#i've been struggling real hard with my regular art lately

[vimse]

random cloud paintings i made over the past week

[userpeggycarter]

Hi, I love your blog and the space you've created on here; I'm basically a long time follower, first time asker. I know this is a silly place to ask for advice on things such as this: but I have a hard time around the holidays due to my family circumstances. This year in particular has been more difficult and lonely than the years before, and I feel especially isolated. Do you have any words of wisdom or activities you'd recommend? Even shows/books/movies that may take my mind off things for the rest of the year? Thank you so much!

hi anon,

first of all, i hope you see this because it's a bit late (and for that i apologise, i swear i wasn't ignoring you). second, thank you for considering me in such times, it's wild that my silly little blog might be amusing even useful for somebody and that my advice is something someone might be interested into. and no, it's not silly for you to ask a tumblr user for advice. sometimes it's easier to talk to a stranger. isn't that what therapist is like, a bit?

and i get what you're feeling, in part. i'm a lonely person myself and i struggle with that, but what i've learned is that you got to fight against your loneliness. it's hard, but it's good for you. maybe reach out to friends you don't longer talk (a lot) to or to even friendly acquaintences, you don't know what friendships you might get if you put in the effort. it took a lot time for me to realize that, that friendship is work. i used to think that it blossomed expontaneously and it kinda does, but you also need to put effort in it, like a bean that naturally grows on a cotton ball but only survives in (real) good soil. most of times, that effort needs to be digital because of how lonely (modern) adulthood is and that might be a good or a bad thing for you, i don't know. it's both easier and more difficult at the same time, but it has to be done. even if it's just a little bit everyday, because Rome wasn't build in a day etc.

if that is difficult to you, i would suggest you look into discord servers. for any interest that you have, there's a discord server about it, i promise you. if not a server, maybe community on tumblr. hell, even facebook is useful sometimes, with their specific ass communities. reddit, even! the old internet was for that, to find communities and i don't know about you, but i'm feeling nostalgic.

you mentioned activities and i don't know abot you, but i can't live without a hobby a creative hobby, i might add. regular hobbies are good, but they can depend too much on external factors. if you collect something, you need money to keep your habit, etc. if you don't have any creative hobbies, don't be afraid to suddenly start one. you're gonna suck at it first, but then so does everybody. and the point of a creative hobby is not to be good at it anyway, it's to create. it exists for itself. it eases the mind. i can't meditate for shit, i can't keep my mind blank for a lot of time. but when i'm creating something? the moody part of my brain keeps shut. i'm focused on my thing. it's therapeutic. drawing, giffing, playing, dancing, acting, whatever, art is good for the soul.

for me, i like to make gifs. i used to be big on pixel art, too. and i've messing around with photoshop since i was a kid. (if you can't afford adobe products, don't worry, neither do i hihihi). there are… ways. i also like video and audio editing. photography. drawing. baking. writing. write fanfic, yo. you must like a character a lot. write about them having the best day of their lives, and the worst. write them meeting Joe Biden. go nuts! or write something original. don't think about if it's good or not, just do it. do you only eat food because it is good for you or because you like the feeling? create because of the feeling of creation. it's a natural high. best drug ever.

and lastly… media. reading, watching stuff, listening to stuff. i don't know your taste, but here's advice that works on everybody: go backwards. so you like heist movies, for example. watch old movies of the genre, really old. (i don't know if you're the type to consume old media, if that's the case pardon me and also… maybe try similar foreign media, if you can find any?). read or watch essays about it. find podcasts about your favorite topic, there has to be one. make web weaving posts with your favorite book quotes and art piece. make memes about it (i love specific memes, even the ones i don't fully get).

now, here's a few of my media recommendations: The X Files. again, if you already watched this, pardon me. but if didn't, great. it has 200+ episodes. are all of them great? no, but TXF is like pizza, even bad TXF is good. you like comedy? there is comedy! do you like drama? there is drama! do you like aliens? do you like long character arcs? we have them! do you like procedurals, monster of the week shows? guess what!

still on sci-fi, i would also suggest a show. and another show. and another another show. and a lot of movies too… i'm talking about Star Trek. all of it. is everything good? no. but it's good journey either way. also, it's a long journey, so you'll be busy! and the star trek fandom is one of the best. it's old as balls. it has people of every kind and age. it's a dedicated community. it's also one of the worst fandoms out there, but you learn to distance from the bad crowd. it's like family.

