oldnorth

[oldnorth]

24: We resume our regularly scheduled programming

In more ways than one.

I dipped out for a while, took a knee whilst a cloud of crap moods, family drama and global grief washed over me. I’d be a liar to say I didn’t go to a very dark place whilst I was gone, but I’ve clambered up some now. I’ve got my head above water again.

I’ve always hated schedules. You can see in previous posts how much I hate running out of time, and dancing to the needs of someone else amplifies the feeling that I’ve not time for myself.

(I’ve no idea how I’ll deal with being a parent when/if it comes).

Though lately I’ve fallen into one, and not with the same disgust and reluctance that has characterised my previous submission to scheduling; instead I can honestly say I feel hope for having structure to my life. It’s small, I’d be the first to admit that, but I actually feel like keeping to these tasks (write, wash, eat, clean, code, game, cook, sleep) is helping me build sanity. I’m rebuilding a tolerance for tackling problems and challenges that broke under the weight of stress in past months.

I feel a little optimism, ambition, and on the horizon I can see a me I’m not ashamed of.

[oldnorth]

23: Irrational Insomniac

It’s not that I can’t sleep; it’s that I won’t sleep.

The earliest memory I have of this impulse dates right back to being a child, and I’m sure I can’t be alone in this. Bedtime sucked. When you’re a kid, and nigh-everything is new, shiny and good, bedtime sucks. School takes up all that time and then you’ve got a few hours? Gorram (a word I wouldn’t learn until much later).

As a teen I was supposed to still have a bedtime, albeit later, but I couldn’t well abide that either. There were things to learn! I had games to develop, games to play, friends to talk to, things to waste my nights on. I remember hiding the lights from my room with towels stuffed at the base of the door, and angling monitor screens away to keep my far-bedroom as dull as possible. To the best of my knowledge I was always quite successful and I’d usually end up at school a hollow-eyed zombie.

Well maybe not. Kids are pretty resilient to sleep deprivation, despite really really needing that sleep. I’d grab a couple hours sleep then soldier through the day before losing another night to optional insomnia. There just weren’t enough hours. There never were.

As a young adult, and a university student, I’d instead while away my nights out on the town (metaphorical and actual) - I’d sooner ignore my sleep than my social schedule, and as crowded as my days were it was still no problem to get up stupid-early, push my body and mind to their limits, and go about a full day. 6am starts, 8am labs, right through all day until evening sports and then pushing through a night of drinking and dancing.

Just how the actual fuck.

I’m sure my fellow late-20-somethings, and to a greater extent those of you older still, are just marvelling at that. I know I am. If I don’t get proper sleep I become a flighty-brained nincompoop with all the mental fortitude of a wet sponge.

So why is it, despite knowing with age I’ve had to finally pay the price for my irrationality over bedtime, I still frequently sit up late at night (early morning evening) and keep doing the same? There’s never enough time. I can’t sleep until I’ve had fun; tomorrow is a fantasy, theoretical, whilst now is now. Is it a memory problem? Mine is disproportionately awful. (are the two related?) Whatever the case, all I know is that I remain an insomniac as I age. Despite the fact that my resilience to it’s ill-effects has drastically fallen. The older I get the more irrational my choice to be awake as much as possible seems. The less sense I make to myself.

[oldnorth]

22: Another Pause for Poetry

What phantom is this that haunts my periphery Why do my teeth clench Why does my head swarm with creatures within me

What panic bridles angrily toward I, me Why must I freeze Why cannot I just not be

What life is mine seems no longer will be Why therewithal exists not my personality Why do I lose my agency

What sickness threatens to claim my agency Problems always hidden on the periphery Why a caricature of me The life that can not just be A laugh, I lost, farewell my agency

[oldnorth]

21: The Silence is the Loudest

You’re a bad person

You’re a bad person

You’re a bad person

You’re a bad person

badpersonbadpersonbadpersonbadpersonbadpe-

Did you ever have someone really lay into you? Really tell you what they think, when what they think is a damn sight short of kind or nice. The sort of person who never heard the old adage “if you’ve nothing nice to say”, or in this case thinks the moment a special exception.

