April 8

 Tough day today.

CFS is kicking my ass, my body feels like it weighs 10 tonnes, tired, sluggish, struggling to even sit.

I very slowly did a self check.

This is the problem. At points. Even just sitting, doing nothing, is an excercise in low level pain, low level ill and exhaustion. It's at the point where you can't distract yourself from it, it's always there and is interrupting your thoughts, your everything. You can't ignore it. Which means, every moment is a low level agony. It's ok. You can deal with it. There are way worse moments and things to have wrong. But it's not pleasant. And it's always on. You can't concentrate. You can't relax. You can't fade out. It makes you present. And pretty much useless, can't do anything.

Which means you get a real strong push to just sleep. Because. It's miserable. So sleep. Sleep will take it all away.

This is the other end of the spectrum from my bullshit. When there is nothing screamingly wrong with you. But everything is in disharmony, like a badly timed off key exhausted orchestra. And everything is so tiring. This is the long distance runner version of my issues. Less like suddenly being pushed off a building, oh my god, we're going to die. And more like trying to pull a truck through a swamp for 20 miles non stop for the next 24 hours. Different experiences. Same shit.

I'm kinda reminded of the water torture method. Where a drip of water slowly drips onto your forehead that you cannot move away from. You are rendered immobile with just a slow drip of water landing on your head. That's it. No pain. No drowning. Just a slow drip, drip, drip, on your forehead. Sounds easy, right ? As it turns out it's not. It's torture. It continually focuses your attention. No rest. No let up. Drip. Drip. And people start to go crazy from it. Just a single drop of water. But it's the persistency of it. Always there. No let up. No light at the end of the tunnel. Stretches on endlessly. This attacks an interesting weakness we have, that we need "downtime", fade out time, switch off time, even if it's microbursts. Being constantly forced into the present makes us go crackers.

Combine that with the reason for that being feeling discomfort, ill, pain, etc. And yeah. Very no bueno.

Also how people particularly in the US get addicted to opiate based painkillers.

The vicodin popper.

There's a lesson to be learned in there that it's not always about the dramatic leg snap. Sometimes the persistent debilitating ache can be just as bad, if not worse. Less spectacular. More problematic. One off payment. Versus compound interest. Never bet against compound interest.

This also also reminds me of the adage some people have, that they'd rather get physically slapped immediately for a transgression, than deal with days, weeks, months of someome being disappointed with them. The short burst of violence they can handle. The slow subtler emotional burden, they cannot.

Uh huh.

I've tried today to get up and do some stuff, but, realised I am wading through treacle and feeling shit. It's going to be one of those days.

I want something nice to eat. Comforting. Tasty. Warm. I have absolutely zero energy to do that. I just about make myself a cup of tea. I consider just ordering something. Seems like a hard ask. And I don't want anything like that anyway.

So I just have tea. And retreat to bed.

I have reluctantly, frustratingly adjusted my expectations of the day. Something inside me rails against it. No. Goddamit. We have so much to do.

But I can't.

Fab.

Perhaps I overburned yesterday.

Yesterday I went for a walk with my Not Sister in Law. I was not in a great mood yesterday. And feeling the weight of CFS coming down on me. But. I persisted.

She wanted to come over for an "interview away from home". I wasn't entirely sure what this meant, I figured, she wanted a space outside of her house where she could do.. some .. professional stuff. She has some issues with her home at the moment that means at times, she's very uncomfortable there. Plus. Sometimes. She is wacky. And prone to do such things. A very tiny small bit of eccentricity.

On the one hand. I am open to helping anyone. My house, is your house.

On the other hand. I have no energy. I am no fun to be around. I can't really play host to anyone, you just have to.. get on with it by yourself.

And also.

I have house anxiety.

Because I have retreated so much, the state of the house et al is now firmly on the, never gets done, no energy, nice to have wishlist.

It doesn't really bother me. I just retreat to a hole, and leave the rest of the house largely untouched. Un dusted. Un moved. A state.

But I get that social norms wise, it's a big problem.

And therein is my house anxiety.

I don't want people visiting me because, I absolutely cannot guarantee any state the house will be in. I am ok with it. I doubt you will be. And if I think you wont be ok about it. I will be anxious about you not being happy. And just thinking about that makes me anxious.

See how that works ?

Nevertheless.

I gritted my teeth.

You are welcome to come over. Caveat. You will have to take me how you find me. A warning. Prepare for shit. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

It doesn't do much to assuage my anxiety. But it is a warning that takes a tiny bit of the edge off. At least I figure, you wont be surprised, and also, you're making an informed choice.

As it was.

She popped over, but we went for a walk with Athena. I needed to take her out.

So we did that instead.

I had assumed she would be full of her tussles with jobs, careers and worries about her home. But she was not. Pretty much at all. Which was surprising. Instead, she mostly listened to me. Which again. Was kind of surprising.

It was nice. Which I also didn't expect. I had more prepared to be the listener not the listened to. I also gave her fair warning I was not in a great mood.

Andy has been in the process of buying a new £100-£150k yacht for himself. Which trumps last years brand new £80k Tesla. Truly he is starting to live the life of the small business owner with large amounts of cash to throw around.

Which is great. Except when you realise how many times he has stiffed me for pay. How little he actually values my contributions. How I have built the business with him. And now I get manipulated to burn time, anxiety up, and make him lots of money.

This, is his most terrible aspect of his personalities. The greedy little arch capitalist who is very comfortable with lying, manipulating or running away. It's also clear that the many shitty capitalist books he has read on the subject have found an easy willing home there, and despite heartfelt protestations, he is, pretty much at his core, an evil little greed monger.

