#darksojourn — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #darksojourn, aggregated by home.social.
-
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.
/🧵 -
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 -
Filter is also on the fritz these days.
Filter. The ability to test all combinations of how what I'm saying might be taken to avoid unintentional insult.
Probably some more but that took all my spoons and now I'm really in for it.
For most of these, I can usually compensate by overworking one or more of the other functions to make up for it. Probably what's happening now it's that they're most all of them depleted and this coping strategy isn't enough. I'm probably still knee deep in #burnout, which sucks because it's time to get going again.
-
I'm grateful to this Garmin watch because I would have no way to measure my calmness and sleep quality without it. I can't go based on how I feel, because sometimes I'm feeling stressed when it says I'm calm, or I'm feeling calm when it says I'm freaking the fuck out. I wake up feeling tired no matter what my body battery score is and no matter how well I slept. To the point where I wondered if it was even accurate, but it does match up with my overall experience, so it's accurate enough. I can see what works (guided meditations, sustained periods of breathwork) and what doesn't (wishing I were more calm, willing it to happen, only 3 breaths). I can see which meditations work better than others, and all kinds of semi-scientific processes. I highly recommend a good health watch and feel incredibly blessed to have this technology. (Garmin Vivoactive 4s.) Even so, it has taken an act of will to take calmness seriously.
4/4
-
Metanoia, as decided by Carl Jung, is a tremendous internal metamorphosis brought on by crisis.
This feels like a metanoia for me. I’m cracking and being remade. I don’t care what into. Anything but whatever brings this karma. I’ve cracked before. I just don’t want to break. There is Big No energy here.
Magic magic do as you will.
I won’t be broken again. Not like this.