If you haven’t then count your blessings (no really) and go on about your day; but I expect, even as I write this, the number of readers here who’d consider that something outside their experience would be few. Since I didn’t and don’t exclude the internal voice, our own personal harshest critic.

I scream. When everything is reaching it’s zenith, the crescendo of my self-hate, I scream. Not quite the shrill shriek of a Hitchcock production but the dull rumbling of a discomfort, of a poked and prodded animal. It ripples and then grows louder, until that grumbling rumbling moan becomes in earnest a yell at the world and a call for help. Not that I ever do it when anyone is around to do so. Not that I’m sure they could.

Still, what can I do? When the constant nagging of mine own harsh critic becomes a repeated stanza of hate, I’ve no foe to conquer. No argument to make. I would be in essence debating myself, and therefore I already know what arguments I would make. Yet still the self-hate abounds.

Were it a person in front of me, I’d probably punch it. A neck? I’d throttle it. After more than ten years of hearing nothing but criticism with no escape, I might indulge in some violent instinct just to make it stop. Just make it stop.

I can’t kill some of me, without killing all of me.

[oldnorth]

20: Apathy. Why did it have to be Apathy?

Wake up in the morning feeling real shitty Gonna brush my teeth, stay away from the city Before I leave (I won’t leave) think about some Jack If I drink some more maybe my problems aren’t coming back

Apathy.

Why did it have to be Apathy?

I hate Apathy.

Tell you the truth I’m not sure if I woke up with it, because my head is a ball of fog this evening. Can’t be sure if I woke up with it because I’ve woken and fallen asleep more times than I could feasibly count today; that’s the day, so far. As ham-fisted a tribute to narcolepsy as my always ailing brain could manage.

On the horizon sits two little words, chattering away to each other in a nest spun of hope and the best laid plans of men. Code, and write.

The two things I try to make myself do each day, as of late, in order to keep myself moving forward and being productive. Well perhaps you could count this as the latter, but the former is a mess of half-strung ideas and half-scribbled pseudocode. Neither is neither goal or want. They just are. Half-approximations of what I sought to do, muffled by a strong and inarguable urge just to sleep and do nothing, to rest and forget it all, let the time pass slowly slowly slowly.

I couldn’t care less.

[oldnorth]

19: I Accidentally a Religion

Faith is a funny thing. To the staunchest of atheist the very notion that they have faith can be met with a whole host of denial, anger and associated peers. Faith is for the illogical, faith is for the easily swayed; faith is for the stupid.

Yet we all believe in something. Whether it be a now taken-for-granted event coming to pass, an individual who means something to us, or just a staunch set of principles.

Faith is so much more than religion.

Now I tend to stray from organised religion, and count myself as somewhere on the agnostic/atheist spectrum with a whole sombrero full’a ‘oh dang that [insert spiritualism thing] is cool’ and ‘oh boy I can get along with those [pagan/sun/whatever] worshippers’. I don’t mind anyone that doesn’t mind folk. If you’re the sort that uses your faith or religion to discriminate or exclude, then you’re on the wrong side of humanity in my book.

So yeah, not particularly religious or spiritual, but in theory I count myself open to it. It was with a start today I realised I had a belief system pushing on faith pushing on devotion to an unprovable idea (so faith...)

The small steps will bring me what I want.

I’m constantly doing tiny little things, teensy, almost inconsequential, pieces of personal projects. Personal projects; not just my favourite indy band, it’s pretty much what I do with my life. Some people have gigs, some have football, I’ve got whatever game, coding, video, graphic, writing or music project is currently all up in my head. I’m prone-to-flight, skipping over new for newer still, but working on stuff that I’ve dreamt up or just plain being my imagination’s bitch - that’s my jam.

