#darksojourn — Public Fediverse posts

In deep detox.

Mild depression is a thing I haven't had the luxury of dealing with in many years (possibly 15), though at one time in my life, I was functionally depressed every few weeks. I've been mildly depressed since late last week. Hard to believe how long it's been since I've experienced this, and yes, it's a major sign of growth.

Now trying to remember how to function outside of emergency mode. I can do stuff if I have to, but I don't have to. Sure, we need water. Sure, I'd planned to go into town today and get water. But there's backup water in storage. Don't really feel like pushing myself — there's no immediate reason.

I created this situation on purpose, now I'm trying to feel glad I've arrived at what I worked so hard for, but also struggling to figure out how to "be" when not absolutely pumped up on cortisol and adrenaline fueled by existential threats. But if I can just be when I'm suffering at a 9 on the 3rd Tier pain scale, then I can just be when I'm sorta meh, too.

Will I feel better if I pull it together and go into town today? Probably. That's how I used to cope with functional depression. But also maybe I don't care to feel better.

I want to take a sick day but I'm not exactly sick. I've had enough rest. Pain levels are minimal, tiredness is minimal. It's not brain fog — I know how to push through that. It's more like I just don't care to think.

I didn't accept 9-T3level pain as an excuse before, until I did and learned to rest.

So maybe I don't need any excuses at all.

#Recovery2026 #DarkSojourn #journal

Had a really bad flare up yesterday that is overflowing into today. After several really good weeks.

I don't know what triggered it.

I can't believe I used to feel like this, or worse, every day.

#recovery2026 #MECFS #DarkSojourn

I recently learned that you can relax your vagus nerve by massaging your ears. (This sounds like a setup for a joke, but this time, it is NOT.) It seems to work.

I stopped stimming my ears as a small child, when my mom would freak out that I had an ear infection. There are a lot of behaviors I repressed because my mom thought it meant I was sick, and she'd give me prune juice or put something up my nose.

My body knew what to do.

My mom isn't quite Munchausen or by proxy, but she leans in that general direction. She has always been sick with something and always thought I was sick, and unless I wanted to get out of work, I did whatever it took to hide whatever she thought made me sick. Lately I've been learning that some of tho behaviors were beneficial.

And upon individuating, my reaction to that upbringing was to swing the opposite way, to suppress and deny when I was tired or sick. I hardly ever took sick days (not that work would have let me anyway), and just powered through until I got permanently sick, and still powered through. Even my burnouts had burnouts.

Weird that I ended up with my mom, caretaking her endless illnesses while she ignored my pleas – "I am sick, mom! I need to pace! You need to prioritize my energy! The yard is clean enough! Stop calling me for useless things after 9pm!" and that's when I *really* well and truly broke beyond repair.

#Journal #DarkSojourn #Recovery2026 #IGuessImProcessingInteadOfLookingForWorkLol

I know I've whined about this on here before, but ... I was on track to be somebody. I was a small-time somebody there for a minute. I was on panels at cons, being invited to other cons, speaking in front of crowds, invited to podcasts, invited to write for anthologies, people in certain small niches fanned over me and wanted my autograph, I was meeting the movers and shakers.

But then I left my abuser and got sick. I continued to do all that and keep on climbing while sick. Until I couldn't anymore. (I think of what I was able to do during those years to maintain and even increase momentum, and it astonishes me. I am still so angry at my mom, who was the final nail in my coffin.)

It's been a few years since I could, and they say publish or perish. I hath perished and have been forgotten at best, and made many poor impressions at worst.

This isn't it quite the same scene, but it tells me that maybe I can still be impressive. Maybe my laurels can just be dusted off and rehung the moment I am ready.

I still run out of energy so quickly. I do still worry about not being able to fulfill expectations. And I'm currently unemployed, which isn't much of an ego boost. It seems like such a waste of all the skills and reputation I fostered over years of struggle. I am *very* confident in my skills when I can show up. I just can't show up without my functionality quickly draining.

But maybe if I pace myself well, maybe my health can continue to improve, and maybe I can hit the scene again, not running, but at least walking.

