#i haven't had a haircut since like early february

[esoomris]

i need a haircut so bad but scheduling appointments difficult

[dzpenumbra]

12/22/22

That's a lot of two's.

Today was pretty good. I woke up early because the upstairs neighbors were like right above me, I'm pretty sure they have a couch or a table there or something, I hear them clear as day right there most days. To be fair, it's usually like 11AM or later when I hear them, and they have to listen to my shower music probably, so whatever. It wasn't them that woke me up, actually, they just kept me from going back to sleep. Vivid dreams woke me up. Not bad ones either. But I haven't been logging them.

I miss logging my dreams, and I've had vivid dreams like every night since I've been here. Hmm... Maybe that's a new project I can jump into. Like I need a new project, I have like 20.

Hung out with kitty, started the day. I spent a good chunk of the day sanding stones, that was pretty cool. There was a sandstone-ish kinda piece, got that basically shaped... somewhat. And I found a rough piece of amethyst which I got started on, I'm really excited to finalize these amethysts, it's one of my favorites.

I made cinnamon rolls. Good call.

I called the doctors to get set up with a Primary Care. While eating an apple. And I'm blaming my long on-hold times on that, because it's funny. The soonest I could get an intake appointment was February 6th at 8:15AM. And that was a month and a half earlier than the branch a few blocks from my house. So... my plan is likely gonna be to pull an all-nighter and do that. After the intake appointment, she said I can transfer doctors over to the branch by my place. Gotta weed out the drug seekers somehow, I guess? I don't know, maybe they're short-staffed or something.

So yeah, once that's up and running and I have a doctor, I can talk to someone about this bacterial infection that I've had for over a year that didn't go away when I took two kinds of antibiotics. And request my ADHD screening, which is the primary reason why I'm doing all this. But I mean, it's good to have a Primary Care anyway, right? I haven't had one in... like 8 years or something? My Primary Care decided to move to upper management and literally just fucking dumped me. Like... no setting me up with another doctor, nothing. Just... swingin in the breeze. So... I've just... not had a doctor for almost 10 years. So, this is a change.

So yeah, good progress on work and life stuff. Did yoga, it was good again, becoming very routine. Gave myself a haircut. The person on r/ptsd thanked me for my comment yesterday and said they could really relate to what I was saying and they were really frustrated that they couldn't just smoke to relax and get away from their bullshit like apparently a lot of people can. I unloaded a few suggestions for them. That journaling pairs really well with weed (for me at least) as far as like... doing self-care work goes. Doing therapy work. But if you're looking to chill... well... doing that work can help you get more chillness in the future. But in the moment, it can be super intense. So... I recommended a few remedies to find chill now, while the weed/journaling combo goes to work trying to unravel those anxieties and bring a more general sense of ease.

It sucks, because I completely know why people fall into addiction coping mechanisms and all that. Distractions. Escapes. Like... good lord, in a lot of ways I'm jealous of people who can come home and just drink and their brain just turns off and they just... evade their demons. I know, I get there's a massive price to pay for it, which is the biggest reason why I can't really bring myself to even try anymore. But like... I don't think I can even get close to turning my feelings off. Even on herculean doses of prescribed Xanax I had emotional overwhelm. I remember pain pills came close when I experimented in college. Like I would feel super warm and cozy and curl up on the floor on pillows with a comforter over me and play Xbox, and the only emotion was like... stillness and relaxed. And that was nice, I can see why people would want that. But... like... you know you gotta go back, right? Right, addicts? You know you gotta go back sometime... You know you gotta leave the bar eventually. You know you're gonna come down. And I learned that shit super fucking young. Like 20. I was like... "oh this is a really nice vacation, but like... I gotta work on making my default setting closer to this." I wish it were that simple, but I really hope more people can get there in time, myself included obviously.

How the fuck did I get on drug addiction? Oh, the r/ptsd thing. Yeah, so it's weird... when a "drug" doesn't do for you what it does for people on TV. When it doesn't make you just get squinty eyed and giggly and wolfing down Cheetos. When it actually unlocks all your shit and makes you run through a 4 hour emotional/anxious obstacle course. Like a fucking Ayahuasca spirit journey. It makes other drugs start to look more appealing. But really, I think the big problem there is like... what the person needs is a good social network to work through those. The catharsis after the freakout can be phenomenally refreshing, especially when it's not a long freakout. It can be healing. I don't know, I don't feel really qualified to speak on this too deep, though I've done a great job breaking addictions and dependencies alone. But I let this person know that there's sort of a two pronged approach to dealing with trauma - in my current practices - engaging it with therapeutic work in a deliberate environment, and making time to take care of yourself and recover from emotional overwhelm and stuff. Self-work and self-care. Technically they're both self-care, but like... yeah. You kind have to use them at different times, in different mindsets. I have trouble articulating this kinda stuff without using examples, but I hope the gist is getting across. If you've had a shit day and are recovering from a flashback or something, go take a bath, go pamper yourself. If you're having a freakout and you don't know why, and have some extra emotional bandwidth to work with, give journaling a shot to try to unravel that a bit, make sense of it.

I'm done talking about that, I feel myself repeating over and over. I skipped skating today. I... went back and forth on it for a while. I'm not really sure why I tapped out. I just did. Maybe I'm feeling anxious, maybe I don't want to push myself too hard. I don't know. But I skipped. The rest of the night was a late shower, dinner, laundry and just watching Twitch. Which often feels like it's more stressful to watch than anything, I say that literally every time I get back into it. But it simulates social interaction, so it's a really alluring substitute for being around people. And coming to terms with not having social contact until like... the 28th I think? 29th maybe? That's a tough pill to swallow. Especially during the holidays. So. Yeah. Maybe I'll stream or something, I'll see, I've been tossing the idea around.

So yeah, I got some shit done which was cool. Now I'm gonna try to get to bed before 2:30, which would be cool. Let's see what tomorrow has in store, shall we?