More often than not, these days, these little projects aren’t obsessions. They’re large spanning things which I devote a small portion of my time each day to, hoping that one day it’ll become something. Learning a new programming language. Finishing that novel. Lifting my weights. Things that I can’t ‘rush’, that I’d just burn out if I tried to burn through.

And I realised today, as I was reflecting on progress made and dreaming of the day I achieved one of these goals, that I once had nothing, no proof, that what I was doing was the right thing. At some point ‘the small steps make the journey’ became a mantra, a belief, a faith, and I started holding myself to that ideal. I birthed a work ethic where there wasn’t whenever my own projects were involved, a determination in place of flights (of fancy or otherwise).

I have something to believe in, outside of myself.

It feels good.

[oldnorth]

18: Fear of Failure

Is it just me, or when you really start to get moving with something do you get struck by this awful unavoidable creeping anxiety that the task/project as a whole is insurmountable, beyond your abilities, and you’re-going-to-fail-ohgawd-ohgawd.

No, actually.

Of course not, it’s rarely just anyone when the sacred words “is it just me” are uttered, but that doesn’t make me feel much better. Beyond the obvious schadenfreude of “hah, now I know I’m not suffering alone”.

It’s a double-edged sword really. On one hand there’s the guilt, the shame for not tackling what you have at hand. On the other, there’s the surety that you’re going to fuck it up somehow. Even if it’s something that countless other people manage (especially perhaps), and even if you’ve achieved comparable or greater things in the past.

You’re a cad for avoiding it, but you’re a screwup anyway, hell you’d probably not even do it right, so let’s just forget about it and go down the pub.

Well no actually.

You’re probably not going to fail. Think about all the times you thought you’d fail, and all the times you did. Even the small instance of times where you actually failed probably amounted to a smaller screw-up (if at all) than the fountain of it you expected.

It’s a battle of procrastination meets self-worth, and I’m sure a common one to boot. There comes a time when you just have to sit and convince yourself, shake off the shackles of distraction - this needs to be done. I can do it. I won’t get distracted. I can do it. I can I can I can can can can can - can’s a funny word isn’t it? You say it enough it just starts sounding like a sound but I suppose all words are just sounds at the end of the day, things we produce with our mouths and actually hold on how do we do that? Save me a seat, I’m off to Google.

Next time maybe.

[oldnorth]

17: Managing Mediocrity

We don’t all kick ass every single day and we don’t all fire at full throttle all day (though don’t you throw that ‘x% of our brains actually being used’ at me, that’s tripe and we all know it).

The tricksy parts of mental illness are as follows. 1) They are tricksy*. 2) They are mental.

-and I don’t mean mental like I, as a Brit, might. I’m certainly not suggesting mental illnesses are like Dave from down the pub who decided to eat a coaster or table mat (depending on your atlantic privilege) on the spur of the moment because he’s ‘mental’.

*not unlike hobbits

No I’m talking about the fact that a mental illness, almost all of them, or at least the ones I know of that are recognised (one day Hulkamania one day), have periods where you’re doing better, doin’ fine, and they decide to hide for a bit.

Utter gits.

By hiding, or giving us a pause, they make it oh so easy to believe that you’re getting better. When you’re not. Do not pass go, do not collect your $200, do not turn Pinocchio into a real boy.

You get a burst of upwards mobility, and since you’re not, in most cases, displaying any physical symptoms (see ‘mental’), everyone around you thinks you’re healed. Which makes the moment whenever your illness is done with it’s coffee break all the more disheartening.

Especially if you are the smort sart; a veteran of the mental illness conflict going back years or decades. You saw that inch, added five, and tried to fuck that illness right back, getting on and starting coping mechanisms and positive health strategies to improve your life. Lack thereof life, where it applies.

Now you’ve got all these pseudo-obligations, things you promised yourself you’d do every day, and you’ve got a nasty little headgoblin on your shoulder again. It’s like an abusive-ex trying to tell you all the positive things you did to better yourself weren’t and aren’t.

Well fuck ‘em all.

