Oh boy my brain has been fun this past year or so. I'm gonna try and document stuff. So, I started doing crazy hours around spring of '14. I was already stressing out due to general living on own with moirail and I already started showing my first unique* symptom. I started developing pretty bad anxiety. I had a hard time watching "intense" movies because they would spike my anxiety to really uncomfortable levels. I had to start avoiding shows I used to love(Dexter, House of Cards) and even be careful about new ones I picked up. I stuck to a lot of animated and family shows/movies because they don't ping me too much. Anyways, moved to new apartment, dealt with moirail moving out, started working crazy hours to cover apartment solo(because I really didn't want to bomb everyone's credit by skipping out), also had my first panic attack. Fun times. I started developing more coping mechanisms for the really bad anxiety and general exhaustion: Started a tumblr to distract me and help time pass(discovered Northfield crew and became fixated on Seebs' blog not long after) Started a pretty strict routine(which worked really well btw. Until holiday season came. I never really recovered after that) Became very good at planning and time management Became fixated on distractions all the time to avoid thinking about things(oh gods the anxiety sucked. The thoughts never stopped) My brain also started dying: I had a hard time parsing new information Having increased trouble to parse just about anything Increased spacing out while talking to people Couldn't focus on moderately sized walls of text without a good chunk of will power and occasional spacing out Had a hard time focusing enough to write(despite my brain being full of anxious words all the time) Lost my ability to focus on art Started auto-piloting for things, even potentially dangerous things like driving(having a routine made it easy) My only emotions were anxiety and depression for awhile Spoons were broken, or disappearing. No reliability to do anything that was not routine, and even some of those things eventually became too hard Finally moved out last February to live with my parents. It took awhile to get my hours to settle to a more reasonable 40 hours a week, but I was still not doing well. My routine collapsed making me significantly less effective. Eating became difficult. I was really just a depressed ball of coping mechanisms running on a faulty autopilot. Eventually, feelings started coming back(besides depression and anxiety) and I would get upset and angry at things. I would actually be happy about things too(I was pretty ecstatic the first week Kintsugi was up). I could cry again. It was uncomfortable being on the emotions rollercoaster, but that has settled down. Then life things happened, I broke down further and I've been trying to pick up the pieces since. I am finally starting to feel okay, which has allowed me to actually see all the terrible coping mechanisms I picked up last year. Things on my list to fix: Stop speeding everywhere. I am no longer short on time and running late. I need to slow down. Stop the constant distractions. I would literally read blogs/forums/fanfiction while I was driving to avoid anxiety. I am no longer crippled by anxiety and it is safe to be in my own head. Stop fixating on online activities. It was an excellent distraction before, but I work better if I can focus on other things like art projects, actually writing again, and physical labor(how I miss you). I need to get out of the constant refresh loop, and my automatic grab for my ipad/phone. It prevents me from doing other things. Doing additional tasks are still hard at the moment, but getting a bit of my brain back feels good. If I can break some of these habits, I should improve a good deal(already making headway on the driving related ones). *Pretty sure I've always had dysthymia so depression symptoms don't really register because I've always lived with them. They do get worse of course, but even when things were "good" I would have dips.
Well, it's been a little over a year since I wrote this. And I was clearly not doing a good job of actually documenting changes xD(good job burned out brain). Anyways, I think an update would be good: In general, I moved to Northfield about a month after the original post. Working significantly less, about 20 hours a week now, and living solo. It is significantly less stressful here and I have been gradually changing from a partially functional robot to a dysfunctional person. I have general difficulty taking care of myself as well as doing my job satisfactorily. Anxiety is significantly down, depression has varied with slumps of dysfuntionality. Still habitually attached to phone. Using it to socialize more which is good. Lost my ability to hold a routine(just barely starting to get one going again). Very rarely am able to organize and plan things these days. Having a lot of difficulty focusing. Autopiloting is minimum. Gaining ability to do art and do activities, slowly. Parsing is better, but I still have difficulty getting engaged in reading stories/books. Spoons are a bit more reliable, though short in supply still. Still avoiding most stressy movies/shows, though I can watch moderate stressy stuff in small doses. Driving has become difficult and effort to convince myself to do. Shopping is hard. Eating is hard. Things I actually fixed: Not speeding everywhere! (As long as I am paying some attention to my speed.) I don't feel the need to rush anymore though. Need for constant distractions have gone done a good chunk(I can actually spend time in my head again which helps a lot). Slowly finding other activities worthwhile that are not directly in/on my phone. Recently tried drugs(definitely weren't helping) and a therapist(is helping), so while I am not great at making goals or objectives atm, I do have support and someone to direct me, which is helpful.