movies… watch foreign movies. (you might need to look on how to pirate them, though). watch old movies. do movie challenges through lists on letterboxd! lists on there are useful, especially if you don't know how to navigate old Hollywood/foreign cinema. if you look trough my reference or resources tag, there are lists of movies on Youtube that you can watch for free. if you can, pay for Mubi, even it's only for a month.

next, comics. not necessarily superhero comics (but that could be a suggestion, too! there'sa lot of it and despite the bad rep, superhero comics can be good!), but comics in general, people don't usually read a lot of those. read Blacksad. Robert Crumb. Ed Brubaker. Will Eisner. Jeff Lemire. Matt Fraction. Alison Bechdel. research genres that you like, there's gotta be a comic about it. look for the Eisner nominees and winners. read the classics, Peanuts, Calvin & Hobbes, Tintin.

it's been a while since i've read a book (kinda going through a mental block at the moment), but my go to choice is always the classics. not just english classics, but world classics too. Gabriel García Marquez. Julio Cortazar. Fernando Pessoa. José Saramago. Jorge Luis Borges. Machado de Assis. read feminist theory and queer theory (NO TERF STUFF). Judith Butler, for example. bell hooks. Audre Lorde. i think that's it? i could go on for longer, but i need to contain myself. and if you want to (and only if you want to), anon, you can talk to me off anon, i would love to talk to you! :)

i hope you get out of your funk soon! and good luck and good vibes for you, whatever your situation is, things will get better, i promise! and happy new year, if we don't talk again until then! ❤️

[pascalina]

The brothers' movie

11/07/2015

They don't use the same last name, but they are siblings. Pedro Pascal (40) the Chilean actor who starred in Game of Thrones and now has a starring role in the Netflix series Narcos, uses his mother's surname because it is easier to pronounce in English. 17 years younger, Lucas Balmaceda Pascal (23), also an actor, debuted in Los 80 and today stars in the TVN series Juana Brava. Here, both talk for the first time about their relationship, their love for cinema and their mutual admiration.

José Pedro Balmaceda Pascal was born in Chile, but a few months later he had to go into exile with his parents and his older sister, Javiera, to Denmark. It was the end of 1975. Thanks to the Rockefeller scholarship granted for his father, the doctor José Balmaceda Riera, a year later they moved to the United States: first they lived in San Antonio, Texas. Life there was just beginning and it was not easy.

Seventeen years later, in 1992, Lucas Balmaceda was born in Orange County, California, into the comfort of a family that was financially in its prime. His dad was at the peak of his career: as a fertility specialist and director of one of the University of California's reproductive health centers. But suddenly they moved back to Chile when Lucas was three years old and his brother Nicolas was eight. The two older ones stayed there. Pedro was already studying drama at Orange County High School of the Arts. Then he went to New York to study theater at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.

After a couple of small appearances in TV series, in 2014 he took the big leap in his career: he played Prince Oberyn in Game of Thrones, which made him world famous. Today, he has a starring role in the series Narcos. He is also filming a movie with Matt Damon and Willem Dafoe.

Fame came early for Lucas. After leaving Saint George High School in 2010, he studied theater at the Universidad Católica, and he began to shine: in year fourth, he starred in the theater play "La noche obstinada", by choreographer Pablo Rotemberg, and got a role in the successful television series Los 80 and today, in his last year, he is the co-star of Juana Brava, the new TVN nighttime series.

Scene one:

Lucas appears in Pedro's life

P: "I was 17 when Lucas was born. He was a baby when I left to go to university. I remember my first visit back and Lucas, who was not even two years old, was already the owner of the house. I remember those looks, wanting to tell me: 'I don't know who you are, but this is my house, mate.

To this day I have never seen that personality in another child. It was fascinating to see that wit in someone so small. Since he was a kid he had that fierce intelligence... The four siblings, Javiera, the eldest and the queen of the family; Nicolas, the doctor; Lucas and I are like a compact and consistent unit. I can't imagine life without them".

