dane the great

I'm in a bit of a sulk and isolate moodset, because everything in the world is just aggravating me. I know the source - high stress, flaring from the high stress+weather, tired and sore - so it is managable. But it's just very tiring. I have the energy to keep doing shit, but I do not have the energy to maintain my usual perky good cheer when everything and everyone is chafing on my nerves.

It's bad enough that I keep getting anxious at Reba, which never happens. Better to be anxious at her than pissy, though. I've known her for almost ten years at this point, and I can count the number of times she's managed to irritate me on one hand. I do not want to ruin that streak just because I'm in pain, and I am being waspish about it.

.. the fact I'm even fussing about that is a sign of anxiety, though. Knowing my emotional trajectories and responses is kind of funny at times. There is a wry discomfort to being able to catalogue and acknowledge my emotions, and yet despite that knowledge, you can't turn your brain off. You just have to work with what you can work with in the moment, which can make having that knowledge in the first place feel very useless.

Trying a new habit this year, which is writing down fiction by hand. So I have a journal and a set of pre-filled fountain pens coming in. I used to be very productive while writing in my twenties, but this comes from two irritating, unhealthy habits:

 

- weaponising my ocd, by setting a word count and then deciding I would not eat or drink until I hit that wordcount

- being very, very sick 24/7, because I am always at my most productive when I am trying to aggressively distract myself from my body


The "no eating/drinking" is much less alarming than it sounds, because when I was in very bad flareups, eating or drinking anything would set me to vomiting. But it wasn't very healthy, so I'm trying not to fall back into that habit.

My other method of ensuring I wrote often was just keeping EverNotes on my phone, and constantly writing in that. But I have less time to spend on my phone these days, and the writing applications for them at this point, to be honest, just fucking suck. So hopefully a nice, on-me-24/7 journal will help me stay productive and just start writing whenever I have a spare moment.

We'll see, I guess!

Moderately sore, moderately anxious. Acknowledging that my anxiety spikes when I feel less than baller is irritating! Even more irritating is acknowledging that being healthier means getting a regular period, and that apparently comes with anxiety, too. Being chronically underweight for 90% of my life has had some negative results, I will admit, but dealing abruptly with things like bleeding more than every 2-3 months, and my skin now will Fold if I do shit like bend, is deeply grating.

There have been a lot of jokes about Tylenol when I complain about this. Not entirely unfair! These are just some of those things that I have not dealt with and so seems novel and distasteful to me, but everyone else has been dealing with as a standard part of the human experience their entire life. I'll get used to it and normalise it as well - I just always dislike new sensations or experiences on the whole, as soon as I realise I can't opt out of them.

Short stories are.. a-go! I wrote up a region rewrite and have moved to the next rewrite for Faerun shit, and the fact that my main social group is largely disinterested in the topic means that I'm actually oozing back into new social spheres for the first time in ages. I'm hoping to avoid my disdain towards certain parts of nerd culture by sticking to areas with older demographics. The same cultural issues that always chafe my ass will still exist, but people are generally a lot more aware of the fact.. these tendencies are grating, and older adults have more practical skill in smoothing down the rough edges to make groups operate more smoothly.

Theoretically. Maybe! We'll see. It'll probably be less grating in itself for the fact that, once I see behaviours I disapprove of, I will shrimply climb out the window at this stage in my life.

I am.. not really sure what to do with my short stories, though, other than simply publish them online, lol. Most writing groups exhaust me! A lot of writing styles and preferred tropes at this point grate on me intensely, but they obviously hold widespread appeal from their popularity, and my personal disinterest towards them feels mean. Can tropes be salvaged by a writing style I enjoy? Yes, but when people are emulating styles I don't enjoy, even story arcs and characters that I appreciate become a drag to sort through. But writing clubs require reciprocity, and if I'm putting my work out there, I'll need to engage with others' work in exchange.. and I don't really want to spend my time or energy on shit that I don't enjoy.

This is rather pre-emptive worrying, haha. Maybe I'll find a writing group that will appeal to me! Or maybe I'll just do like I always do when I get into these social upswings, and make my own sphere, pull people I like into it, and build from there, lol. 

I'm just fairly contented right now in general, so general list of things:

- Love is kind of a drug, and the fact we are such social animals occasionally makes me feel a way. I like control! When I was younger, I would occasionally go into nervous fussing over others having influence over me, to my detriment, due to my affection. I was not entirely wrong to get distressed over this, because it did happen and kept happening. Oops!

