healthnotes: monoarticular pain

Onset: yesterday night, no particular incident that set it off that i know of, though i was sitting on that hand.
Left hand ring finger main knuckle, dull ache, mostly on movement (flex down/up), no tension needed to hurt on flex. Kind of hurts like a bruise. Plus tightness along length of proximal bone on flex. Source of pain from middle of knuckle, no particular visible swelling or redness, but feels slightly, but distinctively warmer.

In RL, I do better than I probably look

A few months ago I got a comment on an old post.

"Dude your blog is NUTS and that's not a good thing."

Oops.

Hahha. Yeah, oops.

Sorry dude, I really only used this place as a place of wallowing in the muddy depths of depression when I don't have a good person to complain to anymore, and besides the fact that I'm doing much better mentally, if something is minor I do have someone now to get that out to so it doesn't fester.

This place back when I started was a fangirling space because I really wasn't comfortable with any other space I found. That phase came and went and I abandoned it a bit as I found some other fandom spaces I could lurk in. Then I came back and used this as a semi-public place akin to screaming towards the ocean, all the way into a scary time in the mental sinkhole I'm still afraid of falling back into, and all the way out of it.

It looks like chronicle of someone who never got better, but the story is pretty biased, the recent bits are only sporadic potholes in the grand scheme of "doing pretty okay".

Life's far, far from perfect—I'm quite underpaid with a skill no one in the industry respects; I don't know what the loving fuck I'm doing with my life; I'm essentially renting the house I grew up in, burdened by all the things my parents left behind when they moved overseas, unable to move out because of obligations and having no money; My health is sub-optimal and has a handful of daily discomforts and inconveniences; Talking/thinking about jobs and careers and how little I'm earning gives me fucking anxiety and feeling like a disappointment—but I'm 90% functional and not trapped in a depressive spiral. I hate my body, but probably not more than one standard deviation away from the average women. (Having someone to tell me a highly realistic solution every time I try to use that as a springboard to the whirlpool of shit probably helped.)

So yeah, the past several years here is a record of just the cesspool. In regards to health I'm definitely a little desensitized at this point. The rest is pretty okay.

I know I have some escape ropes in my backpack now.

Sometimes I get into weird headspaces and decide that because all of my friends are being healthy and exercising and I'm not, eating is undesirable and might as well not eat, since it's more convenient not to. I know it's weird and not healthy, but I can't snap out of it. And I'm also resentful that because everyone lives half an hour away, joining them is not really worth it, especially when everyone is close to home and have options to just go home or want to go home when it's not really the case for me. And I get shit from Father for sleeping over. I hate being left out or left behind, but sometimes I'm just tired of running out every weekend for this or that and spontaneous stuff that's local for them and not for me is just so fucking out of the way. But I still hate being left out. I hate myself. I hate what I am. This is the time when I'm eighty percent sure I'm better off not existing or just alone. I don't deserve other people when I'm just a piece of shit in general. I'm ugly and scum.

Headache but can't sleep is the worse.

Caffeine, Food, Sleep, and the Bad Place

Too much, not enough, even less, and getting there.

Caffeine tolerance level plummeted since college, now manifests as nervous nausea and unsettled mindset. Possibly learned to associate with due-dates.  Exacerbated if coupled with insufficient food intake throughout the day. Need to get out of here.

Calories today involved 2 slices of sprouted wheat bread with salmon cream cheese spread, 4 creamers, two shots of Keurig coffee (10oz total, Gloria, Hazelnut), and about 20 blackberries. Not enough by far, but though of eating makes me guilty and smell of ginger is making me sick. Conflict stopping attempts to eat.

5-6 hours of sleep. Three hours of driving, with about 45 minutes of traffic. Trapped trapped trapped.

Equally spacey and twitchy. Tired, can't sleep on bed (too comfortable, don't deserve it), folding in on the floor is nauseous (fat.).

Feeling like I need to sob.

This is what I have always been afraid of after that time.

Never had such an urge to bust open the ale but is being told I can't drink alone. /boohiss

LoL Stress (Might be a tiny bit manic) & Growth

I've been getting the sort of tight clenching in my stomach that usually comes with presentations and unknown social situations. These build slowly enough, though, that I can't pin down a cause or a trigger. Suddenly I notice the anxious rolling in my gut, the lack of appetite, or restlessness. Then I notice the other small things—worse-than-usual concentration, wide eyes, constantly changing windows and tabs, fine tremors, shallow breath, or less often increased heart rate and actual stomach pain.