Say it with me: “I might not be doing my best, but I am trying and that counts”.

[oldnorth]

16: My Rules for Life

1) Do your own research Don’t trust authority on say so; establish who you should trust and why. Learn about things from multiple POV, even, especially, if the opposing sickens you.

2) Do your research Don’t take things for granted, you’re not infallible, I’m not infallible, none of us are.

3) Walk a minute in other people’s shoes At least. Try to understand where they’re coming from.

4) Don’t forget everything you know is anecdotal Your experience is not universal. Neither is mine.

5) Nobody cares about you Seriously. So stop worrying about that time you did that thing that everyone noticed. No one noticed. We’re all as self-involved as you.

6) The people who do are everything Treasure them. Care about them back; even the stuff that doesn’t matter to you. Especially the stuff that doesn’t matter to you. If it matters to them, it should matter to you.

7) Nobody gets a free pass You don’t have to tolerate people you don’t like. Be selfish. Protect you.

8) You’re worth your value to the world You aren’t a ‘nice person’ because you think it. You’re a nice person if you do nice things.

9) You’re not your job, education, career or appearance You are an infinitely complex and wonderful human being like the rest of us. You have more to offer than your salary, your degree or what you think the mirror shows you. Try not to confuse the things you do with who you are.

10) All the best things are contradictory and nuanced See above.

[oldnorth]

15: Failing with Purpose

I started drinking again, and I’m not entirely sure it’s a bad thing.

Definitely have a problem with drink, though I go back and forth on the scale of it, but there are benefits to it. They don’t outweigh the bad, but they’re useful.

I remembered, remembered back a long time, that I started drinking because it made me feel invincible. Made me feel normal. Crushed the anxiety ghosts and voices, let me live the way I always envisioned in day-to-day fantasy; let me live. Drank and drank and drank so long I even forgot it. Forgot the lurkers living at the back of my mind.

I stopped drinking, quit it because of some bad decisions I’d made, because of some health concerns, and for a year or more it was grand. Then the anxiety came back, then the memories. The me before me, as it were, the shy recluse; the kid that hid, a life behind a screen and round corridor corners. Hiding, shying away, making sure I was not about to trip into anywhere that didn’t explicitly ask for me. Making sure I was always safe. Telling me I wasn’t, even when i was.

So I can kill the anxiety, squash it dead, with the alcohol.

But the alcohol kills me. Makes me less.

Demons or poison.

[oldnorth]

14: Aim Less, not Aimless

So I woke and I walked, half a manuscript in hand. Half a manuscript of a novel I half-wrote, that I halfheartedly always said I was going back to. For two years. Now finally printed, finally in-hand and prepared for sorting, organising. Ready to get back on the hor-des-of-words-ahead and maybe even finish it.

Something changed recently. I stopped holding myself to deadlines and goals, targets with fixed dates and ‘get x done by y’. I used to constantly think “well this needs to be done by this week, so I should have it done by the week before”. The week before would roll around and I’d feel awful for not having done it, knowing full well I still had time. My own deadline, not the one at hand, was the problem. I can only procrastinate whilst I have deadlines in mind.

In my head they still float around, sure, but now I live in a laxer time. I have my goals, and things to do, but they aren’t obligations. When moments free up, usually from whatever hell my head is putting me through that day, I take advantage of those moments to do something. Anything. It doesn’t matter if I didn’t finish that healthcare form today, because I taught myself that code, like I promised I would. The phone call took precedence over the article pitch, but neither were scheduled for today. Nothing was.

By shedding myself of these arbitrary deadlines I used to force myself to adhere to, I’ve removed so much potential for failure. I don’t have to feel aimless, because I’m aiming at less; and in doing so I seem to be achieving more. I’ve completed pressing errands, taught myself code I thought I’d never touch, near finished an article pitch left abandoned for weeks, and, most surprisingly, resurrected my writing.