L: "Pedro was studying at the university in New York when I was born. When he went home for vacations to see the family, as I didn't know him, I thought: 'who is this guest, who is this weirdo who kisses my mother? She's mine!'. Back in Chile, every year Pedro came to visit us. It was the most entertaining thing in the world for me. He was much older and he would come with all the coolness, with all the culture of cinema, with horror movies that were not available here. Then we would watch them and play them out, we would do sketches. We would play that Pedro was a murderous monster and we would escape from him. We were each a character. He was very funny, he did voices, he impersonated people. He gets mad when I tell him, but I've always found that he has a Jim Carrey thing about him, he manages to make some impressive faces. When he came on, I couldn't stop watching him, he was too entertaining. We are all big movie buffs thanks to my dad. When I was three years old, he took my brothers and me to see Batman. I remember crying hysterically. I was very young, sensitive, and being in the cinema was like entering to another reality: loud noises, giant screen. I didn't understand anything.

Scene two

Transplanted

P: "What's Chilean about me and what's gringo about me is a very interesting question, because I don't think even at 40 years old I've been able to figure it out. I was raised and educated in the United States and socialized a lot with American pop culture, but Chilean pride has always been unwavering. My parents were exiled for eight years. So our visits to Chile were regular. My whole life I have lived in the United States and my whole life I have visited my relatives in Chile. However, since my siblings were raised in Chile, my connection to the country is much stronger today and it is something I am grateful for. Something that happens to me a lot is that when I say I've been in the U.S. my whole life, they say, "Well, you're a gringo then! And after a conversation in my fluent Spanish with a clear Chilean accent that same person turns around and says: I've been listening to you, you're Chilean!

L: "I am Chilean because I lived and grew up here since I was three years old, but at the same time I have a cultural disconnection: my parents lived 25 years in the United States, my brothers are gringos. My visual culture is super gringo, the TV shows I watched when I was a kid or the movies I watch to this day I understand them from that place: as an American. More than being born in the United States, I feel it's because of my family's background".

SCENE THREE:

The performance

P: "There were good years and bad years (when I started my acting career in the United States). Many years I was a waiter to supplement my income. But from a very young age I was auditioning for professional jobs. In my late twenties my career in the theater was relatively consistent. Then, when opportunities in television arose, I was consolidating and it became much easier to pay my expenses. I think that struggle, going through those situations, empowers you a lot and it's one of the things I'm enormously grateful for. And Game of Thrones was an incredible gift. It's the best role I've ever played and they're the best people I've ever worked with."

L: "It's Pedro's fault that I wanted to be an actor. But when I told him I wanted to study theater it was hard for him, more than anything, because he cares about me and studying theater is hard. You have to be very wise and have a super high self-esteem to take care of yourself. Pedro went through many things. If there is an actor who doesn't have contacts in the United States, it's him. Everything he has achieved is because of his work. That's why when people ask me why I don't go to the U.S., it's a resounding no. Being Pedro Pascal's little brother is not going to get me around the corner; I would have to be Tom Cruise's twin to achieve anything. Even so, Pedro had many failed career starts. In 2011, for example, he was offered a starring role in a series called Wonder Woman and it was eventually canceled. That's why, when Games of Thrones came up, I was like, wow! We were all freaking out, because Games of Thrones is like a worldwide trending topic. All the episodes he was in, we were all watching them together at my house, eating pizza or sushi."

SCENE FOUR:

Mutual lessons

P: "I try not to get too involved in anything Lucas does or how he does it. He has single-handedly created each of his experiences and is one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen. He loves his work and is continually developing his skills for television and theater, and eventually film. He executes like a real artist and, to be honest, it is more common for me to learn something from him than for him to learn something from me. I mean that very sincerely. Lucas reminds me to work hard and keeps me inspired. When I saw him in Los 80 I was incredibly proud, but not surprised. I was seeing something I had always known. The only advice I've given him is to not be such a workaholic, to take care of himself and to be proud of what he's accomplished and what he still has yet to accomplish. Deep down, I'm always going to be the protective big brother."

L: "Pedro is an object of admiration for me. What he says is law for me. Sometimes I ask him: 'Pedro, did you see that movie?' and he says: 'Yes, I didn't like it'. I tell him: 'Oh, I didn't like it either'. The nice thing about our relationship is that it happens so sporadically, once or twice a year, that the moments when we see each other are very intense. We either fight a lot or we love each other too much, but it's always like a story, like a movie. While he's there and I'm here, we talk a lot on WhatsApp and Facebook".

P: "With Lucas we always keep each other up to date on what movies to watch, what TV shows are good. I bug him all the time asking him about what's going on in his life and I'm always asking him about his perspective on things. Despite being away from each other for a long time, Lucas and I are very close and always have been. I see Lucas at the beginning of an amazing career, with an unwavering curiosity and passion. I love it when he confides in me about things he is enjoying or situations he is dealing with."

