wispfox

Don'WANNA!

Transition states are evil, as anyone reading me knows. Unfortunately, my tolerance for one such in my life has just abruptly informed me that it needs to change _now_. No, really, now.

However, I'm also severely depressed (as in desperately wanting to cancel all my plans for the next week, even though there is no jasra this weekend and being alone when this depressed is unwise). And my timeout for time between seeing australian_joe just started being problematic (it takes another couple months before I fail to cope with that). And my fucking wrists are evil (but healing). And everything I do for self-distraction _still_ needs happy wrists. And I can't fill out my damned visa application, nor can I take another class next semester.

So I'm waiting until I'm a bit less depressed (or at least until a few more days have passed and I'm certain it's not a temporary failure of cope) before figuring out what I can do about said transition state (since anything that anyone else could do is not something that should be forced. And I don't know how any such would happen, with me not coping this much, and not be forced).

But. Severely depressed. Also snappy and intensely irritable. And moody, shifting between wanting to cry and wanting to kick things (interesting; that used to be 'throw my lacrosse ball against a wall really hard'; fuckin' wrists) rather absurdly rapidly (probably simultaneous, actually). Avoiding interacting with me is suggested.

Too many days of grey days + very minimal amounts of roommateness + not having been up to walking around much when there _was_ sun last + sad wrists (which are slowly improving) + surgery recovery (my guts don't hurt anymore!) + no one around at home (immediately after _lots_ of people being around) = seriously depressed and lonely wispfox

Mew...

I need to try to find cuddly people to visit me this weekend, as there is basically no jasra time this weekend. Especially Saturday and Sunday during the day (Sunday evening is tentatively given to chaiya, and Saturday night is my regular call with australian_joe for which I will be much more alert than last week). And I can't drive anywhere with my wrists desperately needing time to rest from last weekend. Maybe I'll sleep absurd amounts and _really_ make the depression plus healing obvious (maybe I'll be _able_ to!).

On the plus side, Psinging tomorrow night. And lunch with people, also.

My brain is _so_ very distracted right now.

Weekend in NYC! And moving! And nifty people! And apartment! And people visiting the area from far away! Also, apartment! (apartmentapartmentapartmentapartmentapartmentapartmentapartmentapartmentapartmentapartmentapartment)

I'm going to be doing a sleep study tonight. This, considering that I'm low on sleep and highly distractable, should be... interesting.

(did I mention the apartment?)

This does mean that my planning/scheduling abilities are approaching a state of being completely useless, and tending strongly toward really _really_ loose planning for things.

I'm also starting to lose track of who is around, when, and what I need to (or could!) be doing, when.

I will _not_ cause myself to meltdown. I will _not_!

*breathes* *stops trying to plan things*

It frequently frustrates me that when I want to refer to the state of being busy - business - I constantly run into the common meaning of that word. So I cannot use it.

And yet. And yet!

I never noticed that, all too often, business _is_ all about being busy, which link was pointed to by postvixen in this post.

The funny thing? I'm much too often aware of my propensity for doing too many things at once. For forgetting to take time to relax and chill. And then it bites me, by making me unable to sleep, usually, but if I let it go on too long, making me _COMPLETELY_ anti-social no matter what the season. (Anyone remember my mental state last summer? :) I simply am not one who _can_ work constantly - I have never been. Can't do things like leaving things to the last minute, because if I do that they _won't_ get done. Can't do constant fire fighting (figuratively) because it kills my mental state.

And _still_ I so often have to struggle to remember to chill out and just be. (meditation may not always actually work for me, but even trying it helps immensely)

I often wonder if this is why one of the things that I most prefer to do when I am visiting with friends is simply to sit. Chat a bit, if we want to, but not if we don't. And why I have such difficulty with people who don't seem to know how to turn _off_ their intensity.

Sometimes, the methods I use to determine my mental state are so odd...

I know I'm stressed when:

I stop listening to music. Not too bad is if I'm not listening to music at work, because it might just mean I need to concentrate. Far, far disturbing is if I don't listen to music in my car when it isn't really late at night (late at night might mean exhaustion such that distractions are bad). (ie, I'd not been listening to music in my car for at least a week or so, and have since returned to doing so. And, today, I'm listening to music at work while working on stuff.) This doesn't even tend to happen in wintertime, at least as far as car-related music.

