This time tomorrow,
I’ll be half asleep enjoying the start of a holiday week off !!! Hurrah. I feel quite beat up at the moment :
General tiredness – After the health issues of the last few years, I still haven’t gotten all of my energy back. It’s there in traces and occasional bouts of hyperactivity but on the whole, I find it tough to summon up the energy to do Stuff. I still battle through and do it but it does take the equivalent of the Big Electric Cattleprod to get me started.
Outsides that don’t like me : this is really frustrating still. I’ve had this condition for … 5 years now ? And even reading back in posts around 3 years old, I feel I’ve been on the cusp of recovery for all that time. But I never get wholly better. More in a bit.
Work stress – work’s ok. But it’s not the technical messing about with fancy bits of kit work that I’d like to be doing. There are other things causing stress which I can never write about here. The people, on the whole, are pretty good still and that’s what’s really important to me. I mirror the people around me, good people make me happy, bad people make me pick up on what makes them bad.
Insides that … need some time to get better. Some bits are good, some bits are bad. I’ve had a few issues over the last little while (I am allergic to hayfever tablets if you can believe that) and they typically need management. That said, the symptom of the hayfever tablet sensitivity has gone (thankfully because it was go-to-doctor scary!). My muscles and bones will appreciate the downtime they’ll have next week.
Outsides ?
I have been steadily improving over the last little while. I have recovered to the point where I think a few clear days or a clear week may see me finally fixed.
But … I’m not getting that clear time.
It is pretty awesome to be back to the point where I can aggressively use the towel after having a shower, instead of being delicate to protect battered skin. Yep. You read that right, my skin has been that tortured. That’s one of the cruel things about a skin condition like mine, like Psoriasis (which isn’t what I have). Keeping it clean definitely helps … because it gets rid of the bad stuff. But it can also make it worse as tortured skin can’t handle the act of being cleaned … or dried.
Apologies for being slightly graphic there – I don’t like to expose what I’ve been living with. It’s my struggle and I really shouldn’t need help with it. To beat it, I need to have more self discipline to not aggravate the damage. The cause is with me and the fix is with me too. To bring other people in would … not help much ? People know I’ve been struggling and that’s enough, I don’t need the special treatment, I do struggle with the energy but I can keep up with the workload.
Other people have it far worse than me. I can see the end of this fight, other people are locked into it.
And I have had a little help with it – someone lovely bought me that Aveeno moisturizer a while ago. I haven’t been using it as much as I should really be but … It has helped. Have slapped on a bit more tonight to see if it helps (it will).
My condition has slipped backwards again somewhat over the last week. It’s a causality loop :
Itches begin.
I attack the itch.
Skin goes on fire from the consequence of me attacking the itch.
In engineering, we call it a positive feedback loop, where the reaction to a control input constantly increases and the system has more and more extreme responses to a stimuli and eventually breaks. I’m not broken any more but I do need to get that feedback back to negative feedback, where the stimuli (the itchies) are gradually damped down to zero. And then I’ll be fixed.
It is good to be getting back to normality. I’ve been away from that for a long time but I am steadily seeing bits of me that were torn up, return to smoothness.
To better things !
But first – if you are struggling with something, remember a few important things :
YOU ARE NOT ALONE !
We all struggle and it gets the better of us sometimes. And that’s ok ! The bad thing to do is not recognise when things are getting the better of you and bottle it in. The way out of it is to clobber a friend, drag them off somewhere secluded, handcuff them to a chair and talk it out with them. If they’re a good friend they’ll listen (and maybe not call the cops after you let them go).
Friends will help. Or you wouldn’t trust them as friends. I have a small number of awesome friends who know how to make me smile. I like to give a little back to the world by seeing if I can make other people smile.
Some friends will help just for hugs. Hugs are awesome.
Find something to look forward to (see below).
It’s a fact of life that we can’t deal with everything that life throws at us and it’s ok to recognise that. We are not invincible or invulnerable. It’s ok to have a little scream, cry or tantrum when life gives you onions. Or was it lemons. Or oranges. Oranges make me struggle to breathe.
The important thing is – keep fighting, keep struggling. Fight one battle at a time. Stay in the game. Positive Mental Attitude can be really tough to maintain, especially if your mind is battling against you (depressives will know what I mean there). But positive attitude is the best way out of a bad situation.
And it’s ok to borrow a bit of positivity from friends.
That’s me too !
I’m exhausted with one more day of work to go before a sleepy week off but I am really looking forward to Sunday. Because that’ll be Comic Con with someone awesome.
It’ll be a long day but her enthusiasm is infectious. You know I mentioned Mirroring people ? I’ll catch that infectious enthusiasm and it’ll make me really enjoy the day. She’s a smart one that one and lots of other adjectives too. She brings out the better sides of me.
I’m looking forward to having a good wander around there too. I suspect a good few things will escape with me and the little lovely one.
Oh I also look forward to the messages that come in from various people too and there are few of those that let me be unguarded me.
LTK from work who is an absolute pro who I can discuss all sorts of things with the LTK.
CK who reminds me that not all people are dumb, he reminds me that Thinking Is Good. And I can talk games with him and Bionic Dwarf (and Luth too but he’s been a bit preoccupied) and all sorts of other historical, philosophy and other subjects that would just bounce off your typical Chav. Oh wait, those thoughts would see a Chav a mile off and run away screaming (I dislike chavs).
Snow Queen who I still chat to occasionally (not enough!). Couldn’t help today but it was good to borrow her knowledge today with something work related.
The Front Door people who I can have fun with, which lightens the strain of getting output from certain people (harder than getting blood out of the stone).
Yep.
Looking forward to Comic Con. It’ll be awesome.
Looking forward to sleep. It has been fleeting lately due to the allergies making me attack myself again.
Dunno about the Tivo box that arrives on Tuesday, I still need to clear 14 hours of recorded stuff before turning off my old TV box for the last time.
Ambivalent about missing the sport for Comic Con. Comic Con massively beats the sport :-).
Looking forward to establishing a Planetbase Pixel People base on the Storm planet. Love that game.
Looking forward to watching SpaceX’s rokkit launch livestream tonight. Starts in 5 minutes from this line.
Looking forward to watching Le Mans and building the Lego Le Mans car, although there’s a little negotiation to do because it clashes with Father’s Day.
Looking forward to adding new music to the library, the last music I added was Enya’s latest (meh) in April.
And looking forward to seeing some Likes and Hits and dare I suggest, a little feedback ? from this post 🙂
I struggle to find the worth in what I post. I know people keep coming back to read new posts but I don’t really know what they are thinking as they read. What would they like to see here ? I know I jump around a fair bit in topics.
Let me know !
I suspect my next post will be a Colour Of Comic Con post, although I am overdue another Alphabet of the Human Heart post.