*Trigger Warning: self-harm The power of procrastination is so awesome that even though I have been without Internet access for several hours and I have things that I think I want to do, I have spent that time lying on top of my bed thinking about how I would do all the things I want to do if I were to do them. Very productive. I think that the ideas I have are worth so much more in my head, I can fetishize every negative feeling and pretend that it makes me special or interesting in some way. But when the thoughts become words that I type out and read back, I realise how banal everything about me is. That's probably the real reason writing blog posts and writing in my journal gets a little harder every time. Here is a quick list of the things I should be doing right now: On Tuesday I had a very intense dream that was terrifying enough to make me feel slightly separate from my body all week. Even now, everything feels a little unreal and abnormal; I haven't stopped
Since not everyone who suffers from depression has what it takes to take their own lives, they come to the following conclusion: they had better get better or die trying, because the rest of the world does not run on depression time- pain time-but conducts its business on happy time, whether or not that happiness is honestly felt or pure pretense
--Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race
A while ago I discovered Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and I figured it was a good fit for me. But I am lazy, so I basically skimmed everything I could find on the subject and developed my own sort of bastardized version of it. Basically, I have been forcing myself to do things I don't really feel like doing(writing this post, for instance) in an effort to KEEP MOVING. It is exhausting, but surprisingly effective for things like studying and working. I don't think about finding pleasure in work anymore since I barely remember what that was like and I figured that a lot of people feel like their work is a chore, so it's not so strange. I keep going because I have no choice, not really.
This morning I had a dream that really upset me. I still remember being in the dream and thinking that this is what the ninth circle of hell must be like. When I woke up, it was the usual business of my heart racing and my chest physically hurting; but as soon as I woke up, I instinctively started doing what I needed to do to KEEP MOVING. It was mostly affective(tea, distractions and more sleep). But somewhere during all this "moving on", I had a moment when I thought about how fucked up this was. This dream had devastated me, even though I could KEEP MOVING. I had all my most carefully buried disappointments and fears brought to life to dance before my eyes for what felt like an eternity and here I was watching YouTube videos and acting like it was nothing.
Trying to push past the pain is pretty much the only move I have now until some totally mundane tragedy comes along and puts me out of my misery. I think there are worse ways to live and I can't honestly deny the efficacy of ACTing. Maybe over time the moments of stopping to think about how weird it is will grow rarer. It doesn't really matter if they don't, I already have several protocols in place to KEEP MOVING.
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