I stop being willing to talk to people. At all. About pretty much anything. If it's effortful for me to talk to my co-workers about work-related things, there's a problem. Because I put my social energy toward work, first and foremost, since it needs it the most (often and amount). (I'm starting to be interested in the idea of being social with people I don't already know well, again. This is good! And good timing, considering I'm going to Seattle in a week!) Not being highly new people social also happens in winter, but tends to allow for a reasonable (low level) amount of work-related conversation. Probably, if I did not work in the wintertime, I'd be able to be otherwise more social; I don't really know.

The only thing I can think about is hiding from everyone and everything, and sleeping. And, generally, it also means I'm sleeping fairly poorly. This is also a wintertime effect, and doesn't really seem that different when comparing wintertime and stress-related reactions.


Probably other things, but these are the most noticeable changes in terms of starting to revert back to normal, now.

I'm _so_ glad work calmed down enough for me to start to recover!

Major fustration, especially if my resources are already taxed, can make me start crying. This is annoying, because in all cases I can think of, that fact only serves to frustrate me further. This is, actually, the initial reason for me having developed such ridiculous control over crying. Of course, the fact that it can still happen probably illustrates that it's not doing a very good job (but at least I recover fairly quickly).

My communication skills - both interpretive and expressive - go to hell in a handbasket when I'm stressed and/or tired. Since being stressed makes it difficult for me to sleep, this makes things interesting. And since communication often makes stressful things less stressful (in the long-term, if not the short-term), this tends to add to the stress. So does the fact that being stressed and/or tired dramatically increases the number of mistakes being made, because my ability to think is dramatically reduced by both.

*sigh*

[edit] Speaking of communication skills going to hell in a handbasket...

There was an entire other topic I forgot to write in here. I think the best explanation of my communication skills going batty is that my sanity checker stops working. This means that my interpretation of what's coming in, and what's going out, isn't being checked at an appropriate point.

When coming in, I tend to need to sanity check to make sure what I understood makes _sense_. This includes that I might have misinterpreted (ie, missed body language or tonal cues to indicate sarcasm or teasing), or that I got the wrong meaning behind the possible interpretation of the words used. I've generally got a pretty good sanity checker, probably because I had to develop it. I didn't, for example, understand teasing or sarcasm until sometime in high school. I suspect that I only do now because my sanity checker makes me notice body language and tone cues after my initial interpretation of the statements made.

When words are going out, I tend to need to sanity check to make sure I said everything I wanted to say on the topic (this edit is an example of my not having succeeded at that), that what I said makes any _sense_, and that what I said didn't throw in too much completely irrelevant information.

Yep. I'm ranting. About nothing of particular value to anyone but myself.

This has been, by far, the most irritating day ever. Certainly not helped by a severe lack of sleep. I'd forgotten how much trouble I have getting used to major changes in my living arrangements.

*sigh* Invited or not, having a roommate move in is seriously causing 'invasion of space' reactions in me. Really annoying, that. Makes actually sleeping early enough and well enough not easy.

And, the fact that he has to get up at around 7 to move his car (stupid Andover lack of reasonable parking) doesn't help. I mean, he'd still be awake because of street noises, but if he didn't need to move his car, at least he wouldn't be moving around enough to wake *me* up an hour and a half earlier than I need to get up. (Yes, I know - it's only an hour... I'm *very* affected by sleep or lack thereof. Which, as long as I don't need to be thinking much, isn't an issue.)

On top of this, work is really starting to annoy me. Constantly having to deal with emergencies and poor communication and poorly organized stuff is taking a toll. Not that I suspect anywhere else in the tech industry is much better off. Well, maybe if I weren't at a startup... need to remember to update my resume. Definitely wish I were not in charge of something which *everyone* in the company depends on, some days.

Mmm. Maybe I should take a vacation. Not that I haven't already had this thought, of course. Problem being, we're understaffed and overworked and have way too many things that need to be done in the next few months. And, I'm going to start putting my resume out in May. Just in case. Not that anyone's hiring at the moment...

If I don't feel less stressed tomorrow, I'm going to have to pester my boss about needing some time off. Because right now, at least until I adjust to having a roommate, I don't think I have anywhere in my normal daily routine that *isn't* causing me some form of stress.

Hmm. And the fact that he's going to vanish to Asia in a month probably means I don't really get to get accustomed to him being here before he's gone again. And I'll get to re-acclimate when he gets back. At least at that point, he won't be actively moving in again. He'll just be back from his trip.

Not having an insanely busy social schedule would be so much nicer if I could actually relax when I got home. I'm of half a mind that I might actually relax more if I *were* visiting and hanging out with friends, rather than going home to invaded and not fully unpacked apartment.

'K. Enough ranting. Must go organize myself so I can go home in the next 30 minutes.