I doubt if I'll ever be able to travel again, though. 😔

#Journal #Recovery2026 #DarkSojourn

Not being able to maintain a reading habit for a decade has been a huge blow to my sense of self. I made terms with it, but not satisfying terms. I still kept pushing and trying. Sometimes I'd finish a book but only through struggle, something I had to try, unsuccessfully, through intermittent brain fog or lack of desire.

All this week when watching YouTube, I've had this nagging sense I'd rather be doing something else, and it would take me hours to realize it was READING. I'd rather be reading.

It feels like a healing moment.

I'm still going to keep my expectations low. I'm sure I'll struggle again. But I've proven it's possible. This is my old self.

I'm back.

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2026

I've seen several playthroughs of Disco Elysium (one was over eighty hours), played it partway through twice myself, and seen several video essays about it (including one by Jeffiot that was *five* hours).

Since I usually don't like to repeat content, I wondered why I was so obsessed with it.

From a video essay, this quote answered that and hit me hard at the same time.

"Disco Elysium isn't really about getting better. The more I played, the more I realized it wasn't teaching me how to fix myself. It was teaching me how to move while I was still broken." Jazz Stewart, YouTube

(If you've not experienced a run or partial run of this game, this video will not be the best introduction. I'm just including it as the quote source. If you're interested, it's best to play it or watch a playthrough, preferably raw without knowing too much about it.)

(But also it's a fine video to watch if you're already a fan.)

https://youtu.be/AQUSYk8OA6o

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2026 #DiscoElysium

I'm resetting after a weekend of basically not worrying about much of anything.

So last month, I had that hip injury, and on top of that I had a cold. While I'd gotten through most of my years-long backlog of high-priority emergencies, I still had plans to continue pacing myself through the remaining list items in order of priority/distastefulness. But my hip was so bad that I basically just spent January focusing on recovery, the barest essential daily tasks, pain management, and my two hours of billed work per day.

It forced me to rest-rest. Like, super rest. Not very relaxing, given the pain I was in, my mobility issues and the fear that caused me, and all the trips to the chiropractor. Not restful rest. But in terms of forcing a total reset on my brain, that did it.

Through that, I finished up my work project of three years. Last Thursday.

I still had a couple of hours of loose ends to finish up, mainly just emailing the client and getting all her files in the right format and uploaded, final invoicing.

But Friday? Instead of doing that, I just crashed out. I overslept, and overslept some more. Friday wasn't even fun, because I had that feeling of having sat still for way too long. But I had zero motivation to do anything whatsoever about it.

Saturday, same thing. Only by then, I'd gotten a new game that was sufficiently giving me dopamine. Like, way too much, so then I had insomnia 😂 I've also been watching nonstop spooky YouTube since the injury started. Unsolved mysteries, nostalgia, found footage, lost media, internet history, weird Wikipedia, Reddit drama, reviews of unethical 2000's era reality shows, ghost stories, weird weather incidents. Whatever is creepy without being triggering. So it's kind of a mood.

Yesterday, I scraped together the final work stuff in one hour, then went back to doing nothing. Because except for a few expected loose ends for my client, I'm technically unemployed now.

(And my tooth chipped all by itself in the middle of the night? So that's weird.)

There were several points during the month at which a grocery run seemed incredibly urgent... but then my sister brought some fruit and bread from the food bank. There was enough frozens in the freezer to get me by a little longer (because being a food packrat needs to pay off from time to time). Then my sister brought some of my old food from my mom's house. And I'm just skating by. Consider the lilies of the field, and all that.

This weekend was the first time since I can remember (13+ years) since I have felt zero sense of urgency, zero sense of responsibility, zero sense that even though I was resting, I still needed to be ready to pull myself together at any moment. Even when I was sick in my bedroom all those years, there were still things needing doing that took everything I had to push myself into.

This is first time I've felt a sense of "That's uncomfortably too much rest actually, but I think I'll just rest some more." Actual boredom and being fully rested. Since at least... 2013? Or earlier?

And also, no pain. All weekend. Except for my hip mildly aching when I slept.

