State of the Fox

Not sure how long it's been since I did one of these. Probably not long, but here it is. At the beginning of the month I posted about going to the pshrink to up my meds. I go back next week, and I'm going to say that while it's helped, it's not helped as much as I'd want. Maybe another dose up, as I am doing better. Or maybe a different med will be the answer. I don't know, but I'm willing to try. And that's a big change from last year, hell, from a couple of months ago.

Work is good. Figured out why I was anxious at the job, even though I'm working with some very cool people, and nothing has felt like the stressors of the Shoggoth Pit. But I still find meetings and dealing with the boss as a cause of anxiety, because for years I'm used to having bosses who yelled, who enjoyed winding me up, who had no clue how to handle people. I now have a boss who's helpful, and can say 'you did this incorrectly, here's what you should have done' without making it a chances to yank my chain. I just need to get used to it, and it's probably going to take a while longer. But I see that I can, and why I feel the way I do, and with that, I can change things.

Personal life is good. Been spending a lot of time buried in books. Friends are good, friends are great. Even if I haven't been quite the social butterfly. Château Innsmouth is as it usually is. Most everything is pretty ok. Well it's overly warm, and my internet has issues, but nothing I can't handle.

That's pretty much Vulpine's life here at Château Innsmouth. Hoping it stays that way. Catch you all later, hopefully with a stable internet connection. Ciao.

Change for the better

I was feeling quite blue today, no real big reason, just feeling a little useless, and out of sorts. Then I was reminded that I work in a (fun kind of) looney bin. One of the developers decided on a whim to dye his goatee blue. And on our internal chat channel, me and another developer shared a brain and both commented about using the blood of smurfs to dye it with. It's nice to work with people who are as nuts as me. Also, boss is in town, and took us out for tacos. Yay free lunch.

The other big mood reset was I went back and read my offline journal for last year, for the 3 months around when I quit the Shoggoth Pit. July through September. And it sunk in how utterly miserable I was there, the stress, the ex-boss from hell, along with trying to rebuild my life after Mom's passing. I'm kind of surprised that I didn't end up in a psych ward by late August. There was a lot of ick in those entries. But I do remember one thing, towards the end, when I'd already written out my plan to deass the job (aka Operation: Leng), I wrote something in the vein of 'My dream is to be in a better place by next year, financially, professionally, etc'. And here it is, 9 months later and I've got a good job where I feel appreciated (and get paid pretty well), I don't dread every morning, nor do I have horrible dreams every night. It's not all rainbows and unicorns, but so what ? I'm actually comfortable enough to say to my pshrink 'Ok, things aren't as good as they could be...what can help?' vs my traditional 'it's working well enough, don't change'. And that means a lot.

So yeah, I'm doing better. It's good when I can catch myself, and reset before I spiral way down. I'm also glad I took that leap 9 months ago, even if it scared the fhtagn out of me, and there were a bunch of times that I thought I'd screwed up royally by leaving the 'Pit. But I didn't, and things got better, and life got better, and huzzah for me and stuff.

Anxiety coping: with a little help from my friends’

The definition of best friend. When you wake up in a weird state of anxiety, and you really do want to hang out and go see a horror movie with said friend, but also really don't want to leave the house at the same time. So once you get the tentacles enough to call, she understands you're wound up, and yes...we can meet up at movie tive, while I get time to wind down before going out. Friends get your weirdness, and work with you on it. I'm also kind of happy that I didn't make it a binary issue, yes go out, or no hide at home.

As said above, having a high anxiety day. Something twitched off last night in my sleep. Which is weird, because Friday night I had dreams about summoning demons (the classical Goetic way of doing things, not Lovecraftian stuff) in the Amityville Horror House. Now that was amusing. Yesterday was a good day, hung out with Amythest, watched assorted bad horror flicks, while I reinstalled Uxía. A good geek day.

I'm calming down as I write this, yay for the magic of medication. The post office also left my copy of 'The Mammoth Book of Cthulhu' by the door, so that's good. Watching 'Amityville 3D', tried to watch it at Amythest's yesterday, and her Roku locked up and rebooted, so we took that as a sign. Assuming my anxiety levels are down to normal after the movie, I'll make a quick trip to get meds and gas and packages, then head down to meet up for the movie. Then it's back to work tomorrow.

So that's me on Sunday. Wish me luck on the rest of today, and for the next week. *crosses tentacles*

Nightmares, anxiety dreams, and me

I'm getting tired of dreaming. Another night of a dream hitting me right in my anxiety. Last night was more BS about friends being their bizarro world opposites, and something about buying a moving truck. Maybe I was moving into the house of the occultist that I dreamed about the night before (after my more horrible nightmares). I don't remember the last night I didn't have an upsetting dream. *grumble*

I'm not sure what my brainmeats are trying to process. I think it's just the time...this time last year was epic stressors. Maybe it's just echos of that. I don't know. I just know that sleep is not my friend right now.

Can't I just dream of a cyclopean city rising from the depths, or a serial killer with knives for fingers, or a guy with a snake head. Or, more me, falling behind the walls and running from zombies. (reoccuring nightmare I had as a little kid). So much better than the current set. Oh well, it will pass eventually. Talk to you all later.