But this year, for all of the shittiness, has been so fucking nice in just.. being able to lean into it and draw comfort from it. I have a lot of people who love me! I know this logically, and I remind myself of it whenever I withdraw. It is a huge relief in some ways to be able to remember - I don't care about [thing], but my friends and family will be stressed out if I don't perform it anyway. Not because it's beneficial to them, but because my health and happiness is important to them, and neglecting either isn't just leaning into malaise. I have difficulty prioritizing myself! I have difficulty not prioritizing people I love, and it has been so much fucking easier to handle life by remembering it actively benefits others, too.

- A friend said that it was very funny to watch me type, because I make a lot of errors and typos, I just instantly correct them. And now I can't stop noticing them, lol. It is funny in a terrible way to say that I hate reading other dyslexics writing, but I suppose that's why! "If I can spot my homophones and phonetic bullshit spelling, why can't you?"

I think the reason I find it so grating is because, once you consider accents, the phonetic spelling varies enough to make reading an active chore. There was an ESL dyslexic on one of my forums. His writing was coherent, but the spelling was very heavily phonetic.. in a way that took me multiple tries to figure out what he was saying. Add in the syntax issues, and it was like nails on glass. Infinitely less godawful for everyone else to read, though. 

Despite this hell year, there has been character growth! I'm actually accepting gifts from people without feeling like a trapped cat over it. It is a little silly to be proud of, all things considered. But I've spent a lot of the last few months.. trying very hard not to think about a lot of things, and sort of brewing on everything subconsciously as a result.

With somewhat good results.

It is interesting to think on past relationships and finally have the last bit of nostalgic glaze worn away. Abusive behaviour is overt and glaring in my thirties! Before that, it was very easy to overlook and handwave due to the way I was raised. "If someone isn't threatening actual harm against you, it's not worth reacting to" was my motto, which kept me functional and the bills paid and everything done, but man.

No wonder I was constantly getting stress eczema, and heart palpitations, and constant fucking flareups of everything and anything. I used to tell people that if I got too angry or too upset, I'd puke, so I just learned to be chill as a result.. which was, in hindsight, an absolutely insane thing to say. It turns out if I am not constantly in a state of high stress, the slightest provocation won't set off adrenaline enough to get me shaking and puking.

Larger provocations still get me shaking like a leaf, but that is because, as doctors keep telling my sister, we fucking suck at handling adrenaline. We are not a bloodline meant to fight bears. Thank god we're office workers instead.

Anyway, almost done with all the holiday pics for the bestie, so I'm pleased. DND might start up again this week, which will also be nice, and I've got almost all of my Christmas shopping done, so. Also have most of my wedding shopping done! It is very early to have just bought an outfit, but I am not a party person. Better to just get as much out of the way as possible now, so that I can focus on helping to minimise stress with the rest.

Also good for not being morose during the day time: skimming reddit recipes, clicking the OPS profile and realizing the poor sprat is in the fucking hospital with a resting to be at 56lbs over.. SIBO disorder? Terrifying. Not really what I was expecting, versus more brownie recipes.

For all of my bitching, I do keep my health in check, and having bouts of being very sore is still something to be grateful for. One of my friends had a coworker die of chronic pancreatitis, because he simply would not fucking handle his business. Other people are having to get the Whipple done, or feeding tubes in, or are dealing with necrotising organs. My levels of pain are as close to the ideal, short of going completely asymptomatic, as you are going to get.

It is just much easier to remember all of this during the day! I need to figure out more ways of staying busy at night, because I'm sure that's part of it.

Perhaps ways like.. actually fucking sleeping? What a thought. 

Computer fixed.

I keep wondering on and off if I am depressed! I think I absolutely have been in a horrific hole the past few months, but it's never been a chemical thing, I think. I'm just very stressed out, and I have been very, very sad. It is hard not to feel bitter about it if I focus on it for too long - I wish I could take medication and feel better.

But it's hard not to feel bitter about a lot of things, including towards myself. Being sad and spiraling over what is largely a very privileged, blessed life makes me want to rip off my own skin. I'm not really sure what to do about that in particular, which is frustrating. "Why are you kinder to other people than you're willing to be to yourself?" It is a continuous question I'm asked, and I know the correct answer, but. But but but.

I am always a little enthralled by people with strong emotional control. I'm always enthralled by traits in others that I wish I could just steal, even if I know that I'm idealising their perceived experience - strong control is not complete control. No one can just flip off their emotions with a switch and rely on logic instead.

But I wish I could.

It is nice to recognize my volatility today is a combination of hormone and pain fucking me over, though.  I feel insane and sad and entitled tonight, but I'll feel better in the morning. I used to say that that being awake past 10pm would inevitably make me spiral into despair. It is at least something of a balm to remember that night time comes with a substantial drop in my pain tolerance, so it really is just wait until morning and everything will feel so, so, so much better.

