This ain’t gonna be easy.
But I just got off the phone with Doctor Costin and one of the things that came up during the session was the idea of my making a list of things that make me feel better.
Not as some kind of toxic obligating to-do list. That would only make things worse.
No, more like a way to cut through some of the noisy bullshit in my head and carve a clear path between me as I am and a belief that I can feel better.
That how I feel now is not how I will feel forever, and that light and love and wholesome loving living is at least possible for me.
It’s worth a shot.
So let’s begin.
Getting something meaningful accomplished.
That’s a big one. On a deep level that is a big part of why I blog like this every day. There is the therapeutic catharsis I get from it and there is the need to do something that exists past the moment and has some meaning to me, however small.
I could do a lot more, of course. But that involves risk. The nice thing about this blog is that I can write on it and post to it and there are no gatekeepers to convince and no hurdles to overcome, just me and my thoughts.
Still, I could probably aim a little higher. Somehow.
Having something to look forward to
Another big one. Makes a huge difference to my mood if I have something good to look forward to in the future.
Which is not easy for me to come by. Right now, the future kinda sucks, both in general and for me personally.
The world is burning and I am dying. Not fun.
And so I tend to avoid thinking about the future at all. That is not new – depression makes it hard to even believe in the future, let alone that it might be better.
But global warming and local dying have really emphasizing the wisdom of not thinking about the future very much.
There has to be a way of manufacturing my own hope, though. Of making plans to do something I will enjoy so I have something to look forward to.
For example, I am thinking about going to see the new Dune movie. Reviews are spectacular, I love the book, and it’s definitely the sort of thing one should see on the biggest screen around.
And I can afford it. Even if I have to take a cab there and back. I have somehow accumulated quite the financial surplus and there must be some way to use that to make me happy dammit.
Which brings us to….
Cold hard cash
Money also makes me feel better.
Not so much the spending it as the having it.
It’s hoarding, pure and simple. Having money makes me feel more secure independent of any actual use for the money.
In fact, actually spending it tends to make me depressed. Like I suffered a personal loss. Like I have failed in some deep way.
Which is insane, obviously. What’s the point of having it if not to spend it?
But somehow I never get around to it….
More after the break.
This week on Hoarders…Smaug.
Positive human interaction (PHI)
Rather a broad category, I know, but it fits.
By this I mean any kind of warm interpersonal dealings that make me feel warm and good inside and leave me feeling okay.
This doesn’t happen much in the real world.
But I do have Sunday dinner at Denny’s with my friends Joe, Julian, and Felicity. And that is golden. It’s the highlight of my week and it does me a lot of good.
Other than that…. well, ironically, the most positive human interaction I get is while pretending to be a fox on the internet.
Some of us can only truly be ourselves while wearing a mask.
It’s hard for PHI to find me, let alone get to me. My Avoidant Personality Disorder makes me hardcore hide from the world. I interact with other people very very little in real life.
Odds are strongly in favour of anyone I actually interact with being a medical professional. A doctor, a nurse, a receptionist. my therapist, and so on.
And while I love my friends and the time I spend with them…. the truth is we are not that close. Or at least, close only up to a point.
Possibly as close as I can let anybody get.
And that leaves me very cold and alone inside.
Let’s move on.
High quality entertainment
In other words, good video games.
Good TV too. My video game addiction hasn’t completely devoured yet. There’s the Daily Show and Colbert on the regular, plus new shows like Owl House, Rick and Morty, Corner Gas Animated. Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and so on.
But I spend the majority of my waking hours playing video games.
And that is both tragic and sad. And self-destructive. It eats up whatever free time and energy and drive I have that might go to making my life more pleasing to me and so I just keep going day by day, slowly dying while I keep on playing, getting nowhere.
It’s only gotten worse over time. I used to also have somewhat of a social life. I organized furmeets, dinner meets, I ran the local Freecycle.
But then Skyrim happened and ripped everything else away from me.
I know I am not going to get much of anywhere until I break the addiction. Learn to step away from the ready, easy pleasure of gaming to spend at least the occasional hour pursuing some kind of long term improvement in my life.
But I am so pathetically dependent on the sanctuary it gives and I can’t imagine having to deal with life without it.
And it’s so much easier to keep letting the days go by.
Not better. Just easier.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.