Output 19--Dole Whip
My brain feels like Dole Whip. Softserve, but pineapple flavored! I sit staring at the wall a lot. Sometimes I'm contemplating some difficult-to-imagine solution to my current state of affairs. Sometimes I'm remembering something I'd rather not remember. Sometimes I'm thinking of that final scene of Season 1 of The Morning Show (I added AppleTV to my stinking pile of streaming apps and now alternate between Critic's Darlings and more of my flawed-British-cop shows on Britbox) and my inner voice suddenly comes with angry-Jennifer-Anniston-lockjaw. Sometimes I'm just trying to remember what day it is, or what I am currently watching (because I forget during ad breaks).
Don't worry, it's not meds-induced catatonia. It can't be. I'm nowhere near a therapeutic dose yet.
It's just complete lack of any kind of responsibility beyond remembering my psych appointments. And yes, it does remind me of Covid lockdown (in which I THRIVED) but it's a lot lonelier because even though we are almost all, to a man, more voluntarily isolated than we were before Covid, most people are actually living lives that involve mingling with other people. I am not currently doing that. I'm not even mingling with my boyfriend because I'm not sure I can deal with all that extra stimulation. Just me and Betty and Al and the cicadas. I often text a friend who is an old hand at mental health struggles. Otherwise, it's just me and streaming and sometimes music and when I remember and when Al is busy in the yard, I practice my guitar. I figure I've got nothing but time now and maybe I can slow down enough to actually allow myself to learn to play guitar instead of just insisting I CAN'T.
I don't know when I will be able to tolerate hanging out with people, including my boyfriend, again. I don't know when I will be able to work. I have appointments coming up in the second half of the month. I don't know if I'll be able to go through with them. I have contemplated filing for Disability but I can't even imagine the steps that would take. I don't know if I'll be able to tolerate the upcoming trip I had planned to Camp John Waters, which right now just seems as if it will be an INSANE 3-day hypomanic meltdown. But it's a paid-for-already 3-day hypomanic meltdown. I could really use that money and have contemplated trying to get it refunded (the trip and the flight are "insured") but I can't even imagine the steps that would take.
My texting friend routinely tells me to take the weekend and not worry about these things until Monday, but the weekend is over. It's Monday. I can't even imagine the steps researching this stuff would take.
And I won't even come close to a "therapeutic dose" for weeks. And I now have $1300 to my name and $3000 in credit card debt.
I'm not supposed to be thinking about that.
I'm just supposed to be trying to get better.
That's going to be harder and harder as my money runs out and I'm still not ok to go back to work.
Anyway. I am not writing here daily, I'm drifting away and I really don't want to abandon YET ANOTHER thing I put in my own way to force myself to PUT OUT output. So, and on the advice of my new guru MARIA BAMFORD (more on that later), I bought a copy of THE ARTIST'S WAY and when I get it, the exercises will go RIGHT HERE and yes, there will be a healthy dose of irony.
UPDATE: The Artist’s Way exercises will NOT go here. They’re supposed to be private, dumbass. But yes, I am doing them. Including the Morning Pages. But I don’t do them first thing in the morning (ever the rebel). I do them on the toilet when I take my “morning constitutional.” So I am calling them the “Poopy Pages.” You’re welcome.
