Bork Slowly Borking

A layer of exhaustion fuzz sits over me today. I'm ok. But it's noticeable. A slowing building up layer of "dust". A small step down from yesterday. Everything a little more fuzzy. A little slower. A little heavier. A little more lag. Sediment settling on top of the structure. Also. It has to be said. I had a return of the panicked sleep blip. Only the once. But still. Uh huh. But overall, exhaustion wise, it figures. And is very much how this can go. I got lost playing a game yesterday. Lost track of time. Ended up playing for a considerable amount of time. Again, first time that has happened in forever. It has, just that subtle layer of consequences going on beneath it that allow me to suddenly function like that. Because I have a little more energy. Because I am not feeling so ill. Suddenly I don't feel the tug of exhaustion. Sickness. When I have played for "too long". If you are watching closely. You can see all these little signs and flags in me th...

 Finally managed to sleep. 12 odd hours in one go. Thursday half disappeared because of it. I didn't really stir until 5pm. I woke up in a not great but not terrible state. For me, most decidedly up. I checked online just to monitor work, only to find half a dozen panicked messages. Even a text message on my phone. But. I was gone. And these days. It can be hard to get hold of me at the best of times. If I am online, and you know where I lurk online, you're good. If I am not. You're not going to be able to reach me. Not text. Not phone. Nada. A problem had come up at the end of Wednesday to look at. I had investigated, assessed, and as no one offered any direction when asked, and the problem seemed an issue but not an emergency, I had stated a clear schedule of not rushing it, and talking it over with our senior dev next week. However. The usual anxiety train had triggered. Client had phone. Which immediately sets Andy off into high anxiety. Which he immediately looks to tr...

 Running on fumes. Something weird is going on with my exhaustion and sleep cycle. I can't sleep properly. I am bouncing in and out of sleep an hour at a time. And. Everything is weirdly twitchy. I am getting panic spikes - or something - everytime I sleep and it wakes me up. And my twitches are up. It feels like I am in some weirdly exhausted manic state. I don't know. This is new. And I feel. Like I have the flu. Everything is too hot. Way too hot. I feel for want of a better description, like I have a flu. My brain is twitchy and panicky if I try to sleep. I am not really properly sleeping. In out, in out, in out. I am hoping at some point it evens out. Because. It feels very thin. I feel super stretched. Even for me. I don't really know what's going on. I've also been experiencing for the first time in... I don't know. Forever. Hunger pangs at times. Really bad. Something weird is going on with me. I'm not sure if I'm about to fry out in some new exc...

 Bloodshot eyes, super dark rings under my eyes. I have dragged myself to be work functional today. Not sure how I did it. I have paid for it with a pervasive headache that threatens to become a migraine. As the end of the work day comes around I am utterly burned out. I have scheduled my remaining stuff for tomorrow. I am so incredibly tired. And I feel ill. Too hot. Nauseous. Headache. Everything off. And of course, on top of it all. The cherry on top. Incredibly sad. Today of all things I thought about my aunt and uncle on my moms side. We used to visit them on occasion. My uncle was alright with me. Took me fishing sometimes. Got me my own fishing stuff. Ironically spent more time "doing stuff" with me than my own dad did. Not a high bar to clear. I have crystal clear memories of their house. I can still remember the address. I can tell you where all the furniture was. What the garden looked like. The lumpen clay soil. It is sharp. And fresh. And perhaps that's one el...

 I am struggling to regain any kind of energy. I feel low key exhausted today. I forced myself out to drop off an item to Hazel that she kinda needed. I didn't have the energy or wellness for it. But I knew if I didn't force myself out, I am not sure when I would venture out again. A few hours later I had to leave Hazel's. Just. Burned out. I felt so tired. Exhausted. Like I had done a hard days work. That's how it feels. Back in the day if I had done a 12 hour block of coding for work. Or had been busy in the garden. Or doing DIY for a day. I would get that tired heavy feeling. Now I get it when I do almost nothing. It kicks in hard. And the worse ghost of some infernal exhaustion also kicks in. Some. Terrible form of "tiredness". Work tomorrow. And it  feels  like it's a Friday of a full working week and I've just finished for the weekend. Except it's the start of the week. Ho hum. Apart from - ah ha ha ha - the suffering, the mental struggles wi...

