A rough month

November was a really mixed month: here's the last three weeks of it.

☑ weekly planner accountability check-in x2 Really pretty art in November, even if it forces me to dig out a white gel pen to be able to read things. pic.twitter.com/MCPVHZWr9z

— sassa @ davesprite literature club (@AWildSassaApprs) November 26, 2019

Might as well do my ☑ weekly planner accountability check-in post while I'm here! pic.twitter.com/6hBk9h4Ku5

— sassa @ davesprite literature club (@AWildSassaApprs) December 2, 2019

Had my first panic attack in ages, and been struggling with a lot of self-doubt and ADD nipping at my brain at every turn. Hard to focus and hard to keep myself moving forward. This may sound like I'm disheartened, but I'm not - I know I can work through this. But I also want to acknowledge the fact that I'm struggling - ignoring it and pretending that everything is going great would only do me a disservice.

It's honestly a huge thing for me to be able to see that I'm struggling and talk about it honestly, rather than just trying to buck myself up and keep going. I mean, obviously I want to keep going, but so often the process of cheering myself up involves basically finding ways to numb my fears or pretend they don't exist, looking sidelong at them while continuing to plaster on a smile. Whereas being able to come here today and just acknowledge I'm struggling, and be okay with the feeling... that's a difficult thing for me to do. But, like. It's progress. So, woo. Progress.

But I am telling myself (and hoping it is true) that if I just keep pushing ahead (while not looking away from my problems) and keep chipping away at my goals, eventually I'll get out of the rut I started to fall into towards mid-November.

I know it's a fear-based rut, along with a few additional things. I'm not quite sure how to pull myself out of it, but until I hit on the thing that shakes the cobwebs out of my brain, I'll keep doing little things to chip away at it.

Hhh... actually I should mention I've been gaming basically every evening for the last two weeks, from about 10pm (when my partner goes to sleep so I have the house/TV to myself) to, on average, 2am. Light night, 3:30am. Even though I'm sleeping in, I'm being woken up in the morning by K getting ready for work and just... not keeping the same schedule as everyone else. Even though in my soul I'm a night owl, we live, as they say, in a Society, and keeping these hours is probably throwing me out of whack.

But why did I start? Probably because it's a comfort food... it's an RPG (The Outer Worlds) and slowly seeing my stats increase, helping NPCs and checking off sidequests is a very calming, restorative experience for me. Basically, I feel lacking in self care and nurture and all those relax-y type things, and I'm filling those needs with 4-6 hour late night gaming sessions.

But... as well as my fears of failure pushing back against me, and my ADD... probably the excess gaming/disrupted sleep cycle isn't helping. So... I really don't want to, but I think I have to commit to not doing those long nights at least for a few weeks. Maybe slowly dial it back, seetting a reminder at midnight to stop? I think so long as I go to bed by 11pm it's not too bad, and certainly would probably be better for me than 2-4am.

Sigh... I don't want to though... the comfort has been nice. It's been a rough month for having to support other people emotionally and care for an unwell cat... so I really need that self-care and nurturing. I just need to make more time for it during respectable hours...