I write this stuff because sometimes I feel better when I put the thoughts into words. And because maybe someone will relate to it and gain insights into their own situation. But mostly because sometimes it makes me feel better.
And I do. Much more focused now.
There's a sort of adrenal balance and that's all out of whack for me now. This is a better problem to have than the problems before I moved. Like when I'm resting, it's hard to find media that can hold my interest. Horror and cult docus are *too* exciting, and nothing else is exciting enough. I still trend towards the darker stuff (I'm watching someone do a Disco Elysium lets play right now), which keeps me in a darker headspace, but the happy unicorn pony shit just feels... empty. I haven't been able to watch a straight-up comedy that isn't gallows humor in many years, because it's supposed to be funny but I don't feel like laughing. I don't really have a video "genre" right now, games besides idle games are still out of reach and idle games have gotten boring. I start a lot of stuff and then stop it, which it's great that I can finally be spontaneous now and try things at random, but my morale takes a hit after I've skipped a couple of videos or shows. I'm doing much better at reading when I do have energy, but when I'm so tired like that, I know I won't get more than a page or two.
So rest is unfulfilling, too.
There's probably some element here we might call "depression." I don't really feel hopeless, just tired, which makes me unable to hold interest in a whole lot.
I blamed it on cognitive drain from the taxes push last week and figured it would pass by now. It will surely pass as all things do, but it's getting old.
I've been trying to figure out why I've been so tired lately. I had a long run of having enough energy to keep up, over the move and in the aftermath adjusting to life in the RV. This new tired is a little different, more sleepy and lethargic, not wanting to move or do anything, running out of battery after only a few minutes of effort. I feel far less stress and ongoing anxiety, just lethargy, and pain but only if I push it. My situation is stable now but won't be for long if I can't keep up.
I'm also finding I have less stomach for the trauma writing and research I'm usually involved in. Today I'm doing some editing on the Sexcommunicated appendix, relatively tame stuff considering that I read and watch about cults and have seen and experienced some horrific shit, and it's just, hard to get through even a couple of paragraphs even just about the effects on minors of LDS bishop interviews.
I'm not saying I want to go back to where I was in deep anxiety constantly, processing fresh ongoing personal traumas at a mile a minute, but I do think there are withdrawal effects from cortisol and whatever other stress hormones I was hooked on. I like not being on that shit, but do rather hate the adjustment. I hope it passes eventually. I was patient but it's been a week of this new state now, and entropy is creating new problems that need to be solved.
And I'm not sure what to do about not having the stomach for doing the reading I need to write and edit about trauma, in order to stop it happening to other people. It will probably pass. But I guess when I was feeling a certain baseline of my own stress feelings, and it's gone, then reading about it is... well it's just different.
I don't have as much stomach for horror these days, either. For many years deep in my Dark Sojourn that was the only kind of movie I could watch. Horror and documentaries about cults.
I can acutely feel the absence of present trauma.
But it is not pleasant.
The echoes of it reverberating with no clear source.
It is disorienting.
I am unmoored, with no place to hang my rope.
One of my energy measures I call "Zen," which is basically how much bullshit I can endure before I snap. I woke up with low Zen and tons of bullshit.
No internet, but apparently only on my phone and iPad? I didn't figure that out till I opened my laptop just now. It pissed me off that I didn't have internet, and pisses me off twice as much an hour later to find the world makes no sense. I'd rather not have internet across all devices than have the world not make sense.
Then I knocked off that little shelf I showed you a few weeks back that I'd hung with tacks and binder clips. It flew everywhere, and the worst thing is, I only found *one* tack, so that'll be there to step on.
Breakfast was gross and frustrating to make.
Very cranky and I've still got taxes to look forward to, and I'm not even glad I can post this because it means nothing makes sense and I still have to troubleshoot my mobile devices (again).
One of the biggest missing pieces from my life in this RV is book storage.
My sister has graciously given me a spot of floor for what of my books I was able to bring with me (I left more than half of my collection to an unknown fate – maybe I will never see them again), but it's not easily accessible, and there's no room for *new books*, of which I have just ordered more. I have already read most of the books I brought, so this will be necessary for my goal of reading regularly again.
I'm finding more ability to read out here without my mom's constant dramas. Less brain fog makes it so when I do read, it's not a huge push just to pick up the book knowing I'll fail to get through a page. I can feel excited about books again, after all those years carting my collection around hoping that someday this would happen.
So it's an interesting dilemma. Can I construct a *little* bit more room in here for more books? Probably. But not to the extent I'd like. Moreover, if I ever have to move this thing, weight is a serious consideration. I think I can carry *almost* 1,000 pounds of stuff that is not the trailer itself. Books will use that up very quickly.
(No, I am not looking to be talked into reading e-books or using the library.)
I've been feeling pretty good most of the time, especially compared to the previous, uhm, well, decade. And I'm nearly caught up on the most urgent post-move tasks.
Pacing works. Not having a toxic emotional vampire in my vicinity works.
I'm feeling some glimmers of being able to finally get my life in order, and my career. There's so much I want to proactively do with my career, not just keeping up with the barest survival income, but the real reason I do what I do, which is to educate and heal. And just generally geek out. But it's been on hold for so long. It's hard to hope again that I can do anything other than the barest minimum.
Anyway, I'm in north Idaho.
I tried to be sekrit, but I suck at it. I want to write letters to the editor and call my reps and talk here about what I'm doing within context, and all that.
I'm a few miles from where the Aryan Nation compound was until about a decade ago when the locals kicked them out. They keep trying to establish new nationalist cults and they all get pushed out.