Even with all the pol drama going on, I simply did not care. I didn't even feel like cracking jokes. I dipped in here from time to time to get quick updates on the state of the world, but it was mostly rather uninteresting.

It feels like a total reset. I have a vague sense of boredom, of sluggish thoughts, and no real need to pull myself together, other than a distant feeling that I really do have things coming due soon, and I really should be looking for work.

But .... there's time.

It's the weirdest thing. As I slowly roll back into activity, I have no feeling of fatigue or tiredness, other than having overslept.

I have no idea what my fatigue levels are should I try to pick up pace again. But no sense that I need to be on nearly the pace I was.

Unless I want to be.

#MECFS #Recovery2026 #DarkSojourn #journal

One problem I've had to balance lately (it's a problem I love to have) is that when I'm feeling up, I have to manage actual side effects.

When I have a good day, I tend to have insomnia. I can also tend to overextend. And I'm not sure what to do with this buzz. I get pretty fidgety and then wear myself out fast.

I expect I'll level off as this becomes more common.

#Recovery2025 #DarkSojourn

Everybody was really impressed with me on an important call today.

I can be pretty fire when I'm not super sick and exhausted all the time. I have skills and laurels now that I didn't have in my previous life when I was well.

I just need the spaciousness to use them.

I've had some spaciousness the last week.

#Recovery2025 #DarkSojourn

I'm kind of looking forward to going across the street to my family's this thanksgiving.

While pol can still be a little tense, this side of my family has done some changing, especially religiously, and we've thusfar learned to navigate pol discussions reasonably and with listening and empathy. We just haven't had enough of them yet to be exactly on the same page.

I'm actually starting to like this side of my family, and I think they like me now somewhat too. We have united on hating my mother. I have wanted to see more of them and the slog has kept me from it. I'm socially very isolated and would love to see people.

On the other hand...

Today's a really big day for me. After a steady slog and related series of burnouts for idk how long to count it (x years?), I finally think I've done enough to be settled here in a safe place at last, ready as I'll ever be for a hard winter, and am finally letting myself of the hook of pressure and keeping pace.

I just... don't want to go anywhere today.

This day specifically.

I just want one day to fuck off and do nothing.

But time is a rigid resource, and the grid of a calendar is bars on my prison.

Time to put my pants!!

#Recovery2025 #DarkSojourn

I finally have a little excess energy to spend on fun work outside.

YES, the insulation needs to be (re)done, and YES that will be miserable to do once it freezes, and YES, there's laundry to do, etc. The backlog is still there, but it's finally getting smaller and manageable.

What's left to be done that isn't fun can wait.

Meanwhile, instead of a rest day plus two high pressure days spent on tasks I'm behind on that HAVE to be done, instead I sat around each day playing iPad until I felt antsy, then went out and did lower priority heavy labor stuff I WANTED to do.

I got some things finished, large and small, and it feels great to finally have autonomy and to do physical work on low-risk tasks that are fun and possible to complete.

My needs are simple. This is what I've wanted for so, so long, but caretaking a toxic person who quells any fun she sniffs out (including fun work) made even those simple needs impossible to fulfill. I've been away from her almost a year now, but the rest of the year was digging myself out of severe backlog and moving to a new state and new tougher lifestyle. Enough pressure to create another burnout this year and remain sick. I start to think I'm deluding myself and it's always going to be more of the same.

I can't say I'm fully ready for winter, but I'm better off than I was last winter (well ok I had insulation then, and I'm told it was an easy winter so we'll see), and I have some choice over how I spend my energy now. That feels really good.

We'll find out if not taking a full rest day this weekend will bite me when the week starts tomorrow. But right now I'm feeling physically exhausted and emotionally / mentally restored.

#Recovery2025
#DarkSojourn

Wow, this is the first time in YEARS I feel caught up.

Sure, there's stuff to do. But no pending emergencies, and no major looming deadlines (except a work one, but that manageable on its own). I'm in a safe place and not being actively abused. I can pace comfortably now.

Now the trick is to not get myself into any new trouble.

#MECFS #Recovery2025 #DarkSojourn

Yes I have Björk on my shoegaze playlist. (Billie Eilish, too.)

