Okay so she read it and we talked about it, so this post has served its purpose. I don't want y'all worrying about me, I'm having a good day today and things are getting better, but I am leaving this post up as I think these things need to be talked about and if it helps anybody else to share, even if only by PM and not public, then that's fine by me.
This is my response to some of the comments I've received privately, I wanted to share them here so that anybody who might benefit from these answers could do so. Plus so anybody can correct me if I am giving out bad advice :). ---------- Losing momentum sucks, and I know it feels like once it's gone it's gone for good, but believe me it isn't. Just having written about my struggles yesterday has transformed today into a really beautiful day, I've not exactly gotten stuff done, but I have felt a lot better mentally and phsyically. RE: Destroying my laptop. I have a history of destroying things, I've broken tablets, kindles, keyboards, monitors, and more. Even mundane things like throwing away a perfectly edible meal or deleting hours of work. This is potentially a symptom of Bipolar Disorder and I am going to be talking to my doctor about this, but honestly, I am addicted to devices so naturally when my mood switches and I enter a destructive phase, they are the closest thing to me. The only advice I can offer here would be, consider alternatives that you could take before it gets to that destructive stage. I.e. walk away. There's nothing inherently about these things that makes them a target, so whatever is prompting the feeling to smash things is coming from within and so can be changed by yourself. For me, a good idea would have been to take a 10 minute break, allocate specific time slots for when I should be doing each activity and ensure that anything that is causing me stress is either removed or solved before engaging in something that requires my attention. RE: Loss of identity. Sit down and try to think about what things identify you, focus on the positives. I consider myself a loser as I ahve no job, but then I've got two degrees. That's actually really amazing, but I never focus on it, I take it for granted. You relaly shouldn't do that to yourself, try and find something each day that you can say you are happy about. Try to create a kinder mind. RE: Comparing situations. Never, ever, ever, compare your situation to somebody elses and think that your feeling must somehow be less valid or be embarrassed about even comparing them. There is always a side to somebody that you know nothing about, and especially on the internet the only view you see of someone is what they themselves present you. Comparisons can be made, as a tool, but avoid basing your self worth on your opinion of others, or worse, what you perceive their opinion of you is. I am more than guilty of this in the past, it was one of the biggest factors that prevented me ever approaching my doctor in the first instance as "surely I didn't have a real problem. I'm not starving like the children of Africa, or dying from some disease or other, so what did I have to complain about, really?" There is a load of labels that could apply to me, but why should any of them invalidate my feelings? It's difficult to let it go, I know that, but you kind of get this realisation that everybody is pretty much the same, we're all trying to work through shit and it doesn't matter where you come from, who you are or what you have; your feelings are valid and you as a person, matter.
Well, might as well make my reply in public. I think I've kept to myself for too long, and for some reason, the knowledge that this reply is out in public makes it feel like whatever I say will be the definitive version of my the thoughts I have. Careful, wall of text. I'm glad to hear things have turned around, at least when you replied. Do your days have clear distinctions, like "good day", "bad day"? I believe I've chained together a string of bad days, but I'm not sure how long it's been. Last night I decided to stay up all night to shake up the dice of my mental state towards getting a chunk of work done. It's a bad habit from when I used to take adderall a year ago. I think I'm going to stay all night a second night in a row. Yes, I know there's negative effects to it. But in all seriousness, this seems like the best idea, at least until I can get prescribed again. I've come back to my hometown to start my own web design business, but for the last month, it's really felt like I have no job. I know that this is how my family sees my moving back, and it's a self-fulfilling prophecy that I'm trying to rationalize away. I can't bring myself to get work done (especially, web work), because I'm too distracted on my laptop, going through all sorts of feeds, finding new content, hell, I picked up chess online again to further procrastinate. I read a great nautilus article today about anxiety in animals, and there was a particular paragraph: Working as a freelancer for the last 2 years has really destroyed me. The nature of my work is exploratory, every client is different, and it's easy for me to get into these procrastination cycles which snowball into even more stress. Welp, I have two degrees as well (psychology and political science). I also have bad ADHD, an inability to wake up before noon, and an inability to start working before coming up with a creative solution to keeping myself focused. It's a hilarious cycle where I have two notebooks, 4 to-do lists, 3 email address cycles, and a corpus of self-betterment advice that I can tell myself without practicing it. This is what happens when you pride yourself on your ability to come up with clever solutions - you are always up against a version of you who wants to keep dicking around on the internet who is more motivated to not work, and he's just as clever. I have a weird addiction to pinball now. I won 2nd place at a local tournament. I don't feel good about it, because it feels like an addiction. At the same time, I love it, because it's meditation for me. Do I self-love it, or do I avoid it? My battle plan: Finish current client within the next two weeks. Get a part-time job. Priority if I wake up after 9am is to get into the shower. Compare myself to no one, not even the versions of myself imagined from how I actually wanted today to go. Create a kinder mind that isn't a piece of shit."In one chronic stress experiment, mice were restrained, shaken, isolated, held under a hot hairdryer, kept under bright lights overnight, or had their cages tilted at a 45 degree angle. In the end—and just like humans who live under chronic stress—the mice became severely anxious and lost any appetite for “exploratory behavior,” like depressed teenagers hiding out in bed."
Hey, thanks for sharing with us, I'm sorry I've not gotten a reply back to you sooner. I find that it is pretty clear what counts as a good day and a bad day, early indicators for the latter for me are getting anxious or stressed over small things, or a general feeling of unpreparedness. Usually these end up escalating an adverse reaction to what may otherwise be a normal situation. I feel like I tend to operate on more of a cycle basis where I'll have a few weeks productive and a few weeks destructive, I'm tempted to almost say happy and sad there, but I think it does boild down to simply what actions I undertake. This is something common with bipolar disorder, and I'm going to be working with my doctor to see if we should pursue that as a diagnosis for me. I find this cycle works on a sort of balance, so the happier I am more regularly, the worse I'll be sooner; for this reason I think it's safer to play it safe and have a more neutral output: Not the manic, elated, frenzies and not the angry, destructive, panics. It does sound like you have a lot of demands on your attention, look at works for you and remove as much else that you can. Though trying to prepare a space to avoid them can become it's own procrastination. Rather than trying to create seperate work and play spaces, I've found having hard time limits prompts me into action -- whether it's rushing to hand in work before the deadline, or more usually trying to get something done just before going off to an appointment or otherwise semi-inflexible date. I like your battle plan, it sounds like you've got a good idea of where to go next.