Exactly the kind of person I really, super, dislike.

Eh.

He will never change. As said before. You cannot trust him at all when it comes to money. I suspect this is just another of his upbringing traits.

Where his mom basically ruled by fear and beat him into a submissive blob, meaning as an adult he is a pathological people pleaser that cannot say no to any demand made of him, I think there is also the hoarder aspect of this. Where to keep anything he wants, he needs to keep it secret, and take as much as possible, because he doesn't know the next time he'll have it. Basically. Keeping secrets from his overbearing mom, hoarding bits of happiness, gorging himself on it, and burying it and hiding it and doing a very good job of putting on a mask to the rest of the world ( his mom ) that the opposite is the case. Are you hiding any biscuits Andy ?!? No mom ! *secretly stuffs his face and hoards as many packets under his bed as he can*

His mom has done a bang up job on him.

Nevertheless, at 50 years old, he could have by this point, been a bit more self reflective and worked on those negative aspects of himself. But he has not. And this very much is his coping mechanism. Run from problems. Hoard wealth. Gorge on toys for the dopamine hit. Keep it secret. Like the cliche fat kid who runs to the pantry in the middle of the night to eat all the chocolate.

 

All that understanding I have of his particular patterning is fine and well, but does nothing to actually make my life easier in dealing with it. Far from it. It feeds my sense of malaise with the world.

My sis in law ended up returning later to drop off ready meals. She worries a lot herself. About nothing. About everything. It was very nice of her to do so, despite my repeated entreaties that she need not bother. But she did. And that's nice. Her anxiety about me half forced her hand. Her care did the rest.

There's an interesting thing with anxious people and Athena.

Athena is a free spirit. She is very well behaved, she is smart, she no longer wanders very far at all, and is absolutely zero trouble.

But. When we walk with anxious people. You see them react. Try and control her. Stop. Come here. Hold her collar. She is absolutely fine. Not doing anything wrong. But nervous people end up projecting their anxiety onto her. I have two friends who struggle to keep it in check. They don't even realise they are doing it. But they imagine situations and freak out a little and try to control it. 

My sis in law was the same. Every other dog we met. Gasp. Is that ok ? She should come away. - No. She's fine. They are just saying hello. A sniff, a tail wag. Hello Fellow Doggo !

There is of course in many situations in life an element of trust. Or belief. I believe when I step onto a crossing, that someone isnt just going to ignore the redlight and run me over. Prudence would caution checking anyway and being aware. But still. We trust things like, the person behind us is not going to shove us under the wheels of an oncoming train. That people we meet are not just going to knife us.

And in the same way. That Athena is not going to tear everyones throat out that we meet.

She has never been, and will never be that way. Like people you meet tend not to be knife wielding serial killers.

But it doesn't matter what the likely reality is. What matters is how the anxious person imagines the possibility to be.

And there's your tell.

My two anxious friends will hover with Athena. Something they are uncomfortable trusting. Or out of their control. Spiralling into what ifs. And when it gets too much. They will grab her collar. Or corral her. STOP.

For her part, Athena is very zen. She doesn't care if you do that. I too am pretty zen, so long as you're not hurting her or putting her out. If you must. Project your anxiety. I Do however give gentle reassurances, not to Athena, but to the human. It's ok. She's fine. Chill. Less about dog training. More, hilariously, about people training.

I did at one point stop walking with the sis in law and say, it's fine, chill, be zen in a slightly comedic over the top way when her anxiety peaked with Athena.

Funny how a dog will show you someones personality like that. How much they need to control their surroundings.

It speaks volumes about what they do in the rest of their lives.

My other friend always panics with Athena and roads. Wait. STOP. WAIT. Athena is a pretty smart cookie. She knows whats up. I know whats up. I don't let her get into dangerous situations like that.

Chill my dude. This isn't about Athena. Or me. It's about you. And your anxiety strangling you. And.. about your need to absolutely control everything around you. By force if necessary. Up pops a Red Flag. There are other, more secret, darker aspects to that friend that are the same red flag. But this time waving. In a parade. With many friends. It is their - mostly secret - monster that turns them from a nice person, into a not nice person, into a more than arguably abusive person.

Of course, there's me and the house anxiety. But that's more about disappointing someone else.

In that respect some things of both mine and Andys upbringing are the same. Some need to put people at ease. We are different. I am trained to look for sufferers. Mood swings. Rage spikes. Because that's how it was when I grew up. And you learn to have to read people extremely well, particularly the negative side of things, and then react, or better yet, be proactive about mitigating that. The upshot of which is. I have an uncanny sense of reading people, an even more supernatural sense of suffering, and am driven to help, and absolutely driven to not be part of the problem. Because if I was a problem. I would get my childhood ass kicked. So. I can't be a problem. I need to be a salve to those around me - or in the case of my childhood self, my mom.

In my case. A mom who had mood swings, rage spikes, didn't offer love or appreciation, and would punish me for even thinking about being a problem, or sad, or whatever. Also a dad that was prone to massive negative depressive periods. Or anger spikes. And having to navigate that successfully. The result being. I am not allowed to be those things. But must learn to treat the person in my environment like they are an unexploded bomb. And I have been trained to a razor sharp edge. Two emotionally unpredictable and problematic parents. In an unloving environment.

You can then see how I got to be some of who I am. In my case, there is plenty of self awareness and introspection in there, and it also aligns with a pretty tight world view of doing good rather than harm and all that for me. But, nevertheless, some of it is deeply ingrained, a dysfunction, pathological, beaten into me. And it is the source of at least some of my struggling with mental health issues and fitting in with the world.

My mom is now gone.

But her shadow remains.

My dad is still here. His shadow too is long.