This morning you are getting a random image that I thought was pretty from Death Stranding, because this is going to be one of those depressing real life posts that I don’t end up syndicating very widely. This is the type of post that I am mostly writing for myself. I realize that won’t stop the comments checking up on me, and please know that I deeply appreciate it. I am doing okay, but the definition of what okay means changes on a daily basis. This morning I am struggling a bit because I did not get a good nights sleep. I alternated between anxiety attacks, not being able to get comfortable and not being able to regulate my temperature. As such I was up an awful lot of the night and when you tend to sleep about six hours that sorta adds up.
If you were following along on twitter, yesterday my wife got cut by a neighbors dog. The pupper was just trying to be friendly and jumped up on her, but all we can guess is like its dewclaw sliced a gash on her upper arm. I don’t want to go into a lot of detail because it was gruesome as it essentially tore through both the epidermis and dermis layers exposing the subcutaneous. This is the same dog that sliced open the back of my leg about six months ago, but nothing as severe as this. My wife is fine but required ten stitches and we had to deal with going to an emergency care place while under covid protocols.
A lot of my difficulty sleeping was out of fear of bumping her arm during the night and accidentally opening the stitches. These are the sort of things that I live in terror of. Like when I have been in the hospital I live in constant fear of pulling my IV line out. She ended up arranging the pillows in such a way as to prop her arm up, but trying to figure out a way to comfortably move around this in the bed was a challenge and as such I was up at midnight, one thirty, and three thirty with that last one struggling to get back to sleep at all. Today is one of those days where there is simply not enough caffeine in the world to bring me out of this stupor.
The injury was just the icing on what was a horrible horrible stress cake. I found out that morning that I have been in contact with three individuals that are either covid positive, or live in the same house as someone who is covid positive. In theory I kept at least a six foot distance the entire time around them, and had my mask on, but it is prompting a whole new level of anxiety. I’ve more or less lived like a hermit since this all started other than a few trips into work that I was pressured into. On some level I think I am unique equipped for the time we are living in, because I am pretty content not to leave the house for great periods of time. Five months however… is a bit much and it is starting to wear on me in ways that I don’t fully realize.
I feel like I am having this very slow motion break down as I lose bits of myself in the process. It is like falling down a hill, but at an almost imperceptible speed, with no real way of actually stopping the motions from happening. The thing is… I feel like EVERYONE is going through this same slow motion break down. Nobody is completely okay right now, and as a result it feels real weird to raise your hand and ask for help when everyone is struggling around you as well. Even if I did ask for help I am not even sure what that would look like, or what would make things better. It isn’t so much that there is anything missing in my life, other than the option to actually do something other than live in fear of the outside world.
There are times when I make one of these posts, and it isn’t so much that I am asking for help. I have a pretty solid social network of friends who check in on me on a regular basis. I make these posts when I am struggling because I want others to understand that it is okay to struggle. There are times when I seem like I have my shit together, but these peeling back the layers is to make sure everyone knows it is okay to feel helpless. I think what scares me the most is I am not sure what normal is going to be within the next year or two. I don’t know what society looks like after this. I realize we have struggled with this before, but the “spanish flu” was a three year long ordeal. Mentally I am trying to prepare myself for the fact that this is likely normal for the next few years.
I don’t have much to say that is meaningful. I just find it sometimes helpful to write one of these posts when I reach the point where my drug of chose doesn’t seem to be helping me cope. That drug of choice being gaming, and I use it as a way to help set straight my mind. However right now I have reached levels of stress that it isn’t even really helping. Everything just seems like “a lot” right now, and each week seems to bring something new to add onto the stack. Thanks for putting up with me as I go through whatever this is, and my hope that sharing the struggle occasionally helps someone else too.
Take care, the slightest things can have such an impact at the moment and this dog incident must have been a particularly unwelcome surrpise. Funnily enough I’m not gaming as much as I could be at the moment and I think it’s the slow build up of stress over the last four months, I just need different distractions to destress since my usual gaming has become rather bound up in this whole situation. I’m reading novels again for the first time in ages, and watching a lot more TV than I have in years.
Hang in there, Bel! The endless being at home is truly weird because it’s not any one thing. It keeps changing. At the start, when it was basically “everyone stay at home and don’t go out at all if you can possibly avoid it” it was, in a way, easier than it is now, when some people are in, some out, some wearing masks, some not and everyone behaving as if they live in entirely different risk universes. Mrs Bhagpuss is in London this week, staying with her daughter and new grandson and I’m at home alone, which is oddly relaxing. She’s also working again while I’m still furloughed. Our potential exposure is all over the place now where a while ago we neither of us saw anyone or went anywhere.
It looked for a while as though it might be possible to wait this thing out but clearly it’s more like it’s going to wait us out. A whole lot of aspects of life are going to change and probably keep changing, which is never comfortable. Just keep doing what you can to keep yourself as safe as you can be and take it a day at a time.
I talk about a lot of thing on my blog, and psychology topics have been more frequent of late. I manage a large team at work, and the top of pile item on that comes around is mental health. Multiple team members have taken extended leave during this time, and some have passed from it. We put up a brave face, but the reality is that every day our mental shell is eroded a tiny bit. It’s a balancing bit, you want to add more than you lose.
We’re not hermits. We need the social portions, and the ones that are just “shoot the shit”. Discord and video chats get you so far, but when you’re actively avoiding strangers, that digs into the mental shell. It’s a slow leak and barely anyone would notice it at first. It takes a conscious effort to take your “mental pulse” and see if things are on the up and up. Just the act of talking about it is super cathartic. You’re not alone, you’re not crazy.
Solutions are tough to come by. Mental health is a first world problem. Finding a counselor is hard, since they need to match your personality. I’ve gone through my fair share, only ever found one that worked. So I went and found a coach for work – where the focus there is how to find balance in the job. Balance at home means a lot of honest conversations with my wife, my family, and with the social circle with whom I share values. Rather than focus on breadth of a social circle, it’s often better to find a few that we have depth.
It’s a weird thing mental health. We have no issues going to the mechanic when the car needs a tune-up. We’ll go to the doctor when we’re sick. But the mental stuff still has a stigma. Then again, so did being a gamer 10 years ago.