#music #DarkSojourn #Recovery2025 #shoegaze #somafm

Also, SomaFM doesn't seem to have a shoegaze channel? What's with that?

#music #DarkSojourn #Recovery2025 #shoegaze #somafm

Shoegaze hits different when I'm not in deep pain.

It's still really good, just different. I feel guarded against being triggered.

This stuff was possibly my #2 coping mechanism for years, second only to plant medicine. A sound louder than my pain yet gentle in its cacophony. That's shoegaze.

#music #DarkSojourn #Recovery2025 #shoegaze

(I know. I'm looking into alternatives to Spotify and have mostly just been streaming SomaFM lately. But I still haven't found another viable way to share these playlists. Curating public playlists was maybe my #3 top cope. And this one is very important to me.)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6ayOzGdaPaYSFwqCoZ6nBm

Now I just gotta get the reflectix cut into window shades, weatherize the seams, finish building the compost toilet properly, and move under the snowshed that's currently being built. Then I'll be set for winter.

(The French drain is not happening this year, so daily outside pee-bottle emptying adventures await. But I'm still better off than I was this time last year. By a long shot.)

#RVLife #OffGrid #Recovery2025 #DarkSojourn

I went to bed early and slept twelve hours!!

#Recovery2025 #DarkSojourn

September is my favorite month and it always goes too quickly. I look back at my last several Septembers and sure did make a pillow out of a sow's ear each time. Best September in a long time. I wasn't in severe pain for most of the days!

#Recovery2025 #DarkSojourn

I know that part of my problem now is that when I get any spare energy, I tend to misuse it. I post long things here, which drains me faster than I realize. I obsessively play "harder" games on my iPad (they are not actually that hard), which is really fun because I've only been able to play easy games for so long, so self-restraint goes out the window, but they drain me. I watch more engaging shows and think really hard about them, which drains me.

The only way I got this far after the summer burnout was self-restraint on the fun things as well as the hard-work things.

So I probably need to go back to boredom as a goal again.

Not liking it, but it's the only way I prevent getting sicker, and how I heal.

"Self-denial, such a beautiful, wonderful thing." -- The Killers

#Recovery2025 #DarkSojourn #MECFS

I got through the gauntlet of September better off than I was when I started the thing. It required pushing at the right times, and pacing at the right times, but never letting up. I finished yesterday in flow, with many thoughts and feelings about how living with a toxic person all that time took me so long to heal from, but was, in fact, the core problem.

I woke up today in pain with brain fog and sad feels.

Back to the pushing and pacing.

Winter is still coming.

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2025 #MECFS

Then there's all the cognitive overhead of managing all that. That's a huge drain, too.

So I set that down, too.

I'm going to be letting a lot of things slide. Like, not just until I rest up enough to get back on the gauntlet. But for reals. As the new way of doing business.

If I've got food in my belly and the room is dry and warm today, then I've met my goal. Everything else is a stretch goal. If that.

#Recovery2025 #DarkSojourn

I do this with "getting stuff done" as well. I go for the hardest thing I can stand to do. Lots of reasons, ADHD executive function reasons. But with constraints like chronic illness, that means I never, ever, ever get to spend energy on the fun things, or the easy things, or the things that might improve my mood, because I flog myself over all the shitty things I still haven't gotten to. I thought I'd grown more gentle on myself in this area, and I had, but it was still the same mindset. Eat dessert last.

And I'm just so done with that. With being motivated by energy scarcity and fear of disaster.

I have what I need.

#Recovery2025 #DarkSojourn

I've always been the kind of person who saves dessert for last. Even as a kid I noticed that meant I often didn't get dessert.

But I turn 50 this week and I still do it for some reason. It's like self-denial becomes a compulsion, a thing of its own. It has its perks and conveniences, safety nets, but I take it to an unhealthy level.

This summer I've been focused on how, when my body is communicating that need to lay down, or eat, or rest, I make it about how far I can push that. And stopping. Because I had to. Because there wasn't any room left to get any sicker.