For when I was without plans, I had only time to do, and when those tasks were tasks no more, I had to find more to do. Slowly I’m working my way through a years-long backlog of stuff I had planned; stuff I had forgotten I had planned. I’m not failing anymore, because I took away my tests. I’m just going forward, all the time.

[oldnorth]

13: But the 12th

Today’s my birthday, and try as I might to avoid it I found myself taking stock of my life, thinking back on ‘wasted months’ spoken of just days ago, and ‘what next’ in breaths shorty after.

I find myself thinking a lot on where I am, and where I could’ve been; resignation snapping at my heels, I find myself thinking, which is peculiar since I could’ve sworn I couldn’t be found.

Someone else’s words, stolen;

“Life is a marathon. Pace yourself. Move at your own speed. Some people will run now and some people will spring; some people will walk now and others later. Some people will stop to pause and others will give up halfway.

Just because you see others run doesn’t mean they aren’t out of breath - and just because you see others walk doesn’t mean they are out of oomph. Sometimes you will have to walk and sometimes you’ll have to push yourself to run. Sometimes you’ll shift between because you want to, and sometimes because you must, but don’t run because of anyone else. Sometimes you’ll have to go slow, and that’s okay. We all have to walk every now and then.”

[oldnorth]

12: I hate my Country

Years ago, when I was a wee pup of barely double-digits, there was a phase in which I’d ask a question; “would you die for your country?”, and I’d ask it time and time again. School was full of stories of ye old’England, and tales of wars fought in decades not too far gone by, my mind was awash with patriotic fantasy of soldiering and pride over the many achievements of England and the UK. I was inflamed by this vision of the UK as a champion, as a place where we did the right thing, fought the right cause and looked after the less than fortunate.

So I’d ask, and I’d ask some more, fascinated to know if people shared this pride, if my friends and family shared this pride.

Ask me now. I’d like my country to die for me.

It’d be easy to say that the hate stems from watching nationalism take over the public stage, from witnessing a government with little mandate push an unwanted agenda on a distracted population. Seeing the NHS crumble, the people filled with vitriol, refugees sent away, public workers mistreated and exploited; it’d be easy to say that turning away from inclusiveness and ‘doing the right thing’ were key to my change of heart, but I don’t think it’d be true. Those things that rankle and itch are not new, not new unless you kept a warped image of Britain in your mind’s eye (and I suppose I have).

It’d be more accurate to say that learning the history of this great and noble country, hearing it from other perspectives and seeing what atrocities we were responsible for, gave me more than a solitary lens to look over my home. Piercing my ignorance on this great and noble country made me realise that it was anything but; that the UK, England especially, is no better than most and worse than many more. It’d be even more accurate than before to say it was probably many things, and I won’t find one that explains it all.

I’d very much like to see the UK live up to the version of it that I keep in my head, but I doubt, I very much doubt, that it will.

Instead I think it’s time I let my fantasy of home die.

[oldnorth]

11: What Next?

It’s been 10 months, and ten days since I first admitted there was a problem. Maybe. It’s been something like that but in truth I didn’t make a note of it, mark the occasion or even really acknowledge it. I just told my partner; “yeah, I think my mental health is getting worse”.

It wasn’t a special day, or a notable one.

I should’ve said “yeah, I think it’s getting worse” when I started cancelling the boardgaming events I ran out of fear of having to be social. I should’ve said “yeah, I think it’s getting worse” when I started hiding and aving panic attacks at work. I should’ve said “yeah, I think it’s getting worse” when I stopped taking my medication.

But I didn’t, I didn’t and I didn’t, and now I’ve written off almost another year. After years of clawing back to where I ‘should be’, and achieving a life stability previously thought fantasy, now I’ve tallied up more lost months. Months spent hiding indoors, on sick leave from work, dancing with suicide and physically ill from mental problems. Months spent seeing medical professionals so frequently they’d even ask about my life.

The first mistake I always make on the recovery hill is thus. I am better therefore I am better.

