mental health

Writing desk with open notebook, pen, tea, books, lamp, and handwritten pages

Plucking away again.

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I know I shouldn’t, but I have been using one of my AI systems for Therapy. I have not prompted it to react in a therapist way, but instead told it that I needed to just express somethings without getting solutions.
I was not expecting much but it did help to get things off my mind. I know I should have checked if my Insurance covered therapy, but when your in a slump, you really don’t want to call and check these things. And you really don’t want to go out to do more, it’s exhausting as it is.

I am not back to 100%, maybe not even 75%, but it has been good to get my mind moving again.

I have started (and stopped) writing again multiple times. Sometimes I want to work on my second Sisak book, and sometimes I want to work on my Gateways Book. For a couple of months I found some mindless numeric work to do, readjusting monsters for a game I am making. It all depended on how much energy and focus I was able to muster up at the time.

I reread and rewrote certain chapters multiple times. Because now it can be harder to focus on reading without editing. Most days I can’t just look at text and stay awake. I have to be actively editing something to keep the focus.

Good news is I am writing again. Slowly but surely, and this should help a bit. Hopefully I will become more regular about this.

For those not in the know my Writing projects include:

  • Second Sisak book (Temporarily named “The Wax Seal“) a direct sequel to The Sisak Tower, my first book.
  • Gateways, a complete rewrite of something I wrote when I was in Highschool. It involves an autistic protagonist, and deals with mental health in a modern fantasy setting.
  • This Blog
  • Baldwin Games; My blog on historical and fantasy tabletop and board games.
  • My School newspaper, the SAIS Bullseye. This year I have some student journalists to help alleviate the workload.

And, yes all of them went on hiatus due to both my arm and my own mental health after my father’s passing.

What I have been feeling:

I wouldn’t describe it as depression so much. In my mind depression is very negative and self-depreciating. “I hate myself, and the world would be better without me” kind of thoughts. I have never felt that, though I know in my youth my mother feared I did.

I used to get sad about things alot. Mostly about why I was different, saw things differently, or didn’t understand other kids. But never really depressed.

What I have been feeling lately is more numbness. I know I should be having strong feelings, and they do pop up, but mostly, I just needed to stare at something and shut off my brain for weeks at a time. Which can be hard to do when you are responsible for the mental and physical wellbeing of four other human beings under your roof.

So I would find ways to vegetate. My Youtube feed became quite political, which made things harder to deal with. I tried to fight back by searching up religion, or old style cartoon shows or really anything but politics. I failed to replace the algorithms choices completely, there is still a lot of negativity showing up there (A lot of hate towards D&D lately, and still American politics)

So I am going to continue to pluck away at what is helping, even if it is slow.

Long Time…

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It has been nearly 2 months since I was able to write anything. I have gone back and read my work, and edited it, don’t get me wrong about that. But I have not been able to focus well enough to create in a while. I miss it.

Part of my difficulty has been low level depression. When I am overwhelmed, and near shut down for long enough, depression kicks in. I have had to deal with this before. I am not alone in the autistic community facing it.

I get rest each day. That resets me to just above shut down. Then I work my way through the day. Sometimes when I get home, I cannot function. I need rest, but my over-whelming sense of responsibility keep me from doing so.

My family needs me to work for our survival. The kids I care for at work need me.

I need rest.

Today as I was walking with my family, my mind began wandering. I remembered a situation from about a decade ago. I had a co-worker who was a friend of my wife’s. Her child was in my class. In general he was a good kid.

My family had gone to a swimming pool and My wife’s friend and her son had been invited along. I think there were other friends invited too, I’m not sure.

A long time ago I mentioned my sensitivity with my face. But to reiterate: I cannot stand water splashing on my face or wind blowing on my face. Wind is not as bad as water, but both cause a panic attack on me. I can’t even face my shower. I have to wash my face with a wet cloth.

