i hear the voices when I'm dreaming

I got notifications of comments on a few of my xmfc fics on AO3, so I went back and reread a few. There are some I don't even remember writing (Charles as a mermaid) and even the ones I do remember are ... distant? It's like a different me wrote them.

For one thing, my preference for the explicit sex has changed. A lot. For some reason I don't like it any more. I skim over the sex bits in Fourth Wing and Iron Flame; my own work I can barely read; it's not a moral change (I'm not judging it, just deeply uncomfortable) and not a personal sexuality thing (I knew I was kinky-ace when writing). Maybe some of it is because I have aides around more and my screen is big and I don't want them reading over my shoulder? I don't know.

But mostly I just felt nostalgia. For being able to write (I haven't for ages, as much because lack of ideas as because typing is difficult and slow), for being in the xmfc fandom (especially anon kinkmeme writing), for geeking out about it ... and for the strong pull of Charles And Erik Are Soulmates (which is not unique to xmfc of course, they're pretty much not-quite-married through all of X-Men stuff, but the xmfc-specific stuff was so very pretty and shiny.

(I am way behind on X-men stuff, saw DoFP but not Apocalypse, saw Logan, but nothing else; I don't doubt xmfc fandom is still kicking around somewhere but I don't feel like I have anything to add, don't feel part of it, don't feel part of anything; I haven't really had a community to speak of since Ravelry imploded; I have friends, kinda, but everything is just so different.)

...it doesn't help that the last time I tried opening my WIP file -- not just xmfc, though the main other one I can think of is a Secret Garden fic -- Scrivener had issues because it was from an older version, so I don't know if it's even retrievable. But I guess it doesn't matter if I'm not writing anyway, huh...

Can metformin fuck with mood? I asked someone on my med team and she said no, but I'm coping even less well than I had been. So either a) metformin is doing something ungood, b) I'm in less pain (because of upping pain meds) and therefore my brain can devote more awareness to emotional shit, or c) I'm more of a failure (just in general) than I used to be.

I hate being broken.

So, okay, animal crossing. In theory I am still in love with it. In theory there are so many things I want to do. There's the whole snow thing going on. There's stuff in preparation for Toy Day. There's putting away the Halloween decorations and putting up yuletide-ier things. There's balloon hunting, possibly with time travel, so that I get all the mushroom recipes and all the acorn recipes and all the maple leaf recipes and all the winter stuff. There's terraforming that I want to do (paw print island) and decorating I want to do (flower area). There's the other island, the new one, that needs to get to three stars so I can get KK so I can get terraforming so I can make fun things.

In theory.

And I want to do all this. Or at least I want to want to. But I get little flickers of excitement. And ... and then I go to play and my gut response is ".........there's too much *shuts down*" and I barely do anything.

The summer update that came out, the Halloween update, both these things I remember watching the promo videos and watching other videos talking about it, and I vaguely distantly remember being excited. Turkey day I ... did the stuff on one island but it was kind of slog-like. I know there are videos with what's new in December, and I haven't even looked. I'm almost scared to. The ac discord I'm on, is muted and I haven't looked in ages. The ac thread in one of my rav groups, ditto. I can't play, I can't do anything related to playing, I can't ... I just can't. It's like a weird mental paralysis.

To a very slight extent there is competing interest from my yoshi semi-obsession. I'm not good at yoshi by any means but I keep wanting to play more. But since both yoshi and ac are in cartridge form, and since I can't switch cartridges myself, that means I haven't touched my second island in ... fuck, I don't know. I know I've popped in once since getting yoshi, but only once.

But that doesn't explain the complete anti enthusiasm with the switch lite. It's frustrating because I want to want to play it, and I sometimes get the desire (sometimes at completely wrong times like midnight when I don't have my switch and should be sleeping, but sometimes at good playable times) and then ... it's like I have no fuel. The fire lights but it burns out quickly.

I wish I could enjoy it. Or, second choice by far, if I can't enjoy it I wish I could not care. But I'm trapped and frustrated. And feel oddly guilty every time I play yoshi instead.

Fucking brains.

There is a trope common to both horror movies and creature-features where the protagonist(s) huddle in an enclosed space like a room or car, and the bad thing -- axe murderer, zombies, demon, evil force, velociraptor, mutant wolf-rhino-mammoth hybrid, whatever -- is very definitely outside. Maybe it's crashing around in brute-force attempts; maybe it's rattling doors or windows, looking for a way in; maybe there's just slow ominous footsteps as it circles.The protagonists do what they can -- locking doors, bracing with their bodies if necessary, barricading entrances -- but they know, and the viewer knows, that it is only an illusion of safety. That they are at best trapped; that it's a guaranteed inevitability the thing will find a way in: a forgotten coal chute or a high window or a weak spot, or just waiting until the protagonist is sleeping/distracted, or ... eventually, somehow, it will get in.

That's how my depression feels right now.

Last night? At the first whiff of I-hate-myself thoughts, I said "not today" and barricaded the mental door. And it worked -- for a whole five minutes. Like some malevolent force in a horror movie, it just doubled down. Tripled. Quadrupled, maybe.

Inevitable.

I started the night watching a Netflix movie as distraction, figuring I'd get sleepy halfway through. I didn't. The middle of the night downgraded to random Facebook videos in a desperate and futile attempt to avoid the crying meltdown that broke at around 4am. I eventually listened to an audiobook for long enough to calm down and sleep for what remained of the night.

I am ok in the sense that I am not in any danger; in most other senses I am not ok. Just good at pretending otherwise.

I am feeling...

I don't even know how to describe it.

Wibbly and discouraged and tired and blah.

