Mar 25

 Feel like shit again. An odd blend of mental health and CFS douchbaggery are dragging me down. I am stuck in molasses. And the trend is holding, worse each day.

My sleep is stuttering. I am trying to shift it. Tricky. It has now fragmented into pieces. Waking up. But unable to stay up. Feeling worse whilst I do so. A bit of stabilisation in the wee hours of the morning.

Sigh.

I do understand what's going on. The clever AI's are useful. Autonomic systems running a red line. A tightrope. No flex, no steering. Very fragile. Don't fuck with it or else.

Difficult.

Yesterday my well being went through one of the common micro dips it goes through. System shifts into a feeling of being much worse. The feeling of illness intensifies into that, must, lie, down, sleep, now. It's shit.

As it occurred the well trod defensive patterns kicked in. I need to go sleep for some hours. Nope out of reality. Waste a bit of day in resting.

And the misery followed it.

I am just. Always. Fucking. Downtime. Always. Having to retreat before the onslaught. I hate it. I hate being forced to go to sleep. I hate that I am helpless with it. I hate how much it extracts out of my life so that at times I dwindle down to existence. And a laughable high point of being able to play a game for a couple of hours. Half slumped in a chair. Thats my peak ? Holy fucking shit. For most other people thats their resting point.

And then.

On the tail of the hate for having to retreat. Rest. Live defensively. Follows the next inevitable thought.

This is not worth it. This is not fun. This is not happy. This is absolutely shit. I am sick of living life through a fucking teaspoon. What's the point ?

Finish it. Whispers the gremlin.

Sigh.

I have to. Begrudgingly. Imperfectly. Insincerely. Resist that. It is shaky. Flimsy. I can feel it. Sometimes there is no resistance there at all other than being physically not immediately in a place to do it. At times like that I very much get why they say things like having an accessible gun makes suicide more likely. I get it. Because. It lowers the bar. It lowers the friction to do that. It's the difference between hand washing your laundry on a rock down by the river. And sticking it in a machine and pushing a button. Friction. And I think. The grim reality is. If you push that bar down, remove friction. A lot of people would end up nope-ing out. I find the whole thing. Very debateable. From both angles. You can say. Raising that bar of difficulty is then a good thing. It protects against atypical dips. Where a low ebb might suddenly push you across a threshold. With friction. It doesn't amount to anything. Without friction you end up losing someone just because of a dip. On the other hand. It also exposes that the reality that people face in their lives, world, thoughts, whatever, are not in such a good place that by default people live. It says something rather damning about the place people are with that. Or to put it another way. It's like being at a shitty hotel with a really complicated complaint form to fill out. Just because you don't get many complaints doesn't fucking mean the Hotel is aces. Make the complaint procedure friction free, and see the reality of the Hotel. Is it ethical to make complaining difficult in order to sustain the system ? Chain people to a wall - they can't reach the pen - no written complaints. Marvellous. All the while with a smug look that you are helping the system be more consistent, better outcomes.

It's a nuanced thing. All those points are correct. And under a more closely positioned gaze, you can also see the shadows of the kind of thinking where you constrain people to do something for the better outcome, starts to smack of the ideologies of any kind of authoritarian, fascist, group think, communist mindset. No citizen. We decide that for you. Endure the misery. It's for your Own Good. Trust the party.

That's the extreme. But you can see the subtle shapes of it right at the start of those chains of thought. Increase friction. Remove problems. Good. Bad. Arguable. Context is king.

In any case.

Whatever.

Feeling like shit.

I will spend yet another fucking day in defensive rest mode.

On another note.

I have some kind mystery helper in my neighbourhood.

For two weeks running someone has wheeled my bins in and out for collection.

Grabbed them from my front garden. Put them out. Then placed them neatly back.

Don't know who it is.

They are very kind. In my work burn / slump out I have... neglected to do it. It's not the end of the world. But someone has noticed. And done it for me.

Very sweet.

I went out early hours this morning, 4am, because I realised I hadn't done it again. But surprise. It was already done for me.

Either that or I'm losing my marbles and forgetting I'm doing it ( I'm not to be very clear. the way the bins get put out is very *not* me, just from an OCD point of view. They put the handles in. I put the handles out. )

Anyway. Someone kind and sweet in the neighbourhood. That's nice.

The duality of man.

Both angel and asshole.