crack open the skull and look at the world inside

[the_siobhan]

Funny how synchronicity works. I've been talking to a friend over the last few days about what-goes-on-in-the-head, and as a result I've been looking more closely than normal at what has been going on in my own noggin over the past week. (So you, you've unintentionally given me a poke that it turns out I needed. You know who you are.)

The results are a bit disquieting.

I'm a stubborn bitch. It's my greatest strength and my most-often mentioned fault. It got me through things where plain obstinate slogging was the only way out. (Like, frex, my entire childhood.) But it also means I try to tough my way through things instead of changing course as soon as I should. It's the reason I dealt with the agony of Fred the evil growth for six years instead of going under the knife a long time ago.

So when things are not quite right, I have a tendancy to just put my head down and try to barrel through it. Usually that's enough. But not always.

I've been feeling really -- I don't know what the word for it is. Inert. Uninspired. Unproductive. Indifferent. Not like me. I have taken no pleasure in the things that usually give me a lot of joy. My work. Hanging out with my friends. Life in general.

It could be just a normal low, and that's pretty much how I've been treating it. But. They don't usually last this long. And in the past it has also been the precursor to something much darker and nastier.

Part of the problem might be post-holiday blahs. Lots of people talk about the post-Convergence blues, when you are missing all the people you only get to see once a year and are back to the mundane shit of work and school. But that doesn't quite feel like it adequately fits my mood.

Part of it might be pure lack of oxygen. My lungs took a pile of punishment during the last few weeks. (I was the only non-smoker in the crowd I was travelling/staying with -- although not surprisingly not the only asthmatic) and although I'm usually fine with a weekend of being around smoke, three whole weeks really put the boot to me. I've had a rock in my chest and haven't been able to catch my breath properly since we got back.

A small part of it might be lack of private space. Three people living in a space barely big enough for two has put the territorial part of my brain into a severe case of the snits. That's stressful, but nothing I can't deal with.

the_axel's take on it -- and he may have a valid point -- is that as much as I live off the big stressful battles, the current ones aren't giving me as much of the feedback that I need. I haven't had anything finish for a while, and without that sense of accomplishment to keep me going, I'm getting bogged down in the immensity of the amount of work I've bitten off.

Anyway, this has been percolating with me since I got back into town, but it really kind of came to a head yesterday. (At a friend's bomb OCAD celebration. My timing sucks 'nads.) I kept mentally returning to a conversation I had just had with a friend who had been terribly hurt by something that I did. (In my usual bull-in-chinashop, full-steam-ahead, bystanders-what-bystanders fashion.) The conversation was a good one I think, and there was no blame or animosity attached to it -- but it brought up uncomfortable reminders of how thoroughly and utterly J had convinced me that I was an evil, malevolent person.

Of course the friend was saying nothing of the kind, but it was disturbing how quickly and easily that wound could re-open itslef. When things from the Evil Depression start resonating into my current life, that's a danger sign, y'know?

So. Um. Here I am. And since I suffer from an advanced case of Male Answer Syndrome, of course the next thing I want to know is, "What do I do next?"

• Learn to breathe again. (Sorry reprobates, I may have to cut down on my appearances at the pub for the next little while. I lost all my money in Vegas anyway.)
  
• Go to the gym, dose myself up with bronchiodialators and throw heavy things around until I can't lift my arms. (On the books for the second I put down this keyboard.) Do it every day until I get my evil back.
  
• Get some of the overwhelming levels of crap piles sorted out. Put things in boxes that are floating around unused. Not feeling buried by big heaping "to-do" piles and stacks of "I-don't-know-where-to-put-this" will probably go a long way in reducing my feeling of being at the bottom of a swamp. Not to mention reduce my guilt at creating a big pile of mess in zero_gravity's domicile.
  
• Quite frankly I work better under looming, leering, malevolent deadlines with big nashy teeth. I'm going to make big epic lists of all the stuff I have to do and assign dates to all of them. If I'm sitting up at 4am with a can of jolt on the desk and a three-piece luggage set installed under each eye I will be in back in glorious dragon-slaying mode in no time.
  
• Spend some time in a dark (hopefully non-smokey) pub with the small handful of people I feel comfortable unloading all my really slimey shit onto. Slime them with malice aforethought.
  
• Come July, knock down a bunch of walls. Nothing quite cheers a case of the blahs like a big-ass sledgehammer and a virgin stretch of plaster.
  

And most importantly check in on my head. Often.

Comments

[the-tsm.livejournal.com]

Everyone's getting pensive these days.

And of course nothing goes with pensive
like protracted alcohol abuse. . .