Since leaving my abuser, self-denial turned into a compulsive routine in my very long downtimes, to cycle through the games and shows, in a certain order, as long as I could, "fun" and distracting though they may be, I had to complete it and push it, regardless of how much my body screamed at me for its needs.

It was absolutely a trauma cope, as the trauma never really stopped after the abuser.

But it's not serving me well, and I don't need it anymore.

#Recovery2025 #DarkSojourn

Recovery is still going well, but it can be discouraging.

I started today with quite a bit of energy – my mornings before work can be like that. It's the first day in a very, very long time where I've felt excited about work and confident about myself as a professional. Really feeling like yeah, I can do this!

Then, as is typical lately, as soon as I clocked in, my energy levels plummeted.

At this point, I think work itself has become a trigger for me. Which makes sense, given that for years of being anxious, sick, and exhausted, I pushed myself through the pain and brain fog to produce work and clock hours.

It's upsetting to me, because this is my dream job, and this project is my dream project. I'm frustrated that I'd hoped to really enjoy every step of the way. Instead, it's been quite the opposite, mostly because I started this project the month my dad died, and mom became a stress and trauma producing machine when I was already trying to recover. Even though she's been out of the picture for many months, it's taking so long to dump the associated baggage.

To the point where I can wake up energized and excited, and instantly discharge my battery the moment I log in.

I've not been pushing through the pain and brain fog for close to a month now. I clock out as soon as I feel I can't give it my best. Which has resulted in a lot of 15 minute days (goal is 2.5 hours). I'm not going to make much money this month. Since I got myself into debt to move away from mom, it's hard, but I really need to just pay the interest on those credit cards as the cost of getting well.

But today I figured it's time to start pushing again, just a little bit. I'm well enough to do that.

After about 30 minutes I hit a wall, so I clocked out and laid down for ten minutes. That helped me get another half hour done.

I do show huge signs of improvement. I just need to shake out these triggers so I can enjoy work again.

#Recovery2025 #DarkSojourn

If I can keep improving, I'll have lots of time and energy to myself.

I've been stuffing down the yearning to write for myself, especially creative writing, because that's been so far out of reach for so long. I can't remember the last time I worked on fiction. My mind is offering up ideas for new stories again, tentatively. And I've done what I usually do, which is to tell it I'll never get to it and to forget it. And anyway, I've got way too many stories to finish, and even more finished that I could try to sell.

But it's something to hope for. I don't like hoping for things I can't have, because deep-down I learn to never trust myself.

/🧵

#Recovery2025 #DarkSojourn #Journal

My major reset is a good 2+ weeks in the past.

My brain and body are working much better, though I find myself slipping back into old habits. I'm trying to be very aware of how much those habits may or may not be costing me, now that I've got a good baseline back.

Today as I start up a work week, I'm finding myself productive in some ways, and hopelessly broken in others. Yet another day of billing only 15 minutes, but I got some paperwork done and some clean-up done in the trailer. I am no longer using the whip of anxiety and pressure to keep myself going, in the hopes that I can create a new normal. I do believe it is coming, but I'm just not going to make much money this month.

Just as when I started this reset, I find myself feeling random feelings. I got to the point where that wasn't happening much in my downtime, but now that I'm trying to get back to a "normal work week," I'm having feelings again. Just, really strong sadness today. Not attached to anything. Without the anxiety and pressure to mask it, or without the pressure of having to put off any feels due to the chaos that needed ordering.

Part of me is afraid this ability to make peace for myself won't last. I still feel beholden to outside forces which have given me a reprieve but surely they will soon return. Even though I've worked very hard and suffered much to create this peace. Part of me is afraid this is just another brief rest so I can charge up for the next horrible gauntlet. I hope that isn't so. I feel like I've paid my dues.

🧵

#Recovery2025 #DarkSojourn #journal

And also, in the spirit of the reset, it's probably ok to just let myself feel bad and process things.

🧵

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2025

I've got a lot more to say about the state of therapy culture in the US, about all the complicated ways we're taught to lie to ourselves telling ourselves that we're safe when we're not actually, how helping professions have been coopted by the machine to just get people to cope through the uncopable to be exploited just a little longer, I've gone on that rant before and I have plenty more to say on that...

