Unfortunately some real life stuff is a major contributor & my GP can't help with that. I'm titrating on ADHD meds & that has been a mixed bag. I feel like my current dose is too high

I suppose I share these things partly because of a policy of openness about wellbeing & mental health, partly in the hope that honesty helps others in some small way, & partly in the hope that articulating it somehow releases some of the terrible heaviness & fear that's weighing me down.

Very much hoping that one day I look back on this time & think 'oh man, that was hard. I wish I'd known I'd get to a better place & that I'd be ok.' Right now that feels like very wishful thinking, & I feel, honestly, scared, lost & deeply inadequate. But such is life, sometimes.

Well done! Glad it's helped you

I've never worn active noise cancelling headphones, only ear defenders

Ok so having asked this I know that cold showers is one that used to help me that I've somehow forgotten. I tried lying under a weighted blanket for half an hour today but it didn't make a dent

Obviously lots of rest is good in the long run, but I mean when you don't have a lot of time & you need an emergency sticking plaster to get you through

Go to Washington Square Park & play against some chess hustlers. You can basically pay for a quick lesson & watch others play & be reminded that chess isn't all very slow, silent people stroking their chins

I think not intrinsically, just sometimes on social media people can read off posts not for their face meaning, but for an intent to present oneself in a certain way. I'm probably overthinking it. I just feel a bit more exposed when I say things sincerely vs snarky ironic jokes

It was ok in the end! I think I had spent so much effort trying to look like a normal competent grown up who belonged there it was just too much

I messed up the forms for the boxes I wanted when I went & when they told me I started crying & looked so pathetic they sorted it out for me while I had some cake downstairs

I hope that people who somewhat knew me then & somewhat know me now detect something resembling growth.

I still enjoy the occasional inappropriate joke during bleak times - risky, but it can remind you that there's more to life than loss & stress & grief. But I think years ago, when I still drank, I made that pseudo edgy iconoclastic posturing my whole personality, in an attempt to not feel anything.

Even the worst day has a best moment. No feeling is forever. These feel to me like rather trite truisms until I'm flailing to last the next hour, or someone I love is in pain. Then I find I need simple anchoring stuff to hold me in place, & wry artful cleverness doesn't seem so brilliant.

Sort of have neither, but they're so so good that I want to find a way round that!

Does this mean I have to make a batch of korvapuusti?

Mario got round this by making clear that when Bowser is dropped into lava from the castle bridge, he is merely horribly skeletonised & becomes undead rather than dying permanently. & he can have his flesh restored with a magic cauldron

I know what you mean, but I feel like even that framing - that there is a monster 'out there' separate from the rest of humanity - is a form of protective distancing. I don't think acknowledging our capacity for harm is the same as 'oh man I'm going to practise my Joker monologue in the mirror'