I could characterize the past year or so of my life as being entirely miserable. The more I learn, the more I realize that this wasn't just some deep seated psychosomaticism but rather my body's natural reaction to the constant neglect that it had been receiving by every force on Earth.
It began with my hearing loss-- actually a dry earwax blockage down to the drum in my left-- giving me horrible vertigo for the first fortnight of its ail and made any social situation or lecture follow with extreme fatigue and confusion. I had just learned to live with it. Then it cleared itself after a year's time, and the same problem went to my right. Yes, I had been living with curable "hearing loss" for a year+ straight. I finally had both of my ear canals cleaned completely as of recent, the blockage in question taking 3 separate attempts to get out. Night and day. My sense of spatial awareness returned, I could finally single out conversations in a crowd of many others, and the music I listened to began to resonate in ways that felt unknown. It was like I forgot what I was missing.
More of a chronic issue then something "imposed", my gut was especially killing me, accentuated by the fact that I could not burp or vomit or swallow pills or do any of that. When I say this shit knocked me out in every sense of the word, I mean it. It was torture after eating, it was torture after drinking something carbonated and, even if I just opted for water instead, it was torture then. Perpetual bloat. It suppressed my appetite, so often times I would be lethargic and running on fumes without knowing. It suppressed my ability to move effectively sometimes as well. Miraculously, I was still able to maintain my hellish cardio routine, but that wasn't without stomach pain and shortness of breath periodically. It also effected my mind, but we'll have time for that later. I had performed some pharyngeal exercises over a month and a half span (and still do now out of fear) in order to regain my ability to do all of that stuff I mentioned earlier. By the time I gained the ability to swallow pills, I began taking anti-bloat capsules (it's like ginger dandelion and fennel if you're wondering) daily. It was like I forgot what I was missing.
Something that's a given for my bloodline are chronic allergies. It doesn't matter where I am in the world since they'll come for me for eventually, "they" being dust and pollen. On walks outside, often times my eyes would begin to tear up uncontrollably no more than 5 minutes in and my nose would run with snot. Inside, it was uncontrollably stuffy. You could clear it up via saline spray and the likes, but it'd still feel stuffy due to the inflammation that those antigens produce via entering through your nose. Inflammation which, surprisingly, can make its way to your brain's ability to function. As the final "leg" of these problems, I decided to begin dusting my room regularly and taking an antihistamine daily. I'm about a week in. Holy shit. I never even knew what I was missing. Maybe I can REALLY feel happy with myself again.
It goes without saying that I think I was substantially happier when I was younger. You could easily chalk this up as nostalgia talking, but you can't tell me that someone with MDD and a crippling addiction to Touhou porn wasn't possibly happier when they were, say 12, as opposed to when they have to take engineering classes when their entire body seems to have betrayed them suddenly. Anyways, when I speak about happiness I conflate it moreso with clarity since I've kind of accepted the fact that none of us will really reach the traditional idea of happiness. I know I wasn't really "happy" like that then, but I sure as hell had some clarity. I could wake up in the morning and like, actually do shit. I could go to school, do my work on time, go on the internet, fuck around on the internet, all without this feeling of constant disassociation and air of forgetfulness. I know for certain know that I wasn't deluding of something that just didn't exist, and that the responsibility was all on me-- it actually is, in a sense-- but it was the gestalt of my immunal problems which prevented me from being able to uphold it. This is all great, but being able to single out the things which were stopping me from doing more than what I could truly accomplish regardless of my disposition has led me to begun asking some more questions.
This was a case of collateral damage, plain and simple. Each thing acted on a separate thing and in turn acted on my brain in such a way where it completely mangled my cognitive ability and energy levels. But my problems aren't entirely gone yet, I do acknowledge. I too can chalk this up to my pre-existing mental conditions, but some of them are just too invasive to just accept as a part of me. I always want to know how to resolve things and resolve them simply. If I can't, it just leaves a massive feeling of dissatisfaction which lingers just as long as those problems ail me. The lethargicness I've been feeling has been more irregular, but it is definitely still there. The way my academic calendar is structured, I have no choice but to have some sort of rigor in my work day in and day out else I fall behind. I've fallen behind plenty of times before, and I've suffered as a result. Not to a point of failure (because I still unfortunately am THAT guy), but to a point where I feared failure day in and day out. Failure's a given in my major, but I'd prefer to wait on it instead of being in my first year and being thrust into academic probation. They have my accomodations on file, they know that they may not be sufficient for my temperament, but they don't care and neither do I. World keeps turning.
I've become better with time management as of late. I'm waking up at more regular times, even if they aren't really "regular" by normal people standards, and I've dedicated more time to study, reading, and the likes. It doesn't need to be heavily regimented and alloted strictly throughout the day, it's primarily on a whim. I choose the time, I choose the location, and I choose how long I spend working. It's like I miraculously remembered I had freedom. I of course studied before, but I was affected by all of the shit I mentioned earlier. I couldn't get into my right mind and I couldn't find the will to move into a better environment than my own room. I never did not feel like shit and I acted accordingly. Thankfully, it made me feel even worse. What a wake up call!
Despite my talks of changing environment though, there's never a place where I feel more comfortable than my own room. In regards to study, there could be no worse place. Conflating comfort and rest with labor is a great may to drive yourself mad with stress and gradual frustration. Switching places every now and then allows me to maintain this comfort while simultaneously feeling fulfilled enough to just sit my ass down and fuck around on the internet for an indefinite amount of time guilt-free. Like old times, but I'd like to gradually cut down on this time and make it more meaningful. I could be drawing, I could be scheming up a thinly-veiled fetishistic narrative, I could even be programming as a hobbyist thing now since I can think somewhat logically again. I was able to pick up the Japanese language and keep at it for as long as I did just by making it a habit to study. I know this can work with both hobby and academics.
In a way, I'm now excited. The semester's almost over and, even if I fall flat on my dumb looking babyface, I have a massive 3 month respite between my next RISC-V flavored cock and ball torture session. I want to plan a modus operandi for what I'll eventually do next. I just know that the idea will strike me like a thousand lightning bolts, and I also know that I WILL FUCKING DO IT THIS TIME. There is just too much undrawn fetish porn. There are just not enough performative males who know Spanish or Modern Greek or Chinese. I still haven't read Fate/Stay night.
go back