But... I should get back to the wagon, back to the reset if I can.

/🧵

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2025

So yeah, when I'm like hey, I should have gone on a data diet years ago, should have simply stopped compulsively thinking and ruminating about everything, should have paced harder, should have listened to my body and if I was feeling tired just laid down, should have forced myself to mediate daily, it's all so obvious. Because these things are working.

But really... naw, I couldn't do all that. Because I wasn't safe. Because having enough of a still mind filled my body with panic. Sure, there were times I forced myself to mediate, and I could find peace for a second, but then it was back to the battle lines. It was just coping through one thing after another. Situationally, I wasn't safe, and all the coping mechanisms — no matter how maladaptive, no matter how much they were destroying my body and keeping me from healing — were NECESSARY.

🧵

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2025

Alright, I managed to work another hour, and finished a chapter that had taken way too long. Not my 2.5-hour-per-day work goal, but much much better than last week.

Caffeine helped. I'd forgotten that I'd switched to green tea this week as part of the whole energy recovery thing, and that I'm used to working with black tea or sometimes coffee. I had a leftover latte from town a few days ago that I'd avoided drinking for the above reasons, and that got me right focused.

The video cautions against stimulants when recovering from burnout, because it masks how much energy you're using. But that doesn't mean I can't do it, just that I need to be sure to watch myself as it wears off, that I don't over-spend. I don't have any big plans for the rest of the day, so that should be easy so long as I keep myself under control.

#Recovery2025 #DarkSojourn
#MECFS #ActuallyAutistic #autism #burnout #ChronicIllness #AutDHD

I had a good workday yesterday for the first time in weeks. Was able to focus and be clear about what needed to be done, and do it with confidence.

Today I've got some energy, but having trouble maintaining it in any focused sense. This is where, I think, I often bleed off energy and end up back at zero. I'm finding myself wandering around cleaning up email, revisiting Mastodon settings, back on social media. These *will* all be good and doable things eventually, but I'm still in a fragile zone. I worked *more* yesterday, but didn't work as long as my goal is, and I run out of energy very quickly still. (I'm learning that laying down for 10 minutes can restore me really well! But I hate doing it.)

Basically, I'm losing the marvelous levels of self-restraint I had for the first near-week of this reset. That takes energy, too: willpower. I clocked in for 7 minutes, actually got a lot done in those minutes, then clocked out because I got bored and started meandering, and now I'm here.

So, it's progress, but I'm scared of losing it. Fear of failing at work is one thing keeping me from diving in to work. Work is normally restorative for me, unless I'm full of self-doubt and mental fatigue symptoms, something I've had for way too long now, and having more of that after all this work to get better will emotionally devastate me.

Anyway, back to it.

#Recovery2025 #DarkSojourn
#MECFS #ActuallyAutistic #autism #burnout #ChronicIllness #AutDHD

When I left my abuser (ten years ago!) most of these slower activities were impossible. Part of it was the usual tech craze dopamine cycles we were all caught up in. But part of it was the extreme anxiety-attack levels of anxiety I had *constantly*. These obsessive "always on" habits formed out of that.

At the time, if I was still for 5 seconds, I'd churn. I couldn't lay on my back at all because my belly felt exposed and I churned. I couldn't meditate or nap or even just watch a movie without churning. I needed constant stimulation or I couldn't stand it. It was simply pain avoidance that turned into compulsive patterns. Social media was part of that. I was aware of all of this, but helpless to do anything else.

The anxiety has been more under control for a few years, but even then, it wasn't really, because politics and living with my mom. At least then, the anxiety was associated with real things, whereas when I formed these habits, it was ghost anxiety, and really intense all the time.

So this is really the first chance I've had a stable enough situation to really start setting healthier rules for myself.

You know, that and hitting rock bottom.

#Recovery2025 #DarkSojourn
#MECFS #ActuallyAutistic #autism #burnout #ChronicIllness #AutDHD

A lot of this is stuff that I've secretly suspected to be a problem for awhile now, but haven't been in a good position to address it.