 I've recently bought a sleeping mouth guard thing. Apparently it can help with some kinds of snoring, aka, certain aspects of apnoea. Although it's riddled with warnings and caveats that it doesn't really and etc etc. However. There are some interesting anecdotal reports about it from switched on people. So. I've got one just to give it a go. It's very inexpensive and I figure is worth a try, and a junk if it does nothing. I've tried to sleep with it a couple of nights now, and it's not bad. Not like the suffocation of the cpaps. That being said. I've not managed to sleep with it. The first night it was too "plasticky". Plastic off gassing and, after a little while it made my mouth start to tingle and become "allergic". A fiery kind of reaction to it. Not terribly surprised. I am super sensitive to artificial things around breathing and mouth. I have to be careful about not overdosing on any kind of cleaner, soap etc. It sets me off....

 Yesterday was one of those dragging along the bottom garbage days. Where I never get past feeling unwell. Exhausted. Nausea. All day. All evening. Never lets up. It's one of those days where I should instead just sleep it away. But sometimes I make an effort and stay up. And it doesn't help. It just makes me live in a miserable state. Ho hum. Yesterday I decided to stream a bit of gaming. Sometimes it makes me feel a bit better, or, more often, forces me to mask up for a while, before collapsing afterwards. I don't know. All I can tell you is that sometimes just being distracted from suffering helps. Often I do it with gritted teeth. It's not that I don't enjoy it. But it's like trying to concentrate when you constantly feel like you're going to throw up. It's. Not easy. Everything in your system is screaming at you to go rest. Feel better.  But I know from years of this, that it doesn't get better. Better days are a rare shimmering jewel. Great day...

 Slightly surprised I got through today. Today was appalling. I woke up head full of concrete, everything aching, two punched eyes, wrinkles, everything swaying, tinnitus screeching, nausea. I slurred my way to the bathroom a headache developing instantly. Took some aspirin. Went back to bed feeling truly terrible. This. Isn't. Uncommon. Two hours later woke up to a similar state. The headache was  much  worse, groggy and dizzy. Oh. I tried getting up. Staying up. Wobbled my dizzy way to a cup of tea. In case caffeine might help. It didn't. It got worse. Headache became a migraine. Everything aching. The nausea had the added fun of migraine nausea tickling. That response where it triggers your vomit response - if you get to it, you're doomed you end up in a vomit loop. At this point I couldn't think straight. No joke. I crawled my way back to bed. Pausing to gasp in pain or regulate some weird body reaction. It was a blur. I was aware of slowly making my way back to bed...

 Despite being utterly floored, yesterday I cooked something half properly for the first time in months. I think. Maybe. Feb. Was the last time I cooked something. I disassociated through half of it. I wasn't even really aware until at some point I realised I was observing myself from outside myself kind of thing. Like watching a video game character. I felt truly terrible doing it. And I did it through sheer spite and willpower. Not a happy undertaking. Yesterday was uncomfortable. And mentally very sketchy. Shifting from one state to the next. I reflected that this was a different kind of purgatory. There is the obvious one of being so ill and or exhausted that you have no choice but to be in bed. Sleeping. Watching days pass in a blur. But there's another. Where you are good enough to be out of bed. But not good enough to do much useful. Go anywhere. Do anything. And so you hover in a twilight. Unable to escape reality into the oblivion of sleep. And unable to escape the mal...

 Apnoea kicked in today harder. Woke up groggy and not thinking straight. I am getting better at identifying when my apnoea is bad. It seems to come and go in intensity, like everything else. Mood has shifted lower today. Sketchy. I can feel the tremors of panic setting in. Anxiety is up. Not good. Exhaustion wise is not terrible. It's been worse. But like a tag team my mood has taken over now. Not a great deal of energy.  I don't want to do anything. Or go anywhere. Or talk to anyone.  I half watched an old video of me taking Athena for a walk yesterday. Lovely. And sad. My life is in the past. My current life is curled into a ball. Why am I still here ? I am of no use to anyone or anything. Least of all myself. The price of cowardice. The show has ended. But fearful of turning it off. In which case. Suffer. Until you make the right call.