Side note: lack of appetite is a huge flashing sign for something gone wrong for me. Usually, even if I didn't feel like eating, I could eat. I almost never have the heart to deny myself food, and the year or so I did that was a time when I was in a very bad place. Can't really even seriously consider doing drastic food-reducing or meat-denying since in fear of going back there.

I can't recall any specific triggers for the nervous spells. It's definitely too mild to be a panic attack; it feels closer to anxiety, but again, too mild. It doesn't even always happen when workload is high. It just happens while I work on my computer-related deskjob. Didn't think it would have anything to do with stress until T suggested it.

If it happens early in the day enough, sometimes taking a walk or going on lunch break helps. Sometimes eating the lunch I have little appetite for helps. Sometimes watching TV helps.

Getting nervous in my stomach is worse when it comes late in the day, though, because it stays with me until I've had enough of work. Usually gets better on the drive home, if traffic doesn't piss me off.

Today, though, it stayed with me and got worse as the day drew to a close, all throughout the drive, and after sitting down at home. I felt restless, too loud, unstable. Everything was distracting. Couldn't really handle multiple tabs, let alone TV, computer, and conversations.

After a while I escaped to the bedroom and read lying down probably for almost an hour. But it was past 8:15 by the time I felt okay enough. Appetite was still not there, but I wasn't at such a manic place in my head. Dinner was pushed to after nine because Father knew I didn't have an appetite. Not that it really mattered because I only made myself eat a bit anyway.

Yeah, it's Not Healthy. Dunno how to deal with it. Don't even think I should be getting stressed. If it is, then that just makes me feel like a failure for not being able to deal with small things.

_________________________________________

In other news.

I haven't been here a while. Not that I haven't been back to that Bad Place several times—I still feel bouts of worthlessness and irritability and sleeplessness, but talking helps. Knowing People are there helps, even if I feel too worthless to talk to them.

Sometimes, my lack of goals and direction still overwhelms me.

But I guess I don't feel as alone. Lonely, sometimes, yes, and irrationally abandoned, sometimes, yes. But after three years and after this Chinese new year vacation, I really took to heart and started to believe that there are a few people who will give me unconditional love, no matter how unspectacular and worthless and burdensome I may or may not be.

The realisation didn't come without litres of tears.

But even when I fall into the Bad Place there is something a little more solid inside that used to feel so achingly hollow. A little bit of comfort, warmth, and security, reminding me in the back of all the muddy thoughts that, sure, everyone else may be too good for me, but there are some who are so, so good that I still won't be abandoned no matter what.

All of these entries are a rambling of thoughts, something I started to get myself out there in a superficial way then morphed into rationalizing, self-calming, and introspection exercises when I need them. So it wasn't until I got to the end of the last paragraph that I realise I've been mentioning things that help. Granted, this stuff isn't written when I'm emotionally compromised, but this feels like a stage in growth. I'm learning.

Work.

My way of dealing with pressure consists of ignoring it until I can no longer do anything about it, because I hate the clenching in my stomach and feeling on the edge of panicking from the great possibility of failure and more pressure. 

Avoidance is the easy way out. It also makes me feel like a larger and larger pile of shit every time I do it, but at the time, it's easy. Even if I have to deal with the emotional backlash later. 

I don't think I'll be a good parent, if it ever comes down to it. 

I feel like I need to complain and complain. This opportunity is crazy amazing especially because it was luck. And while it's moving so quick, it's also so restrictive, consuming. The first two are annoying, the last one down right frightening. I never thought I would be doing this, see. Never considered it a possibility and never saw myself doing this other than a hobby I dabbled with. 

I just. Can't. Don't. Know. What to do with myself. 

This started because I was lazy. I thought I would be okay with the boring stuff. Four months later I couldn't snatch up the offered opportunity fast enough, despite lacking knowledge. Then I became stuck in the middle, like being shown the sky and the cage all at once. Being prodded for better, faster without knowing where it all leads to, then a sudden shock to the collar for trying the wrong direction. 

I hate being blamed for a general disorganization, thoughtlessness, and rashness. Opportunity to make it big quickly is great, but, fuck, the nebulae of expectations, structure, position, and general state of things is driving me up the walls. 

There is never time to figure things out, what with being kept at maximum capacity 99% of the time, and these vague expectations translated to underachievement and I can't fucking stand it. 

I may have fallen in.

Mood dipped.

My mind aches but refuses to rest.

Also, where the fuck is the Lenovo's charging cord?! Kinda need it.

