jazzfish | breakdown cont'd

I appear to be breaking down. I've been hyperstressed re work and other for at least four months and probably longer, I've had a sharp lack of focus. Tonight I had difficulty feeding myself. Nothing was food, or at least not food I wanted to eat. This is a new trick my brain is pulling and I do not appreciate it at all. Part of my selfimage is of being Really Good at taking care of myself or at least of my immediate needs, and that includes eating meals or at least a bowl of cereal when necessary.

I'm taking tonight and tomorrow as a mental health day. I have a counselor again as of today and I think she'll do alright at least for now. But this... this is not sustainable. Job is being continually not good for me, in ways that are not just "i am having trouble adapting to new thing."

I hope it's just this job and not 'a new job' in general. I'm honestly a little scared (not a lot, but a little) that something in me has broken and I am not able to function at a high level in a tech writing job, and I don't know what I do if that's the case.

So. Noting here so that it's noted if I go looking later.

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From:

reedrover

I’m very sorry to read this. I sincerely hope that this is just bad onset winter blahs and delayed pandemic/isolation problems and that all is solvable.

greenstorm

Care. There are better times coming.

aamcnamara

Ugh, I'm sorry you're dealing with this. Hoping the counselor can help somewhat.

I will note re: timeline, I definitely had weird brain after-effects from covid for, mm, a year and a half after, including "harder to focus" and "using focus takes a lot out of me in a peculiar brain is empty way I had never experienced before"; taking lots of rest is a good tactic if it is that, and also just generally, and if it is that it may be something that's medium-term and will resolve over time.

(eta: and it was non-linear--sometimes better, sometimes worse, sometimes didn't seem like a thing at all; it was hard to track what the factors were, but after a while it stopped happening as much and it hasn't happened in ages now)

Edited Date: 2023-02-01 06:05 pm (UTC)

I’ve heard a lot of anic-data that Covid has been particularly tough for neurodivergent folks, specifically anyone with attention problems. A gent with severe ADHD told me that since his Covid, he’s had both a huge lack of activation energy and had trouble focusing on anything that wasn’t related to immediate satisfaction (e.g. sexy times).