[Hello!! I wrote this post throughout the beginning of October about the things I was dealing with in August/September and how I took those experiences to try to work on my mental health—and it was going fairly well...! Sadly all my progress was suddenly brought to a halt and torn down when our pet birds unexpectedly passed ;;; I still want to publish this post though as part of my diary and hopefully I'll be able to pick up where I left off sometime!]
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Last month [edit: September!] I was hit with a depressive(?) spell and I had all the realizations that I'm in need of a major reprogramming of my outlook on life—and it was the closest I'd ever gotten in considering therapy ;;... I know that there's irreplaceable value in therapy but I still don't feel ready personally to take that step, because my socially anxious ass is so horrible in verbal conversation, in putting my thoughts into words on the spot—I don't trust that I can genuinely present myself in a way within the duration of a session that wouldn't waste both my and the therapist's time. They have such a limited window to listen, evaluate, give advice that I'm sure every word matters and I wouldn't know what to say. But that's why I've been writing this post and have been thinking about this constantly every day, to coerce the ambiguity into words. ;v;
I'm not entirely sure if I'll pursue therapy yet, but before then I want to at least be able to say that I tried my best to shed light on all the darkness in my mind! ☀️
Let's start with all of the external factors in my stress hh.. Since mid-August, California has been on fire and we had grey skies until recently. At one point the wildfires got so close that I had friends who evacuated and I myself lived only 10 minutes from the "prepare to evacuate" zone. One of my bosses—while also juggling work projects because we were unfortunately quite busy during that time—left the state as soon as possible because where he lived, there was the potential for every exit route to be closed which is terrifying.
And then there were the days of the orange/red sky, when even in the daytime there was no sunlight. The outside world looked eerie as hell and literally e v e r y o n e was making apocalyptic jokes to an unhealthy extent; it really affected everyone's psyche. For the past month and a half, we've been dealing with smoky air quality that irritates my throat and lung—and as if we didn't already feel trapped and suffocated within this pandemic, now we can't even be outdoors safely lol.. Or even open the windows most of the time. orz
Obviously the pandemic has affected everyone's mental health in some capacity or another. One thing it does is force you to confront thoughts surrounding death—how any of us have the possibility to suddenly encounter it, how so many people already have, how everything now comes with a risk...
I'd also been dealing with a lot of various health issues and at one point the discomfort and fatigue really weighed me down. I realized that I may have some degree of ableism that I'm not proud of... because I see my health "defects" in a pessimistic manner, and I always worry about how I'd go on if my health ever truly prevented me from doing anything I liked. Every time I lie down, I'm reminded that my body is "flawed." My right lung—the one that had collapsed and gotten surgery—gets tight, my breathing becomes strained, and my ribs experience so much discomfort. These days it's hard to get comfortable when I first lie down, and on days when it's especially painful I begin to think that I feel more robot than human lolol. I know this is wrong though. I know that people who go through much worse pain and serious disabilities compared to me are plenty human and worthy of living and are still successful in finding fulfillment! No matter what happens to my body, I will live on and I will still be valuable and I will still find plenty to enrich my life and soul. 💪
(Though wtffff in the span of 2 weeks all of the following health concerns either appeared or worsened significantly: lower abdomen pain lasting a week, heart palpitations, toothaches ➡️ wisdom teeth surgery, acid reflux, and a painful sprained thumb—on my primary hand of course—that's now 3 weeks later just almost recovered. ^^;; So many medical appointments during that time.)
My job is going well, though I do experience mild burnout because sometimes I work long hours and there's a lot of overlap between my jobwork and hobbywork. Have been feeling pressure because now that so much video is just ugly Zoom recordings, my role in editing is more important than before and I've been putting a lot of effort into upleveling my work—the development has been good and fruitful so far!! but takes so much time and I don't like the pressure of being nearly singlehandedly responsible for the quality our clients receive when I don't feel confident in my design skills yet aaah. This lack of confidence in the things I create really affects me a lot, I realized. But I'm super lucky to have a job where I'm surrounded by people that really cherish me and my work.
I don't want to go into detail about US pol*tics right now but they're sickening and make me feel hopeless. 🙁 [edit: This was written pre-el*ction and I guess the results help a little but this country still has such a long way to go...]
Ultimately these external stressors—though they can perfectly justify certain periods of anxiety and gloom—can't explain why I repeatedly fall to this place where I feel empty despite having pretty good circumstances and an amazing support network. Or why I always have a hard time pulling myself out of bed or looking forward to stuff. Or why I feel so negative about everything that I do and every day that I live. There's a lot of mental toxicity that I need to work through—there are fundamental issues in my outlook on life and purpose that are in major need of reprogramming. This is the hard part..
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- Misperception: If progress wasn't made, my time was wasted.
- Illumination: I never thought of myself as a goal-oriented person—because I never have a destination to pursue. But I'm realizing I do have strong goals actually, usually of becoming a certain person. Like becoming a person who deserves to be lauded for their skills. Becoming a person that can be a role model. Becoming a person with better social skills who is well accepted by friends and colleagues. Becoming a happier person! The nature of these goals is what distinguishes this "progress guilt" from the productivity guilt that I've dealt with plenty. ^^;; If I felt that I hadn't done anything to improve my skills, my mindset, my relationship with others, my worthiness, then—even if I worked the whole day—I felt like...I did nothing that day lol.
- New Perspective: YO WHAT THE HELL. THAT'S WORSE THAN PRODUCTIVITY GUILT. Progress never has to be linear and progress should not be required for me to feel like I had a fulfilling day. Do most people even make progress in their typical day-to-day?? Some people just enjoy each day for what each day brings!
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- Misperception: I lack goals and it's pitiful.
- New Perspective: See above. And not having something grand and cool to pursue doesn't make me less cool I think >:( Probably.
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- Misperception: Non-productive activities are distractions—not relaxation or fun.
- Illumination: An extension of the earlier point! I've been doing better about overworking these days and spending a lot more time doing recreational things? And yet.... I label everything as "the audiobook I listen to while resting my eyes between work;" "the show I watch during meals;" "tweets I read as I procrastinate going to sleep;" "the game I'm playing because I don't feel motivated to work yet;" "the videos I'm watching instead of mixing." I always make it feel like they're something I do in lieu of doing something more productive, or something that fills a gap. And I realized that's why even though I do spend time doing non-productive things, I never felt that I "relaxed" or "had fun" or "recharged." Again, I'd end up feeling like I did nothing meaningful with my time even if I knew it was better than overworking.
- New Perspective: This mental shift was so powerful. 😊 I let myself spend most of my Saturday watching a show (that I'd been watching a lot of but didn't realize I was "enjoying") and it's SO liberating to not think of it as "I distracted myself the whole day from doing productive things" but rather as "I SPENT SATURDAY RELAXING BY BINGING A SHOW THAT I LIKE! ✨"
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- Misperception: It is a failure when things go awry.
- New Perspective: Same as above point.
- "I failed to sleep before 4 AM." ➡️ "I worked on writing this very meaningful blog post!"
- "I failed to do what should've been a pretty simple mix in a reasonable amount of time." ➡️ "I...spent months experimenting and learning about different mixing approaches......lol"
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[I had a few more points in mind that I wanted to explore but... I'm honestly too overwhelmed right now to go back to where I was while writing this post ;v; I hope that I can continue soon~]
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