False. I am having more and more ‘good’ days, but this does not make all my days ‘good’. It takes a few missteps and a few falls before this sinks in usually. Lately though I’m feeling different, renewed. I’m not yet overcoming all my anxieties (still a recluse, still afraid) or going days without sickness (still dark, still lashing out), but theres a handle on my life that wasn’t there before. There’s hygiene and socialisation, passion and obligations; there’s a whirl of all the little things that make up life and I’m actively stirring it.

But now comes the next hurdle.

What next?

I’ve gotten ‘bad’ and I’ve gotten ‘good’ again. I’ve broken my life before, and rebuilt it more times than I can count. Given enough time I’m sure to tumble from the hill once more, and it’s a long way down, even halfway up.

Part of me is afraid to move, try, to keep climbing, incase I fall; part of me is afraid of all the difficulty that comes with making the move to ‘functional’ again. Part of me is just confused. I got here. I kept walking and well, I don’t know how I did, but I must’ve. I’m here.

Now what next?

[oldnorth]

10: Your Security is Redundancy

The two fundamental hacking attacks are brute force attacks and phishing attacks. The former refers to just attempts to guess your password with random guesses or likely phrases, commonly words from the dictionary (I thought we were friends man); the latter to more manipulative attempts to gain your password through a HIE*.

*Human Input Error, aka, tricking yo’dumb ass.

When I was in university a friend of mine, for some shits, but mostly giggles, set up a ghost open-WiFI network (this kids is why you don’t trust open networks) which replaced the Facebook login page with an almost identical phishing page. On entering your details they were logged and sent to him, and you were redirected to the actual Facebook login screen with an ‘error mistyped password’ message. You continued on, unaware, and he had your login information.

Now this guy, whilst you might assume he was up to no good, was just mucking around. He never did a thing with the information he gathered, and deployed the ghost WiFi in relatively limited capacity. It was just a ‘can I actually do this?’ experiment. 

What horrified me however, was his friend’s housemate, who was using the same password for his Facebook, email, building utility, and air miles account/s. In one fell (simple!) swoop all that was accessible. I was horrified because I was much the same; on returning home that night I started changing all my passwords to be unique. No more ‘aaa123’ across the board for me.

Please use an upper-case letter, a lower-case letter, at least one failed dream, two disney characters, your home state and a mathematical theorem when crafting your password.

Things are a bit different nowadays, only a few years removed from my anecdote. Websites actually take password security seriously, and will bombard you with requirements you must meet in order to gain access to their delicious HTML goodness.

The problem is, that a password not easily breakable for a human (shit you used two exclamation marks? I’m out.) is not so for a computer. A brute force attack is going to just keep trying letters, numbers, symbols and words until it finds the right pattern. You can even see how long it’d take a computer to brute force your password online!

A password that is actually secure, or as secure as you’re going to get, is one that is long, easy for you to remember, and unique. Don’t keep using the same password in different places. Use strings of non-dictionary words or phrases which are simple to remember but difficult to guess, and then punctuate them with symbols. Throw down three exclamation marks, really get ‘em.

That’s at least all you can do against brute force attacks - phishing just requires you don’t do dumb things. Don’t connect to open WiFi networks, secure your web traffic, don’t click links from unsolicited emails. Even when trying your best to not be dumb, use unique passwords for your important accounts. Understand that we’re all a little/lot dumb a little/lot of the time.

Hopefully one day online privacy and security will become as commonplace knowledge as real-world ‘lock your damn door’ privacy and security; hopefully one day the public conscious will shift away from ‘overly complex nonsense passwords’ to ‘actually somewhat secure passwords’. Hopefully one day I can stop resetting my accounts every time I want to use them because I forgot the stupidly overly complex nonsense password I wrote randomly.

[oldnorth]

9: Compiler Error Correction

Five years ago I dropped out of university.