 I've spent the week recovering and working. Mostly recovering. Monday was therapy day, my last for a few weeks - shrink is on holiday. I had to drag myself out given I had little energy and the like. Tuesday I was nailed into the floor. Going out Monday during a period of "recovery" from a severe exhaustion period did not apparently go down well with my tortured system. Tuesday I felt so ill, it was again one of those moments where it crosses my mind that I cannot go on like this. Surely. At some point. Something is going to break under the strain. I can't keep being this ill and it not at some point finally breaking something. I wish it would finish me off. I know that's not how it works however. It will just probably... further debilitate me. As Tuesday turned into late afternoon I geared up to work. A problem was dropped in my lap. And I burned on it until very late in the evening, not long before midnight. Not clever. The following day was rough as fuck, I wo...

 Struggled again today. Down from yesterday. Sluggish. I gave up and had to go back to bed. It sucks. It's also very worrying. I don't know. Somehow I am still here, lingering. I don't want to be here, but at the same time, I don't want lots of pain and fear. Just. Bop me on the head please. If only it were that easy. Today my friend, my ex, goes to have surgery. All my positive vibes are bent towards her. I hope she can maintain a sense of zen about it. Difficult to know. For me personally, when I get to that stage, I am just a passenger. Nothing I can do. So. I just get on the ride and watch it go past. Almost a disinterested observer. I know it doesn't always work out like that. Even when I'm being very rational. Sometimes the animal creeps up and decides to dump a massive fear reaction. Ok. We're doing this apparently. In any case. I hope she does ok with it. And all things go smoothly. Life can be a bag of shit. I think in the end all we really have is ...

 1.40pm I am awake. You can probably do the math on sleeping hours. It's a lot. The demons have retreated. Everything has improved a smidge. A little energy. Less pain. Less ill. Less sick. Less misery. Less sad. And so it goes. The up and down of the rising and falling tide. Cycles within cycles. The short one that cycles within a given day. The longer ones that cycle in a week. And the longer still that cycle over a few months. Like biorythms. Each of them going up and down. And you have to be wary when like a spring tide, they all line up, and you get a very bad dip. Those dips will kill you. It is my strong belief that this is what ends up killing many people. Even though one thing or another maybe put down as the cause. It's not that. It's a number of things. All rising and falling. And when they align. It's bad. I've seen this happnening in old people that are struggling with their health. I absolutely saw it in my mom. Watched her go up and down those rises a...

 Played a couple of games. Sat upright for a number of hours. Then crashed again. Ekeing out some pathetic existence. Back to sleep in the glow of a TV.  It is 1.40am. Everything is switched off. Darkness. I have woken up. I feel. Awful. Exhausted. Sick. Dizzy. Everything feels wrong. I do not know what I am doing. What am I doing ? I am desperately trying to find some level bit of ground. Some peace amongst the shit. Going in ever tighter circles trying to find what isn't there. It isn't worth it. My life. This life. This constant degrees of suffering. Lying in bed. In the dark. Feeling awful. And then it hits me. I catch a glimpse of Athena. Wobbling around on her last walk. And that hopelessness of my position descends into a horrible abyss of sadness and  everything  hurting. Sharp. Stabbing. Awful. On top of the dizzy. And the sick. And the exhaustion. And suddenly I  desperately  want to die in that moment. So very very badly. More than anything else ...

 I have shifted into sputtering. Yesterday in the end I managed to stay awake for a few hours before again, crashing out. A handful of hours up time in a sea of 36 hours downtime. Last night after crashing again, I woke up, watched some TV for a short while before sputtering out. Asleep. Then awake a few hours later for 30 minutes. Sputter out again. And then sleeeeeeeep. It is very frustrating. Watching all your time disappear between your fingers. A day. Two. Three. I know how this goes. This week has been very hard however, no wiggle room at all, fuck you, go down,  stay down  motherfucker.  Beyond the immediate frustration the secondary monster starts to loom towering over the horizon.  Hopelessness .  All of this at this point is incredibly familiar territory. It is the same path I have been wearing down for years at this point. It's also, meta level, very human. You can only struggle for so long before it starts to erode you. The sense of not winning ...