There's certain states of mind which are self-perpetuating. Whether that's a good thing is entirely dependent on if it's a good state of mind. The high-energy states tend to collapse on their own after a while. It's not sustainable in the medium-term.
It's the low-energy ones which get me. Here's two particularly pernicious ones I do my best to catch.
The first is heavy lethargy. It's a tricky one because I constantly misdiagnosis it as standard flavors of tired, then attempt to fix it with more rest but end up more lethargic than I was before. In the worst case, I can get stuck in a cycle of rest and bare minimum life maintenance for a couple days before realizing where I've gone wrong.
There's a simple giveaway though, it's caused by too much sleep and not enough movement, the exact opposite of normal kinds of tired. A quick check of mental records or a tracker easily surfaces the discrepancy. A long walk or other exercise will clear it up in no time and I can get back to enjoying doing things.
The second is a frankly stupid one, but it gets me at my worst. Here's the scenario. I get sick, and have some sort of medication to take regularly. I feel sick and awful, so I don't work up the energy to have a meal first, or am too absent-minded to remember. I feel more sick and awful from taking medication on an empty stomach, but misunderstand it as the illness getting worse. When the time comes for the next dose I'm even less inclined to eat, but make sure to take my medication on time to take care of my clearly worsening illness. Repeat 2-5 more cycles (about 24 hours) before the cause becomes apparent.
At least this also has an easy giveaway. The majority of the pain disappears as soon as I eat, and I will eat eventually. Once I escape the cycle once the horror of potentially experiencing it again is sufficient motivation stops me from making the same mistake until I recover, but the memory fades with time.
So there's a new rule when I'm sick. I can eat less if I'm not feeling up to it, but I must eat often. I'm may not feel like eating when it's time for medication, but I must have eaten recently. There's always room for a bit of hot soup in there.
- Rew
Nightly Notes
Don't mind all the hyperlinks, I needed some way to organize what I've written before in relation to what I'm trying to write now and it happens to be the easiest way to maintain awareness of it during the process. I hadn't realized how much my physical state was impacting me either.
Putting this together surprised me like partial refills did. I'm less surprised that physical health would come up so often, but very surprised at the specificity of it. That's the fun of a daily blog, isn't it. You make up for the reduction in quality with volume, and thus refinement and pattern-matching potential.
That's the theory at least. Maybe in another six months I'll be convinced of the practice.
- Rew