to get up for work On Monday and I don't want to mess up my sleep cycle.  Although, I guess these days my sleep cycles is "sleep whenever you can."