That is a sentence my mother uttered to me today and I just.... Yes? I know? But everything is scary and expensive and exhausting and everything hurts? How am I supposed to do things I enjoy when I can barely afford the things I have to do? idk if I have any point with this thread its just that sentence that fuckign sentence it doesn't HELP to rub it in
*sooooo many hugs for Ivy* yes. life is hard. that sentence definitely didn't help, though it seems to me like it's coming from a place of concern (totally might not be, i cannot remember your family situation rn). anhedonia is awful, depression lies like there's no tomorrow. *more hugs* i dunno where you're at with taking care of yourself but i know that there's better times out there, where you'll have the spoons and the cash to do stuff you enjoy. deep breaths. i hear ya, and i feel ya. it's gonna be okay. (my anxiety-brain is telling me i am overstepping boundaries and being too shoosh-pappy. please forgive if this is so.)
thanks :') you aren't overstepping boundaries any dont worry! I'm kind of really bad at self-care right now meaning I take on projects until I flop around useless, have crying breakdowns, scream at my parents, think about dropping out of university, freak out about inability to do any 'real world job', calm down, rinse and repeat. It's... not anything to do with my mom in particular but she is pretty fed up with my bullshit i think. and the fact that setting up an appointment with a therapist is liek MOUNT SPOON DOOM is not helping so dfghjk I kinda just suck at life in general. i wish there was a guidebook. (I'm almost 21 can i like not be a stereotypical dumbass teenager rn?)
i'm 23 and i'm pretty sure i'm still stereotypical dumbass teenager, so i can't offer you hope for that but getting out of college helped a lot also when you're busy and have money issues, and are in college, which is such another level of insanely busy/broke, going in for therapy, scheduling therapy, et cetera, is the hardest fucking thing in the world. i did not do therapy in college. i probably should have. but looking back, it was freaking impossible to schedule in between classes, work study, organizations, and actual work. I figured out scheduling in the last two years and it probably saved my life. I mean, I had a lot of rough patches still, but everything sucked so much less when i could take 15 minutes every week and write down everything i had to do, including free time, talking to friends & family, etc. It really helped for me to handwrite, because that's the only way i can remember things sometimes. it sounds reaaaallllly boring on the outside & when i talk about it, but partitioning my life out helps me so much. That said, these are some horrific years. and spoon issues do not help. and having people on the outside going "why aren't you cute and carefree like the tiny child i used to know" does NOT help, and always makes me want to go "cuz the tiny child you used to know didn't have 18 fucking papers due in a goddamn week, that's why" man, i just made myself pissy about this. anyway, i hope life gets at least marginally easier, and I hope you're able to find something that works for you
I am 22 and *barely* feeling like I have any type of shit together. The list of shit I have solidly together is...um. yeah! Heh. It doesn't feel like a lot... ^_^;; after pushing myself so hard to get through my Bachelor's (and wedding), I have literally pared my life down to (in one day): -do 3-4 hours of work -play ACNL -do some Duolingo lessons -meditate for 5-20 minutes -do a chore or two (usually dishes) that's it. I do laundry once a week. I cook about three times a week. That small daily list gives me enough remaining spoons (usually) that I can do things like go to the chiropractor, or make a couple phone calls, or see someone for coffee, without running out of spoons and running myself into the ground. This is also working on a generally-effective brain med (citalopram/Celexa): I still run out of spoons and implode, but I do it less often and less dramatically, and I can come back from it more quickly. Obviously the only way this works is that the grand majority of my tasks are not affected by outside deadlines, and I have the mOtHeRfUcKiNg MiRaClE that is my husband with a steady job. My point here is that dealing with anxiety and depression is possible, but really requires you to pare down to the absolute basics. Once my spoon-intensive work project is done (and once I tweak my prescription), I plan to slowly start introducing things like writing fanfic, making and selling crafts, and getting more exercise - but SLOWLY, and one by one, so that I can adjust necessary spoon levels. My goal in sharing all this is to illustrate that "having it together" is a very subjective concept, and that it IS possible to reach a point where you CAN function without grasping at non-existent spoons for every task. It is a long process that involves as much gentle pushing as it does self-care, as well as a significant reliance on outside supports, and a willingness to learn your limits at your worst and accept yourself where you're at. It's hard, I won't lie, and I still feel like I'm not doing enough and not getting better - but I *am* getting better: it's just on a scale of months to years. All you can affect is right now: all you can do is what's right in front of you. It takes a lot of trust to believe that focusing on the immediate present will end up rebuilding your brain and soothing the keening ache in your soul, but it will. You'll get there. *hugs*
tbh I'm so glad I'm in germany because my 'money problems' are 300 bucks each half year that I SHOULD be able to have. It's just impulse buying is a fucker and I have like BARELY enough to make it from working once a week for three hours. So I am pretty comfortable taking a bit longer with university, since i'm not indebting myself til the rest of my life. But it's still a lot of money I'm wasting by taking way longer with university than I should, because I'm only studying... half time basically?
I struggle with that a lot, and just remind myself that... we all want to do big, fun, scary, exciting stuff all the time. But for each droplet of that, there's a whole lot of simply living. Breathing, eating, showering, sleeping. They can feel like failure status sometimes when you feel that you do too much of them and too little of cool awesome stuff, but they're what reality is made of. They're, in fact, the fuel of the maybe "higher" things you find yourself wishing you could do. For every bit of enlightenment there's a whole lot of chopping wood and carrying water, and they can be good and beautiful things in their own right :) (Also, huuuuug)