Anyways, while swimming, the boy began playfully splashing at me. I asked him to stop. That seemed to encourage him, and he splashed me more. I gave him a big splash and dove under the water to swim away. As soon as I came up, he splashed me in my face again. I asked him to stop again and tried to get away, when he splashed my face again, and I called out (unfortunately loud enough for the entire swimming pool to hear) “I SAID STOP!”

His mom came and took him, and the following year they moved him out of our school. I hope that this had nothing to do with me calling him out like that. But I was at my wits end. An 8 year old boy had nearly incited a meltdown from a 40 year old man.

I sometimes wonder why people do that. When asked to stop something, they push harder. I understand he was a child, but I find adults do similar things. Sometimes, it’s easier to avoid people. Trying to talk to them can be exhausting. Often times, I don’t even have the energy for the initial request to stop. It’s just easier to hide.

Years ago, the school I was at brought a psychiatrist to the school to talk about Mental health. I admitted publicly that I was tired. I was responsible for so many things. These included finances, the well-being of my wife and children, and caring for my in-laws at the time. I didn’t want to insinuate that I wanted help. I just wanted someone to know that it was exhausting. The psychiatrist took it to mean that I wished that the others would go out and earn a living. I did not want that. I knew the situations made it impossible. I understood why it had to be me at the time. So, I felt again misunderstood and looked over.

I have been feeling like in my exhaustion, I am making a lot of stupid mistakes lately. Like above, I am not able to communicate my concerns and feelings well and others are misunderstanding them. This makes me feel worse and deepens the depression.

Sorry. I am not making a clear focused article today. I just need to rest and clear my mind.

Hopefully I will be able to think straight again before another 2 months pass.

Lost in my own Mind

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I have been stuck in my own mind lately. Too many things need to get back up and running, and I am falling behind because I get stuck.

In my Novel Gateways (Coming out Soon~ish). I had to write a chapter about my main character being stuck in her own mind during a shutdown. I am not happy with the way it turned out so far and I will be rewriting it soon. But it’s not an easy sensation to explain or show.

The stereotype, or trope is to have them floating in blackness and hear the voices of the outside world, maybe have them enter memories and interact with them. But that is not what it really feels like.

During a shutdown, my mind goes blank. I don’t see blackness, at least not anymore. I used to black out completely, but then my body would go into flight or flight mode. But I don’t do that anymore. I just shut down.

As an adult, my mind goes blank, mostly. I don’t see black, I don’t see anything really. I am aware of light, and can feel that things are happening around, but I am not truly aware of what. Sound exists, but not focus. There is no sense of me. I don’t see memories, or feel floaty. I don’t feel anything really. But just like my youth, my body may react while my mind is absent.

I may run, be violent, or just sit there, all depending on what is happening. I have not been violent in many years, and if I am, it iis always defensive, not aggressive. I think the last time I was violent, I was living in Korea. I apparently was hit in the face by someone during shutdown, and responded by knocking him flat. I have no memories of this, but a friend told me what they saw. I don’t even remember what shut me down that time.

The last time I ran away during a shut down, was in college I believe. I was stuck in my mind, and apparently there was a loud noise or someone yelling, and I ran smack into the closed fire exit. I woke on the floor next to the door.

Usually I just sit and stare at something. If it happens to be a person, or if a person sits where I am staring, it can cause some confusion, or even accusations. Nothing like rebooting and coming back into focus with someone screaming at you because you have been staring at them for the last 10 minutes.If they had moved, they would have realized it wasn’t them I was staring at, but anything in that direction….

During a shutdown I can sometimes direct my gaze in a direction. But sometimes I can’t as it comes on unexpectedly, or too fast.

This is not easy stuff to explain in a novel. But I will endeavor to do so.

As for me, I hav not completly shut down yet, but I have been close to it for a few weeks. I just need some time to over sleep, and do nothing to realign my brain to my new reality.

I am reminded of my old E-mail Signature from When Hotmail was independant of Microsoft. It went something like:

REALITY.SYS HAS FAILED-(R)EBOOT REALITY OR (E)XIT