L: "I've never seen Pedro in theater, but I've been told he's tremendous. On camera, I find that he has a very intense look. He also has, and in that we are very similar, a very strong visual culture, the fact that we have always liked horror movies. He plays characters that hide something, dark characters. A great strength is that he is very sensual, he knows how to handle himself well from seduction".

P: "Lucas is brave, he's fearless. There's nothing he's not willing to try, he's never going to give up on a challenge, he's never going to leave something halfway, no matter what that means to him. Lucas is unstoppable.

Link interview

[alightwhendarknessfell]

I'm sorry I'm even asking you this, but I've reached a point in my life where I'm just sort of lost and don't know where else to go. I've been diagnosed with add when I was around 7 or 8 and have never felt like the diagnosis fit me. I just never find both memes and other people with adhd to be even remotely relatable in regards of how they experience their diagnosis. I even took ritalin for a month when I was around 9 or 10 and it was the worst thing ever for me. But now I'm 23 and at uni 1/x

and just cannot seem to be able to focus on anything and I think it might be my depression and anxiety, since I usually have no trouble focusing on anything really. That being said, I cannot seem to focus on anything and my performance is drastically dropping. The next available place at a psychologist/psychiatrist is around may or june, but that will be too late to save this semester. I know you’re not a healthcare professional, and I definitely don’t want to ask you for a diagnosis or 2/x

medical advice or anything along those lines, but do you maybe have some input on what might work to maybe help me focus on the work I have to do? I’m just really lost and don’t know what to do right now. Also sorry for spaming your inbox and thank you for listening (even though you have no real choice here haha sorry) 3/3

Reply: I’m so sorry you’re going through that, I feel for you so much. ADHD/ADD can present differently in different people, and even varies based on sex/age. However, most of the time even if someone is diagnosed as a kid with ADHD they require a new diagnosis in adulthood. It is possible you were misdiagnosed as a kid or ADHD is not what is causing your problems now. Unfortunately, the wait times to get into a psychiatrist are normally pretty long like you said. Here’s what I would suggest you try and do while you wait to get in to see a psychiatrist (and obviously, like you said I’m not a health care provider/doctor so this is coming from my own personal experience and my limited knowledge of mental illness, and obviously is not a substitute for that.)

Most schools have free psychological services for students. They can normally get you in quickly to see a therapist or student health provider. They can also help you with contacting the right people at your school about your performance.  This is a good first step because they will be able to quickly help you. 

It’s possible that you could be dealing with depression/anxiety both of which can cause a lack of focus and difficulty in school. This could be in combination with ADHD or not, that’s something your doctor would have to diagnose. 

ADHD/ADD can present in many ways, not everyone has trouble focusing as their main symptom. 

Ritalin is only one treatment option for ADHD. Drugs work differently for adults than they do children so you may want to speak to your doctor about other options (Adderall, Vyvanse, Mydayis, Concerta, Strattera, etc.) I found that the right ADHD medication actually greatly improved my anxiety but it took a lot of trial and error. There are stimulants and non-stimulant options available. It is also possible to add an anti-depressant/anti-anxiety to your medications. Talk to your doctor about what you’ve tried in the past and what they might suggest. 

Reach out to family/friends and let them know you’re struggling. This is one of the biggest things because depression can get really dark, really fast. If you are at all afraid that you may hurt yourself or others, please seek help immediately. There is no shame in reaching out for help. 

For your schoolwork, it might be possible to get temporary accommodations for testing or extensions on due dates. That would be coordinated through your school’s disability office. Student health should be able to give you information on that. 

Talk to your professors if you feel comfortable doing so, you’d be surprised how many might be willing to give you an extension on due dates or let you re-do something you didn’t do well on. Explain to them your situation, the worst that can happen is they say no. When I was going through a hard time my junior year of college all my professors were very good about letting me have more time on assignments or forgiving tardiness/absences. 

If worse comes to worst, most universities allow students to do a ‘medical withdraw’, talk with your advisor/student services about that but basically, you can withdraw from the semester (and save your GPA) due to mental/physical health problems. It might put you behind on graduation by a semester but I had a friend who did that and she ended up being just fine. The most important thing is your mental and physical well-being. Schoolwork can be made up or done later. 

