I say, “might be” because I know I tend to overreact to things and leap to negative conclusions based on wildly inadequate information, so I am covering my ass.
So to speak.
But the pain in the tendons connecting my kneecap to my upper legs has spread into an overall inflamed feeling all through said upper leg, with accompanying stiffness.
I am worried that my mystery condition is attacking my muscles in earnest now and that I am at the beginning of the end of my ability to walk at all.
Again, might be an overreaction. But it might not be.
So once more, I need to tell myself I SHOULD be heading to urgent care. What with last week’s lower intestinal issues and this week’s muscle and tendon pain, there are plenty of reasons for me to put myself in front of a qualified medical professional.
Heck, that’s not even counting the severe back pain that I get from time to time.
And yet, I don’t feel sufficiently motivated to go. I guess that’s because none of my symptoms are all that alarming and it takes some real fear for me to overcome my general lassitude and passivity enough to take action.
There’s a lesson in there about motivating myself, I’m sure. Something about using my tendency to panic in order to get things done.
Hard to imagine panicking over my lack of employment. I mean, where’s the fire? I will always know deep down that nothing bad will happen to me if I continue my shiftless and worthless lifestyle.
Well, nothing that hasn’t been happening to me for 30 years or so, anyhow.
Which brings me back to that key question for all us Failure to Launch types : what makes us so sure that we can’t make it in the “real world”?
It must have something to do with that fixed sense of self. It’s not that we don’t think we can do the actual individual actions involved in adulting.
It’s that transitioning to an actual adult life means changing who we are as a person. It means growing up, and like I have said before, for every butterfly that is born, a caterpillar has to die, or so it seems.
And it’s very hard to convince that intelligent caterpillar that transforming into a butterfly is not, in fact, death. That they will still be the same person only changed.
The same person in the exact same person that you were when you were born. Your body changed radically during your childhood and yet you are still that same person who wore your nametag back in kindergarten.
It’s still a super scary thought, though. I guess the leap to adulthood seems like cliff diving into rocky water. No matter how many reassurances you get that it’s perfectly safe, you’re sure that you are about to die.
And so you will do whatever it takes in order to not have to grow up. You’ll mooch off friends and parents, you’ll write long Reddit posts about how unfair it is for the world to expect you to actually do stuff for money, you’ll infuriate everyone who tries to care about you with your passive but intense stubbornness, and all while telling yourself that you are the victim in all of this.
And you are.
But you’re also the victimizer. You are hurting yourself the most, and that will only stop when you stop fighting your own growth and let it all happen.
Blocked growth hurts. Flowers die if their pots are too small. The pain you can’t explain is actually the pain of your fixed sense of self rigidly keeping you from growing as a person. You need to bust open your cage and let yourself expand.
And by you, I of course mean me.
More after the break.
Made a decision about my indecision
I am definitely going to take Doc Costin up on his offer to put me on an ADD drug to see if that helps me with my indecision issues.
It’s just too wonderful a prospect to let pass me by. I have fairly serious doubts about whether I have ADD – I honestly don’t think I meet enough of the criteria.
I mean, indecision alone isn’t enough for a diagnosis, is it?
And I don’t have issues with lack of focus, restlessness. inability to finish things, and that sort of thing.
But who knows, I could be wrong. And I figure that the worst case scenario is that I take the drug for a while and it doesn’t help and then I stop.
Might be a weird side effect or two, but whatever. If it can unfreeze my motivational structure and allow me to make decisions and act on them and move forward with my life, it’s worth the damned risk.
Right now, even when I am feeling like finding some work online, I am poleaxed by the question of where to go and what to try.
And I know that what the well-meaning types who don’t get it will say, “It doesn’t matter! Try anything! If it’s not the right thing, try something else!”.
Uh huh And which “anything” do I try again? No matter what the setup might be a decision still has to be made, and I am not constitutionally capable of deciding that kind of thing arbitrarily.
I need a reason to do things. I need things to make sense. I need to have some kind of sense of where the road is going before I set foot on it.
And I know that can be crippling. And in my case, it is. But knowing that and overcoming it are two very different things.
And I know that my indecision is how my depression “keeps me in my place”. It’s not the only way it does it, but it is the strongest among them.
It makes me wish I had another thing like school where I just needed to sign up and then the rest of the decisions are made for me and I just have to show up and do what is expected of me.
Doc Costin has suggested distance education. Since Covid, it’s become extremely doable to take university classes online. I could do that.
Might just be able to show the world how smart I am after all.
I will think about it. And…
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.