Apocaylpse


So, putting things very bluntly, I haven't been taking this Coronavirus thing
very well *at all*. I'm not scared of the virus itself; I'm sure I'm not going
to die or anything. I'm safe and isolated and doing my best to flatten the curve
and socially distance myself (ahem, sorry, I've been told it's "physically
distance" now. Thanks WHO...) and all that jazz.

What I'm concerned about is the sudden economic collapse, the lock-downs and
quarantines, and just the fact that this really is a pivotal world event I'm
sitting through right now and the best thing I can do is sit on the sidelines
and watch. I briefly considered starting a mutual aid group, but I'm really not
sure if that's the best thing I can do. Which leads into some awful bystander
effect stuff for sure, but I also don't want to inadventendly kill the people
I'm trying to deliver groceries and clean laundry to. Also, ugh, effort. I've...
yeah my mental health is craaaaaaaap right now. so crap. so, so crap.

I'll just let me from Monday fill in the details:

The sad thing about social distancing is that it felt like what I always
do. I never went out much. And now I can't. Fundamentally nothing
changes for me. Which is terrifying.

If this next month is anything like the last 4 or 5, I'm not going to
enjoy this.

More specifically I've been dealing with probably depression? Burnout?
I don't know. I can't afford my therapist until my deductible is paid
off. (It's like $150/wk. Gotta flatten the curve, pay that off with
smaller payments of medication so I can still like afford rent.)

I have spent a lot of the time I would have in the past spent writing
articles/working on projects instead napping or scrolling.

I was hoping that by reducing my workload this year (it was insane last
year) I could try and get to a point where I'm consistently... watching
movies and making art. That's my end goal here and I can't even do that.

I'm terrified about the future, both globally and personally.

I just... if everything is going to be shut down for months, I can't
help but feel like I squandered my opportunites to see and do things
because of my own mental health. And that bites.

I feel trapped.

I only got myself burnt out because I was constantly chasing after rent
and tuition. I needed to work so many hours just to cover the
essentials. And I suffered as a result.

And now it turns out the whole system I was being forced through is
crumbling. What was the point, then?

I just feel more numb than anything right now. It's the end of the world
and I can't even properly get worked up about it because I'm just that
spent.

As a brief recap of my week, Tuesday I got laid off from one of my two remote
jobs, Wednesday was fine, Thursday I received news that I *could* be laid off
because my university was shutting down non-essential research, so I took work
off very early to try and stave off a panic attack, couldn't really sleep (I
was stuck up all night just worrying, and I do literally mean all night. I got
a 3 hour nap in right after work and then like 1 hour of sleep at 6 AM) and then
Friday I tried really hard but I just sorta collapsed and ended up dozing off to
sleep at around 3:30 PM after a day of being completely unable to focus because
I've been out of ADHD meds for what, 2 weeks now?

Too much information? Maybe. I really don't give a shit. I'm drowning. I really,
really do just need some hope right now, some reassurance that things are going
to go rightin a month or two. I keep obsessively scouring the news for that
(yeah, i know it's a dumb idea) and sometimes i get stuff like "yeah, everyone's
going to see that capitalism is utterly worthless and that we need labor reform
and we can use this to rebuild society with local supply chains that are
ecologicaly sustainable and we can tell the stock marketeers to suck it" and
such, but ALSO things like "oh yeah this is gonna last 18 months and we'll need
to be in quarantine for most of that and also Trump's using this to blame China
so maybe we just end up being fucking Nazi Germany again who knows anything's
possible" and THAT'S kinda terrifying.

I don't even fucking know what to do here. Just distract myself with Animal
Crossing until this all blows over and resume completely burning myself out
again? This just kinda fucks over with my plans for literally everything. Not
that I had a lot of plans to begin with, but still.

It's the end of the world. And maybe things will turn out for the better. Maybe.
I still feel some obligation to *help* in making things better, but that's very
difficult when I can't even fucking sleep properly.

In ...unrelated news? I started playing Secret Little Haven. It's good. Even as
depressing as that could be, it really really did help distract me. It was a..
*familiar* kind of depressing you know? Something that I can handle, something
that is almost kinda comforting? It's the devil I know. I've also been playing
through Black Mesa as well. Something about a beeping tin can reassuring me
that yes, I *do* have a minor fracture is really reassuring. Like, yeah, you get
it, almost. plus morphine. yum. lol.

Nah, actually back around 2017 when I was super duper struggling with mental
health and dissociation and nasty things like that, the thought of having the
HEV to shield me from the world and reassure me felt like the most comforting
thing in the world. My brain was latched onto that *hard* for a while, and
playing Half-Life / Black Mesa again takes me back to that, a little bit. Back
to a time when, yes, I suffered, but I also *overcame*. Also ya know it's a fun
game and I can't wait to see how Xen turned out because I haven't got that far
yet. I gave up pretty early on Xen in the original, and I've seen some footage
of the new Xen, so yeah.

Also, Animal Crossing. I have a Switch now (because I'm at my parents' for the
forseeable future) so that's a thing I can play. If I can figure out how to get
the online working I might throw up my friend code somewhere. Are those still a
thing? They're like ICQ numbers, but worse.

Also, there's micro vMac, a fork of Mini vMac that I'm chipping away at. I was
eventually going to write a whole article with a scathing code review of Mini
vMac (because, as much as I appreciate the work put into it, *what the hell?!*)
but ugh. effort. I still haven't gotten myself to upload anything I've drawn
since 2018.

so yeah. that's my life. hopefully it gets better.