Make an appointment as early as you can with the psychiatrist, your regular doctor/student health might be able to prescribe you medication in the meantime so make an appointment with your regular doctor too. You can also ask for the psychiatric office to contact you if they have any cancellations and could get you in sooner. 

As far as other things you can do, try to get enough sleep; at least 7-8 hours, if you can go outside and be active (jogging, walking, etc). Physical activity and sunlight do help anxiety/depression. Make sure you’re eating enough and getting proper nutrients, cut down on caffeine/energy drinks/coffee to help anxiety, practice some mindfulness/meditation/yoga if you find that helpful, do something that makes you feel good whether that’s art, talking to friends, writing, reading, etc. 

The biggest piece of advice is to give yourself permission to ‘not be okay’. If you’re not performing your best in school that is okay, it’s okay to focus on your health right now. Do not guilt yourself for not being on your ‘A’ game. The past year has been incredibly hard with COVID, lock-downs, and sociopolitical instability. We’ve experienced a very traumatizing year and you’re not alone in struggling with mental health. 

I hope that helps, and I’m sending you tons of love and support. I hope you’re able to see someone soon who can help you with what you’re going through. <3 

[not-poignant]

This might be a little personal but do you have any tips on how to deal with bad days? I've been struggling with depressive episodes lately being so tired I can't get shit done.

Hiya anon,

Depressive episodes area the worst. I don’t know if I have any real tips, since the thing that helped me most with my depressive episodes were an effective anti-depressant (and I struggled for like 20 years for one of those, since most anti-depressants are ineffective when I take them). And then therapy. And obviously both of those things aren’t actually possible to access for everyone. (And caveat that if you’re feeling suicidal in an actionable way, please call a helpline / hospital or similar, because you shouldn’t have to deal with that level of anguish alone and without professionals).

(Content warning for under the read more: aside from frank discussion of depression and suicidal ideation, I also mention self-harm briefly).

Otherwise... idk, I’ve actually been doing a Chronic Conditions management course lately, over the past few months. And it’s been pretty helpful when looking at the psychological effects of living with chronic illnesses (basically people who have chronic illnesses are way more likely to have anxiety and/or depression, but obviously trying to deal with either of those things when you have chronic illnesses in the first place is really hard).

One of the things I found really interesting, were the underarousal/overarousal cycle, which none of my doctors had ever taught me about before. Underarousal, which leads to depression and depressive episodes is a self fulfilling cycle. Meaning that, if you don’t gently do the opposite of ‘nothing’ you will eventually just get worse and worse. It doesn’t tend to just go away on its own.

However most people think the opposite of nothing is like... too much. Even if they plan for nice things, it’s still too much.

This course has been pretty clear that you have to start small, like... try and do a pleasurable thing a day. That pleasurable thing could be making a cup of tea. That’s it. Not like, writing a book, or making music, or whatever. Just...make some tea. Or coffee. Get up and boil a kettle and put some stuff in it and go lie down again and sip at it and focus on its warmth in your hands and the way it tastes and how it feels to know you did that for yourself. Just...try and do a pleasurable thing every day. It doesn’t even have to feel pleasurable in the moment, it just has to be something that you would have experienced as pleasurable pre-depression.

And if you’re feeling especially daring, try three pleasurable things a day. A whole three!

Anyway, this is just one method of a thousand, but what was most radical to me about it, was that these professors and so forth who are running the course made sure that in an underarousal/depressive cycle, the emphasis is on pleasurable activities and not just ‘activities’ (they do suggest light physical activity at some point, but reiterate over and over again that too many people tend to do too much too soon, and the most important thing is to start little, and to be as consistent as possible, and also patient with yourself when it’s not consistent and to keep trying).

The other thing they suggest is a list of pleasurable things for good days, and a list of pleasurable things for bad days (that shouldn’t have been as shocking to me as it is, but I’d never actually considered this before). So on good days, writing 1000 words, making a playlist, going for a walk, all things I can manage. On bad days, none of them are: but I can probably make a single cup of tea, I might be able to shower, and there’s a chance I can sit outside with an apple and eat it. And telling myself I’m doing these things to help myself feel better again, is actually way more helpful than just making myself a cup of tea mindlessly and not thinking about it.

I mean you don’t feel like doing anything, anon, I feel that, but you took the time to write this message. That’s a big deal. Tbh, it’s one of the things that would count as a valid ‘activity’ in this course. And it would count as a big thing, and not a small one.