Willpower also takes energy. Major habit changes take energy. And many of these things are or were copes for worse things.

Getting out of my most recent toxic situation was necessary to reach this step, where I'm reducing my social media usage, disconnecting from thinking too much, and ceasing to do multiple recreational activities at once (like I'm doing now, sigh... mid-video, idle game on the iPad, posting), these are all obsessive copes, to the point that the zinging mild pain I get from overstimulating myself is a crave that I'm seeking...

But it's also what's keeping me sick. And I'm safe now, for the moment, and can cut that crap out.

#Recovery2025 #DarkSojourn
#MECFS #ActuallyAutistic #autism #burnout #ChronicIllness #AutDHD

But after a certain point, there can be no productive worrying. Then the only way to let go is accept that if the solution fails, we'll worry about it then. Or we worry there is no solution... but that's simply current or future suffering, and so let's go back to not worrying about suffering. Hang on for the ride is all you can do. Stop struggling against having to struggle!

After the worry, set the plans into motion. Meanwhile, rest. The future will come, and the plans will roll forth, and when it's time to worry again, you'll know.

But meanwhile you will have rested. So when the stress comes you can easily remember that this is not forever. You are making the effort now, you knew it would be hard, you've accepted the current pain and worry, it is all going according to plan.

Tense, and release. Tense and release.
/🧵

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2025 #enlightenment #ScriptureWriting

I sure am stressed tonight. But this was the time designated for stress. I knew I'd be stressed, this is according to plan; stress during the middle of a super hard thing is normal and even healthy so long as there are times that are not super hard. This last part is important.

One coping mechanism for stress I've come across, I try to not worry about suffering itself. It's one less thing to worry about if I can accept the unpleasant sensations I'm experiencing that I don't have reasonable control over, and let go of trying to prevent suffering that cannot be prevented. This itself reduces suffering because at least I can relax over some aspects of it.

But that's not always easy to do. I can't always just will that to happen. So then I try to not worry about worrying. If I'm worried that I can't stop worrying, well that's just the same problem, isn't it? So I let myself worry if I need to.

There is a time for worry. There is a time for stress. Worry motivates us to concentrate on the problem and try out different solutions. There can be creativity in this space, like a puzzle of how to fix it. That's normal, but a new problem comes when there is (or seems to be) no acceptable solution. Or we're afraid that the solution we've planned won't work. Maybe it's good to think a little harder to come up with contengencies.

🧵
#DarkSojourn #Recovery2025 #enlightenment #ScriptureWriting

Yay I got to do billed work today!

Feels so much better.

Still way too much unpaid work to do regarding my move and living situation, feeling very fatigued, would like a week off from all of it, but got to keep going.

Billed work and/or writing on my own projects is often an even exchange of energy. I feel actively bad when I'm not doing it. Yes, it exhausts me, but supplies me with a different type of energy that is also necessary.

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2024

Cat Midnight is still struggling to adjust. I think she's doing better today? It's way too many new things for her. She's been perpetually mad at me. I'm open to advice for how to calm my cat but also give her the stimulation she craves. Eventually she can go outside, but still not safe without a harness bc there are other cats she's afeared of and many places for her to get lost. She hates the harness and has trouble understanding that's what she needs to go outside, and she whines for many hours about being cooped up. Might be on the way to being solved, but if you have ideas of how to communicate that she can trust me and all this misery is better than if I'd left her and I'm doing my best to help her, I'm open.

2/2

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2024

Big day of QoL upgrades for life in the RV, which I have named "Peggleg J" after a joke I made on here a couple days ago but also she's got a literal peg leg from a (hopefully) temp fix after I broke the slide support.

We're at 30amps now, so can use electric heat to supplement propane. We were going through it kinda fast! This upgrade required I break the picket line, but to be fair, I didn't know the strike was on until an hour after I placed the order.

Didn't finish insulating the underbelly, but started! Wasn't planning to finish today anyhow. There is slightly less air blowing away the heat under there.

Dehumidifier finally arrived, so possibly one source of "where did this water come from?" will be solved. And we can literally breathe easier, or at least, heavier.