I'm just in a very good mood today! And was last night - I am back to taking melatonin and even if my quality of sleep was absolute shit, I'm just happy ot have managed to sleep at all.

Sometimes I get fussy that people from years and years back will contact me, or reference me, and announce that they've still been thinking of me. It is the most absolutely absurd thing in the entire world to speak of, but it's often just very grating - knowing that people remember you and appreciate you in hindsight, when they absolutely did not make you feel appreciated at the time, is an incredibly exasperating thing. And also, literally why is a constant question. I'm great! I'm not that great!

And then I end up in a good mood, start fawning over my favorite people, and I remember why, lol. Sometimes, you are pain-free, you are awake and not being sympomatic, you have good food and lovely water and you're actually being productive, and itjust makes you act a simpto everything and anything you love. Everyone should get a five-point-minimum bullet list of their best traits and your favorite memories and all the reasons why they appreciate you and enjoy your presence at least a few times a year, whether that is from your friends, or your family, or your spouse, or whatever.  Everyone has their good points, and things that people love, and they should get to actually hear that on occasion.

Unfortunately most people do not, haha, so instead I am the oddity for actually expressing these things. Alas! People just get thrown and then imprint on me for doing it instead, lol.

"I always worry that people can't read my expressions very well, because I'm not very emotive -"

"You're incredibly emotive. I have seen you knock shit off of tables or accidentally backhand shit because you get immediately start gesturing whenever you're excited."

"But my old blorbos -"

"That old blorbo was autistic, D."

I am still baffled over this! In hindsight, yes, I can see how one of my former friends was, in fact, probably autistic. But it's a little mystifying to just.. have not really considered that at all in the moment? The amount of time that I have spent considering autism as a topic is pretty much zero, so as I've repeatedly told people when they ask me for advice: I don't know what's going on there and I am not particularly interested in trying to understand what's going on there, I have met two whole people with autism in my entire fucking life. I don't have the experience to guide you in those social interactions. I don't have the experience to explain those interactions, because my foundational understanding of the world builds off of expectations of certain norms and behaviours.

But I guess I have met more autistic people than I thought! It's just odd to have that realisation over someone that I was very merrily, mutually obsessed with, in a dynamic that involved us being practically fucking stapled together. I suppose that comes from general unfamiliarity on the topic and diagnosis, though. I can kind of guess if someone is on the spectrum if it's overt, but the more overt, stereotypical depictions of autism have verily steadily permeated media, so it's rather hard not to. Still, there's just something a little surreal about having it drawn to your attention that, oh - there's always things that you don't know about other people, no matter how close you are, and more striking, I suppose, is remembering that there's always going to be things that other people simply won't tell you, no matter how close you are.

Just odd!

In other news, I am so, so, so glad that I'm finally out of the tragedy-spiral stage of depression over unfortunate life events. I am tearing up slightly typing that, because I am still only maybe 75% fine, but it's so much better than it has been. I can actually think about other things and do other things! I'm back to cooking and cleaning and being a person, instead of a hollowed out shell doing shit so that my family and friends don't get excessively worried! Hopefully this year will stay calm for the rest of it, because I am keen to just avoid ever being in that absolute fucking pit of despair ever, ever again.

And it's nice to be able to think of other things. I collect houseplants, but a lot of them died during the last three months. This worked out in a way, because my fucking ferns died. I love ferns. I love the way they clean the air, I love the way they look, I love everything about them.. except for the fact that moths breed in them and that moths fucking love them as a result, because ~*I have a moth phobia*~. So while, in hindsight, being effectively chased out of rooms by moths - and then manning up, tearily catching them and releasing them outside, sitting down, and discovering THERE WAS YET ANOTHER FUCKING MOTH TRYING TO LAND ON THINGS, HOW, WHY - was really, really funny, I am so fucking happy that the ferns are all gone and their wretched little residents with it.

I love the aesthetic of ferns so much, though, I'm sucking it up and I'm just going to buy fake ones. My tentative plan as of right now is to buy the fake ones, and just set them up as border "plants" around some genuine potted fuck in the middle. Maybe some big poofy spiderplants..? I still want to avoid plants with oxalates, because I don't really like having things in my house that are poisonous. I'm not eating that shit, but I think I'd still fucking cry about it like a weirdo if, god forbid, a mouse broke into my home, ate one and perished, or some shit like that.

Unfortunately, all of my favorite hanging plants have oxalates or are Fucking Ferns(tm), so I'll just have to figure it out, lol. I could just train some hanging herbs to get very large and bushy. It would be very cute. But I'll see!