oof oof oof

[nanslice]

I ended up spending most of last week violently and grossly ill. :( It was a pretty miserable experience that I don't want to go through again any time soon!

Life feels so hard right now. Part of it is the short, dark, rainy days. I used to think that I enjoyed that but now having lived in the PNW for almost four years, I can safely say winter completely wrecks me. Next year I'm planning a trip out of town.



I certainly wasn't in great mental shape before I got sick but it definitely worsened while I was sick. I just...everything seems to pointless, lol. It's very hard to get excited about anything; looking forward to stuff is just not happening. I also am struggling so hard to focus on anything at all. Like...I just refresh the same three or four websites. Or refresh my email. Or just kinda stare into space, haha.

It's depression, I'm sure of it, it's just never hit so hard before, and I also don't have enough energy or even interest in focusing on anything to take my mind off it. It's like...I want to want to do something like draw or read or play video games, it just feels impossible to actually start doing those things.

And then I'm like....is this a midlife crisis? Do I need to find a new passion? Do I just need some goddamn sun??

idk, guys. It's rough. I'm not in danger or anything, I just. Am having an extremely bad time right now.



In other news, cyphercat and I went to watch Deep Sky and it was extremely beautiful and moving. Did I cry? Yes. Space is fascinating.

Comments

[lassarina]

Depression is the wooooooooorst. It hit me super hard when I moved to Chicago and continues to do so. If you'd like, I can share the things I do to make it less-worse?

[nanslice]

Depression is the wooooooooorst. It hit me super hard when I moved to Chicago and continues to do so. If you'd like, I can share the things I do to make it less-worse?

Sure! Right now I'm taking vitamin D and have a sunlamp (and run outside to sit in the sun whenever that is available) but I would deeply appreciate any advice.

[lassarina]

Those are both good! Other things I do:

- take a stupid walk for my stupid physical and mental health. If it's sunny and not hideously cold, outdoors works. If it is rainy or hideous, there's a fitness center run by the village that I can use for free that has a perfectly functional walking track. Boring, but gets the job done. (When I have to work in-office, I usually take the commuter rail downtown and walk a mile to the office, then I get to take the L train home which stops right outside the building.)

- plan small joy things. Make a date night to a favorite low-key restaurant. Plan to go to a museum event (or food festival or whatever.) During October and November I keep an eye out for events I might like to do, because having them set up ahead of time reduces the angst of "don't wanna do anything." I may still completely fail at doing the thing, but it removes a level of friction.

- my BioWare fandom server is doing a cute tiny exchange (500 words) called Holiday Hangover where we planned the signups for just after New Year's and the fic is due this week, intentionally low stress to help get through the darkest part of winter. I think it would be fun to maybe do a small fic swap with friends or something for the same happy brain chemicals.

...looking at these they're all kind of Obvious but in my experience it's not so much knowing what I need to do as actually doing it, and I'm slowly getting better at working around my brain for this. (I say this, and then I spent all of today lumping sadly in a blanket and my brain is sufficiently off kilter that I was vaguely mad that the meal kit I made for dinner turned out delicious, because I didn't want to cook in the first place, how dare it be tasty. I mean. I'm very aware this is an incredibly silly brain space, but here I am.)

[nanslice]

- take a stupid walk for my stupid physical and mental health.
Ooof, yeah, this is a big one. We took a walk on Saturday around Georgetown and it was really nice. ;3;

- plan small joy things.
Aww, yeah! Watching Deep Sky on Imax was definitely a nice date. :3 This also touches on something my therapist told me, that for me part of the joy is the planning stage and there's nothing wrong with that, especially as an anxiety coping mechanism.

- my BioWare fandom server is doing a cute tiny exchange (500 words) called Holiday Hangover
This is such a cute idea! I got burnt out pretty hard out exchanges last year, but I have been devoting a not small amount of spare time to making art of Warhammer OCs, because the OC community of that fandom is extremely welcome and enthusiastic. XD

I can sympathize with your last paragraph, I spent today in being only semi-human and not wanting to do much of anything. I'm not worrying too much about it because I do think giving my brain rest days is a good thing, but I do not want to be like this tomorrow. :<

[lassarina]

I can tell my sunlight batteries have completely run out of charge because I am at "please just let me crawl into my blanket pile and stay there for a month with zero responsibilities" long term right now, oops. But it's nice out today and I have the window open for sun and breeze, so. There's that.