Kinda sealed the area on the slide where there's a leak under certain conditions. The whole slide issue is still an issue but "Where did that water come from?" is of course the worst concern.

1/

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2024

This song was a very bright part of a very dark time for me.

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2024

https://open.spotify.com/track/3GAnHqrJp7YGnOxuHOOmiE

Buncha synchronicities tonight.

Shifts and movement.

Unlearning helplessness.

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2024

As badly as my abuser screwed me up, it's hard to regret having met him. One of the things I probably wouldn't have done on my own was DEFCON. I'd always wanted to go but didn't because of imposter syndrome. He showed me what was possible.

There are reasons I was with him through such hells for so long.

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2024

I had the big talk with my mom. It went well. She was receptive. I'm guarded still, but I think I've got a month or two of peace to get rested, and maybe a system in place and better support from at least one of my siblings, to get through another span. Assuming the election aftermath lets me rest.

I'm stable, tired, and super worried that after the adrenal crash I'll lose functionality.

If that doesn't happen, and the world is still here after the election, I'm feeling good about getting back on track and having some kind of future eventually. I've learned a lot of lessons and now have a better relationship with two family members. (And maybe with mom too, but I don't trust it.)

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2024

Ten year anniversary of that is coming up next year.

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2024

You know what packing up today reminds me of? That particular kind of fog where you don't know how you're going to do it, but you gotta get out of there, and the backpack gets filled and you're driving...

Not as intense, but it reminds me of when 3 days after I broke up with my abuser I decided to go to the hospital.

I've noticed this last week or two I haven't been turning my anger inward which is what I usually do.

I've barely had the urge to self-harm. Nothing but echoes of how it usually is during peak episodes like this. Unlike the last peak episode for sure.

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2024

But I left my watch charger at home, so sometime tomorrow it will stop tracking my stress. That would have been interesting to see.

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2024

I'm just trying to sit here and piece together the events of my day for my bullet journal, but the strong narrative I had in my head when I got to the hotel is just fragments now.

That be trauma brain. The events of today are stuck in my amygdala in sensory fragments, instead of traveling through my hippocampus for long term narrative-based storage. (If I'm remembering the right brain parts.)

But I'm feeling far more settled and present here at the hotel. I probably need way more than two nights here, and I want to just stay forever, but me and my son always hang out Halloween and binge candy while watching scary movies. I think at least a full day totally under my control without the unsafe vibes will help me figure out what's next.

This is part of the texts I sent my mom just after I got here.

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2024

Started editing today. From my client's Facebook post in June 2019 that led to her getting excommunicated in 2021:

"Beware of any person/organization/system that assumes they know better than you about what you need or don’t need."

I quoted the full post in the Intro that I wrote over a year ago, and have been re-reading it over and over this year where I quote it again in the climactic ending.

It's been right in front of my face this whole time.

My mom assumes she knows better than me about what I need or don't need.

She's made this clear all along.

And this person (me) has been so conditioned to be used to it from my mom, that, even though I can see this when it's happening to other people, I still, after everything I've been though, can't see it when it's happening to me.

"She means well."

No. No past self. She does NOT mean well. What does that even mean?

When people ask me, "How do you know you're not brainwashed *right now*?" I always answer: "I do not. I probably am brainwashed right now."

Because it bears out, over and over and over.

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2024 #Sexcommunicated

I'm trying to get my head in gear to start working again. I took a week off two weeks ago. Billed only 3 hours last week.

I thought I'd left "get in gear to work each day amidst reoccurring trauma" behind me when I left my abuser nearly ten years ago. Still haven't restored my career in the aftermath of that.

But nope. I even have my dream job now, only able to give it my minimal, and am still having to pull myself up enough to work. Over and over again.

*deep breath*

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2024

I was in a therapy call just now, reading the text conversation from my mom two weeks ago, and my therapist — a therapist mind you, someone who has heard everything, and I have some idea what "everything" means here because I've consumed thousands of trauma stories myself as a cult researcher — said he got shivers when I read back one of her messages.

So that's validating I guess. Uhm. But I'm still living here. With her. In the house.

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2024