I tend not to mention it a lot because I’m ashamed, and because I can’t do anything about it anymore. My course spiked in difficulty and instead of reaching out for help, I sank alone. My identity and self-worth were so wrapped up in my abilities, my intelligence, that it had a catastrophic effect on my sense of self and who I considered myself to be. I stopped attending university. Stopped because I was too heavily depressed to even leave the house, even to see a doctor; the latter of which is the reason I could not years later ‘prove’ I was depressed* and get my student debt written off. On the record I just stopped attending because I stopped attending. On the record I just failed because I did.

*For what it’s worth, years later two doctors, a therapist and a psychiatrist all agreed I had been.

I was a computer science student, and previously a graduate of a business computing diploma before that, but the experience left me fearful of coding. I stopped doing it for fun, stopped talking about it and even started avoiding my friends who were ‘tech-headed’. I didn’t want to be reminded of it.

Some years later I attempted to tackle this fear in now what I realise was a terrible fashion; total immersion. I started a small business as an application developer, got business loans and told everyone what I was doing. I was going to crush it, I knew what I was doing, I could do it. I was going to beat this stupid fear. I could do it.

You’ve probably now surmised what took me a little longer: that I couldn’t.

In the throes of yet another depression borne of yet another failure, it wasn’t unrealistic to believe I’d never code again. I was lucky enough to be born with two passions, and if I had become frozen in the face of walking with the former, I could at least seek solace in my writing.

Then this week something wonderful happened - my housemate turned me onto ‘Code Academy’, an environment he’s using to learn Java without any prior expertise. Always wanted to learn Java m’self. Said as such. Asked if I could learn along with him, and not even sure why the idea popped into my head at the time (bar the drink in my hand).

I’m not about to shill for every website and product I like, but damnit, Code Academy is amazing. I’m starting right at the bottom and finding my feet again. It’s tailored for absolute beginners and it’s just perfect for me right now; I need someone, something, to hold my hand right now. Everything is like an old friend long forgotten though, and I’m progressing swifter than I expected. I’m finding myself eager to do the exercises, and it’s the most full of hope I’ve felt in a long time.

Maybe ultimately it’ll turn out to be nothing. That’ll be okay. I’ve already gotten a lot of joy out of finding the road to coding again is not completely barred.

Maybe, just maybe though, it’ll help me find that passion again.

That’d be everything.

[oldnorth]

8: Feels for the Fat

I’ve put on a stone or two this past year (that’s about 10kg imperial-illiterate folk, you trailblazers you) and with it have come some unexpected psychological quirks. Things I didn’t notice until I started trying to lose that weight.

Food has become something of a vice, a crutch. It’s always been that something, a something I loved, but now there’s a guilt attached. I used to avoid alcohol, and I do still try to moderate my caffeine intake, yet still I’m doing the tango with an addictive personality so apparently I started sating my ‘something in my mouth’ needs (too easy leave it alone) with food. Yesterday, attempting to moderate my intake, I succeeded until something made me sad. Then om-nom-nom-ad-infinitnom.

In addition the attempts to moderate leave me feeling very hungry - even the slightest of adjustments to my intake, moving the bar inches downward, makes my body go into panic (dude we’re not starving if there’s one less sandwich than before - there were too many). Coupled with how heavy I feel just walking around, and the sads come a’knockin’. Easy bait for comfort mechanisms. Sharks preying on my better intentions; when I’m starting to do better in other aspects of my life it’s easy to write off the places where I’m not. It doesn’t matter you’re eating. You did some coding. It doesn’t matter you’re eating more. You did your errands. It doesn’t matter you’re eating again. You did some writing.

I’m trying to be happy in my skin, but I’m not. I’m trying to enjoy food, but I don’t, and I do. That’s a problem. I’m very conflicted on my body at the moment, because I know it’s okay, but it’s not *as okay* as it was before. The little changes over the past year, when I’ve been down and depressed and thinking of *anything else* have left me too uncertain on anxious on a great many things, and now I stand taking stock of where I am this is something that bothers me a lot. I see how people get lost in battles with foods, the feedback loops of positive reinforcement and the negative attitudes that can emerge when you start to think so heavily about them. I see it, and down both paths, I fear it.