As for me, idk, I have like... a vague list of things I like to do when I’m depressed, or things are bad. And also a list of things I try not to indulge. My list might not help you, but I do know that...trying to stick to a regular sleep schedule for me was important, because I have quite severe hypersomnia alternating with insomnia, meaning I can sleep a lot all the time, and then not at all, all the time. And it fucks me up. So now I try and wake up at 9.00am every morning regardless, and then nap once in the afternoon (my chronic illnesses won’t let me stay awake for a while day). Scheduling the nap helps because it gives me something to look forward to if I’m having a ‘tired day.’

Other things are like...trying to get out of my head a bit. I do some OBOD study (Druidry study) because researching about magic and nature sometimes gives me tiny bursts of energy that allow me to think ‘maybe life isn’t so bad’ (i.e. that’s what I do with that tiny burst of energy but sometimes that’s enough lol). I might do some art. I play Stardew Valley a lot - when I wore a Fitbit, that game was the only thing guaranteed to drop my heartrate down by about a consistent 15-20 beats per minute. So it relaxes me and still engages my brain.

Also, for me now, I’m...trying to become more zen about the fact that depression and illness take time. That fixing them is not about a single event you do that feels good, but about hundreds of those events over time. And about maintaining them during the good times. And that’s really hard. I got really close last year to doing some really stupid things to myself (and I already self-harm, so I’m not including that) and coming out of that sort of changed me and the way I think about myself, since I’d always identified strongly as like ‘a person with PTSD’ and that was the first time it was like no, I’m a person with PTSD who has major depressive episodes that need separate, emergency treatment.

Since then, I’ve kind of felt lucky to both a) be alive and b) keep trying to find small things to keep me going (and a year later, feel tentatively strong enough to start ‘scheduled’ work again). I now try and think of it this way: a bad day isn’t actually a bad thing. It’s a normal product of my illness. That’s all it is. I can attach the word ‘bad’ to it and somehow feel guilty I ‘didn’t do enough’ but that’s as absurd and irrational as a person with damaged lungs feeling guilty that their good days didn’t heal their damaged lungs. No, my brain will always be broken, to a point, even with chemical help. My ‘energy’ or ‘good mental health’ days will not heal my brain chemistry. So...now I call them ‘tired days’ or ‘sad days.’ Or I’m trying to, I forget all the time.

Tired days aren’t bad, they’re just there. The most important thing I can do is try not to let them run roughly over my routines, and destroy everything I’ve set up for myself to survive in the first place. So you know - a list of things I can maybe manage on tired days. A care plan. People I can contact (even though I probably won’t). Reminding myself gently that it says nothing about my worth as a person even as I feel I have no worth as a person, even that, itself, is just part of the ‘bad day.’ It’s a symptom of my illness. And then also putting in place a list of things to do for yourself on good days, and I don’t mean like ‘shopping’ or whatever (though those things are important) ->

I mean...if you don’t have energy to maintain your self-worth on the worst days, make a point of spending about 5-10 minutes maintaining your self-worth on the good days, when you have more energy to sustain it. On the good days, take some minutes here and there to look at your care plan, your support network, and see what you might be able to use on the worst days, and what you know you can’t. the worst time to be doing it - that’s the time when I already needed it there to lean on. Like, it will always help more to do that hard work mentally on the days when you have the energy to put things in place for yourself.

And those things might sound easy or simple to people who don’t have depressive episodes and find it easy to snap themselves out of it by like, idk, listening to a cheerful song or something, but anyone who has them knows how hard it is to put these things in place. And I have so much sympathy for that. I wish I could box up some energy and self-care and hope and give it to you anon. The only way I know through this is the slow and steady and not very linear way. Time has helped a lot, and a philosophy of ‘gentleness’ alongside ‘gentle structure.’ (I.e. my alarm in the morning to get me up, but also the gentleness to let myself sleep in 20 minutes).

But something I do know, that gives me hope, is that even with all of this going on, anon, you reached out to someone. You’re still trying on your bad days. You did at least one ‘activity’ that was designed to help you. And that is the very thing - with time, and accumulative effects - that will help you with your depressive episode. It just...unfortunately in the moment, doesn’t lift a person out of a bad day. I wish I did. I mean I really wish it did.

Yeah, I wish I had better answers? Ultimately depression is a whole lot of suffering and almost no energy to deal with that suffering, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But I have faith in you, anon. *offers hugs and a blanket fort*