Factor A: migraine hangover (it wasn't a bad migraine as far as they go, but my brain is still somewhat leaden)

Factor B: cleaned off my desk, which should make me proud but just kind of reinforces how much mess there is

Factor C: Got to a new level of wanikani, and made the mistake of looking at what all is involved (33 radicals, 38 kanji, >100 vocab) rather than just letting it come in the lesson chunks (5 at a time, radicals first and then when that is semisolid the kanji, then vocab), so I'm overwhelmed and discouraged and my brainweasels are throwing me "logical" reasons to give up, which I don't want to do but augh so much

Factor D: it is after midnight and my mood always drops at night

Factor E: Loki is still lying on me 85% of the time, which is adorable but slightly frustrating and occasionally cold and wet (the cone gets soaked when he drinks, and then he comes onto me and shares the wetness). Particularly at night he does this thing of shoving his face in my hand -- and he seems to like it when I squeeze, kind of like juicing an orange but gentler; I was wondering why and "because it makes my brain stop buzzing" popped into my mind as his answer, and I don't think he's really talking to me but I worry that the gabapentin is doing weird side effects and making him feel crappy and he can't tell me

Factor F: I am not getting much crafting done, mainly because Loki, but also because I've been low energy and crafting takes some amount of inertia to get started. And I know there will probably come a time when my hands change and I can't crochet and I get mad at myself for not doing as much as possible while I could (like I wish I'd done more cross stitch while it was possible, though at least I had the excuse that I thought I had forever with that)

Factor G: some aspects of my life seem like constant stressors. Aides are one -- and my weekday aide has decided she doesn't want to do Wednesdays for a while, and the only aide that can cover has wed-thu as her "weekend" (since sat-sun she does a lot of work for me and for another client. But she wants two sequential days free) so *shes* pissed off now, and I just want to stop having to deal with life shit.

Factor H: I think my depression meds may be starting to crap out (I've been on them for a while and usually meds stop working after a while and I have to change) but I can't tell how much is meds not working, how much is situational stressors and the effect of chronic stress and chronic uncertainty and chronic pain, how much is just a weakness / failing on my part and I should try harder, etc.

Factor I: I have been a crappy friend lately. Not directly crappy, just ... not keeping up here, not keeping up in other social groups, not keeping up anywhere. Two of my childhood classmates have had babies and I haven't sent so much as a congrats email. I have no clue what's going on with you all. (I have little clue what's going on with the world, but that's deliberate.) I just ... suck, I don't know.

I miss when I actually used to be ... well okay not normal, I was never normal, but. Social and writing and being productive, instead of just metaphorically struggling to keep my head above water.

But uh. What *is* up with you lot? Links to entries of consequence or importance? (*very small voice* reasons why you're still my friends?)

So I'm kind of in a bad headspace right now (in case the poem didn't give that away). Depression is hitting harder than normal, and normal for me is pretty hard anyway, so I'm ... very not okay.

One of the things it's being most vocal about is that I need to isolate. That people don't want to me around me especially when I'm on a depressive jag, that I don't deserve to be around people, that no one would notice or be bothered if I just disappeared, that I should go away and stop imposing on people who don't like me. And intellectually I know that depression is a lying liar that lies like a lying thing, but brainweasels are very good about making their lies feel real.

I can't trust my own brain right now, so I need to borrow y'all's for a while. If you like me (not in the sense of *like* like, just, idk, think I'm nifty) and are so inclined, please tell me? This is not an obligation, and I promise that I won't judge if you don't say anything -- it's not that I need you to prove our friendship (or whatever), it's thar my brain says I am a hate-worthy despicable person and right now I need points of view that are *not* that.

I am feeling whiny; enter at your own risk

( virtual tantrum )

Had a dream last night that somehow involved me pretending to be more out-of-it than I actually was. The bit I remember was walking up to a bed and just kind of timberrrring down, crosswise, without undressing or taking anything off the bed or whatever, and lying there face-down without reacting, like I was zoned out or ... idk I can't really describe it.

I seem to have a lot of dreams lately that involve me pretending to be either a) asleep, when I'm not, or b) seriously brain-fried [I think the latest one of those involved a sort of magic spell that could plausibly have short-circuited bits of my brain] or otherwise mentally mostly-nonfunctional. It's not just being incapable; it's deliberately acting incapable when I know full well that I'm not.

I can't decide whether they're symbolic of my life, or a weird backwards application of imposter syndrome.

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I am feeling very out of sorts right now. Last night I hit a brick wall in terms of spoons / cope level, to the point that I was pretty much yelling^† at my PA, who was just as tired as I was and who tries my patience even on the best of days (she wants to be helpful, she just needs so much micromanaging and her personality has annoying parts and I am not good at managing people), and it was all bad, and then I couldn't sleep, and then I couldn't wake up very easily, and I haven't done anything all day and I feel exhausted.

(† - I don't really yell per se all that much, but it was frustrated-stressed-out-voice, impatient voice, crankypants voice. which I try not to let out very often but sometimes I just don't have enough spoons to keep it reined in.)

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Also, the inevitable happened yesterday, in that while backing out of the bathroom (which is the easiest way to get out) I sort of ran into Suri (who tends not to want to move when she's comfortable). I'm fairly sure it was into and not over, because she yowled and ran away but didn't, and still doesn't, seem injured, but it was still a bit traumatic for both of us.

(Yes, she has forgiven me, I think, especially when I'm safely immobile in bed, but she is now super-skittish about being near me when I'm in the chair, which makes me sadface. I mean, a bit of caution is a good thing, and she was being way too unaware of the possible dangers, but rabbiting away when I'm still like three or four feet off is a bit depressing. I didn't want her to make a wheelchairs=scarybad association.)

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Moods like this are ones where I tend to give in to listening to the drastic pessimistic voice in my head. ( blah blah blah warning: triggery )

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