Introductions

Sometimes, I think this would be a good way to introduce myself, on the back of the card in smallprint:

Hello, thank you for saying hello to me, even if I may not like you or have prejudices towards you because of your habits and frame of mind. I am not very good at maintaining contact and have self-worth issues but is actually inwardly emotionally needy. It causes me problems because I also hate superfluous social niceities and admire people who don't give a fuck, so I tend to leave myself a bit stranded in trying to seem coolly aloof. 

If you don't mind me dropping off the planet and get into (not diagnosed) depressive episodes, do come talk to me; people are interesting, and whether or not I like you, the chances are I'm more likely to just avoid responding to stuff that I disagree with rather than chew you out. Unless you want me to. I can do that too. Or discuss things with you, if you promise to try not to be offended, because I've been trained to not be offending. 

Profound boredom.

Low energy, high irritability, low self-esteem..

...low motivation and libido, negative world views, suicidal thoughts.

I have started to compose a suicide letter in my head. The biggest thought that is keeping me from actually planning for the occasion is guilt. No one should carry the burden of my actions; I don't want them to have it. They shouldn't need to. The mess-up is me and it's not their fault. My letter will attempt to convince anyone who matters that I have made myself to be the piece of waste that I am, therefore they should not care. Erase me completely and achieve something better, because they deserve it.

I am good at shamming okay. There is one person I hate shamming to and so I don't, whom I end up cutting as a result. Then I feel worse for allowing myself to injure this being that is mostly made of patience and perfection.

So at once I lash out as a sign for help and despise myself for being selfish and an attention whore.

I don't like labeling myself as "depressed". In this internet era, it mostly translates to being a bit sad. The word no longer carries the weight of someone who has to fight random bouts of tears. I can't label myself having a major depressive disorder either, because one does not diagnose oneself. Besides, I can still get out of bed, though I hate every moment of it and can't wait to get back.

Admitting that I am depressed feels too much like a passing, attention grabbing remark.

So I don't say it.

I had thought that if I just not give into tears, I would be better. It isn't.

When I don't put up an effort to sham and put inflection and energy in my voice, it becomes small and monotonous. Expressions are hard to maintain. Others think I'm pissed at them and goes away. Why is that when others make non-committal noises and gets into these moods, I feel like I'm getting hurt, but I also hurt when I'm the one doing it? Do they understand that to me, it means that they don't care for me at all? Why is that they don't seem to get the message that I'm only using their mode of communication to say "I feel shitty, please help"?

Sometimes I have to make the effort to breathe.

I lash out might be because I want someone to go past my my anger and tell me that they still love me even though I'm behaving terribly, because my usual pleasant self is not all they care about.

After all these years, I still have the same damned insecurities and issues.

Displacement, not that other mature thing.

First dream I would categorize as nightmare rather than a thriller I've had in fifteen or eighteen years.

In the dream I bawled and cried and then was strong because I couldn't do it in real life.

Feeling slightly better, but thinking about the dream makes me want to cry.

What do you do when it's clutching to your shoulders and chest and you  don't want to admit it but you believe what it says to be true despite what you know being more true.

Sometimes i feel like a good cry will make me feel better

To get rid of that constriction in my chest and the polluting thoughts. Maybe, I keep thinking, maybe a good cry will disperse the impending depression, that it will give me a bit more ground so I don't feel like I'm about to totter into a pit at every which shuffle.

Or maybe I'm already down part way, waiting for rescue, looking into and feeling the unending pit in every thought. Maybe it'll be easier on the world if this trap just goes away, my only contribution to serve the purpose.

Tingly Feelings

When my palm tingles, I get nervous. Is it actually acting up or just remembering the time when all of it was one giant blister?

Apparently that was not the bottom

Shitty day turned into shitty weekend lead into shitty house situation lead into shittier day lead to shitty food.

Everything has been shitty. I really can't name anything that made me happy in the past week.

Temporarily amused, yes. Good mood? No, not by far.

Guilt.

Everywhere, around every corner
The direction does not matter.

Fuck I'm going to sound melodramatic but I have no other way to describe it

Sometimes the hate and the negativity pools and pools and the more I wrestle with it, the more it threatens to overwhelm me. But I can't let it spill out because no one deserves my shit. I may indulge it once or twice, excusing myself with possible pity given. But when a habit formed, it feels too much like I'm vengefully pulling in the one person I allow to come close. Guilt then rises up like swamp gas.

Sometimes, feel like I have too much nameless hate and frustration.

Distantly I recognise possible causes, reasons, repercussions.

I refuse to let it taint everything around me.

But I can't will it or reason it away.

I eat it up and let it eat me up.

The sludge sticks to my insides, thick, churning.

A wriggling, volatile mass that I don't know what to do with.

Crying is just indulging it; it solves nothing.