Speaking of cults, there's a bunch of odd groups up here. Half the businesses are owned by Seventh Day Adventists. There's a lot of Mormon polygamists, two groups of Mennonites that also own businesses (the black caps and the white caps, apparently they are enemies), and other little Bible-based groups, plus the regular Mormons, evangelicals, the Koonentai tribe with its own police department, and off-gridders of unknown (to me) political and religious persuasion.
A major part of the social ecosystem is about balancing the needs of these very different groups. So there's a sense of "your weird religion might not be my weird religion but it's ok" amid the Trump flags, which makes the balance of power maybe a little different than other rural areas.
Now you might see why I've been excited to talk about this and why rural vagaries aren't good enough.
I haven't been this happy or this consistently functional in a decade.
Cable management is fun where there are only three outlets and two breakers in your entire house.
Could use a few tweaks but it's better than under the seal getting leaked on. This is much better in almost every other way as well.
(The leak however has beaded along and is now dripping on the outlet itself! 
Wicking rags for now until I figure out how it's getting in!)
Things are warming up, and for me, that means leaks!
Had leak in the RV last night. I discovered this by plugging in my iPhone and getting a warning that my cable is an unsupported device.
Traced it back to find water in the power strip.
I'm relieved to find my hardware found this suss and prevented electron flow!
It's the slide seal again, on the other side. But there's a roof over it now!! Probably beading along something along the side. Melting snow finds a way.
The leak is just a drip, not a flood, so I'm going to mount the power strip in a different place. Under the seal is a convenient tucked away corner, but way too risky.
All this and I'm still insanely happy to be living here. If a little worried. What new leaks will spring bring?
"I thought there was no life for me that I understood and I felt as if that meant there was no life at all. But I was wrong. There is always a life, there is always a future. As long as one is willing to build it for themselves."
— Max, Black Sails
It's wonderful going into a rest day without being exhausted and in pain. Just a whole day to have fun and relax without desperately trying to recoup for another incoming hell-week.
My instincts about what I needed to heal were spot on. I was just living with a toxic person whose ongoing drama kept me sick.
I've come to believe strongly in going with the natural flow. Society programmed me to work on a schedule, to control myself and everything around me, to push and push. I'm finding that not only does this makes me sick and unhappy, it's not even the most productive way to work, if productivity is still the goal.
Learning to listen to my body, my feelings, my surroundings, and others has been key to my recovery. There are times to push and control, sure (like getting myself out of that toxic situation), but it isn't meant to be the default.
Sometimes you just gotta take a big scary leap into something new.
Far from mom for a couple months now, months filled with very complicated moving and lifestyle changes that continue, but have slowed somewhat.
I started working regularly again 2-3 weeks ago and am starting to feel in the groove. Now trying to get used the stability and the fact that any emergencies now will be from the environment and reality, not a sickly sweet, narcissistic old woman who manages her personal anxiety by sucking her loved ones into her neverending chaos.
(The environment *is* dicey — strong north wind battering the trailer rn, ngl, and the power flickered a bit ago shutting off the internet. But it's an impersonal threat that isn't getting fed on stealing my joy.)
I woke up realizing that I'm allowed to look forward to working today. That I'm not likely to get interrupted this week. That I have capacity to think beyond today's efforts towards the rest of the project. That I'm at last allowed to enjoy work and don't have to brace for a complete derailment from someone else's pointless drama.
But I'm still in the difficulty trusting stage.
Fresh in my new situation, free from the toxic person but with the world still burning. Yes, there is plenty to do.
But I'm trying hard to get used to the fact that now I *can* take it easy when I'm having a bad health day. I'm prepped to hop up at any moment, feeling the pressure to work through my own to do list while I have the chance. But my body drooping and in pain.
It's hard to trust that I'm not going to get a text with another emergency from someone who doesn't understand what an emergency is or that emergencies are supposed to be rare. I try to tell myself this, and am scared to believe.
@maggiejk This CBT stuff is great in a way (it helped my depression and anxiety decades ago) but it was a bandaid they used to get me back to working for someone else where they bled me dry. I probably wouldn't have MECFS/fibro/IBS if I hadn't used tools like CBT to force myself to work harder and endure more relationship stress than was good for me. My body knew and was trying to warn me. But society wouldn't let me listen, because I had a kid to take care of and other people needed more from me than I could give.
That's what needs to change. We need to let good enough be good enough so that people can make choices about what's healthy for them.
2/2
@maggiejk The *only* thing that has significantly improved my MECFS and fibro symptoms (and IBS) is rest. Actual real stress-free rest and proper pacing listening only my body's signals telling me what's too much rather than someone else's (or my own) exacting standards.
I spent plenty of years in bed, but it's not restful when I was worried about money because I couldn't work and was having to white-knuckle my way to appointments and to get groceries following the news closely during an openly fascist administration.
I wasn't getting rest living in my parent's home, even after I started working again a little, but while they had Fox News on all the time and were pulling weird mind games every so often.
Nor after I figured out the pacing bit but just before dad got sick and died and then was taking care of mom learning quickly that her emergencies would never end and she would never respect my boundaries. I was getting better, but quickly noticed my progress backsliding under her nonstop drama.
I just spent more energy in the past two months to get away from her than I did collectively for years and my symptoms are now minimal. Because I've eliminated the stress I had power over the past few years, and finally got away from the person giving me stress I didn't have power over. I'm not back to my old levels of energy, but I'm much closer than I ever thought I'd be.
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