Sunday Night Thoughts

 My cat and I seem to have the same feelings right now. I know, that's an odd way to start a blog but he has been sighing all day and right now I get him. He's brought all his favorite toys into my bed and is laying by me sighing and I understand in my bones what his sighs mean. 

Last week was a bad week. It wasn't what I would call a drop week, but it was a bad week. I kept screwing up. At work. At home. On my own projects. I was yelled at literally every day. It pissed me off and on Friday, when it came to my attention that I had made a super mistake, I thought I might need a whole bottle of pills to make it through the day. 

Don't do that. Never take a whole bottle of any pills. Those things will mess you up. 

I have awesome coworkers,  though, and a boss that seems to see the universe in a similar way that I do. I also have a mom who listens when I need to vent. Even if it's about my siblings, which I can safely say on here because it's no secret that we all vent to her when we're mad at each other. So, by some miracle, I pulled through last week without having a full-blown breakdown. I consider that a win. Especially since two months ago I was having breakdowns every other day, crying myself to sleep, and trying to tell myself that if I just kept pushing myself everything would work out. It didn't work out. One end was a new beginning, however, and I'm in a much better place now than I have ever been in my life. 

I wasn't planning on writing a new post on here so soon after setting up the blog, but tonight I felt the need to share, and since I'm no longer journaling because I can't decide if it is okay to keep writing in a journal your ex gave you after you broke up or not, all of you get to list to me. That's okay though. This subject is probably one meant for here. 

I have a rule. Sundays are me days. On Sundays I take a bath so hot I think my skin might melt off, I wash my hair so much that the bathwater turns purple (I can't seem to get what little purple dye is still in my hair from a previous break down out of it), I do a facial scrub, I do a mask, and I turn on an audiobook to listen to while I meditate or work out. Audiobooks have become my best friends. 

As a writer, I stare at a screen for at least 75% of my day. By nightfall, my eyes hurt, but I still want to read so sometimes audiobooks help. Not all the time, but sometimes. Sometimes I just want to feel an actual physical copy of a book in my hand. Which reminds me, I should read another chapter of the Lost Apothecary tonight. 

Anyway, tonight I was relaxing, going through my routine, and I found a book that upset me. It's not often I get mad at a book. Especially a self-help one. Tonight though I didn't even make it 16% of the way through before I marked it as a DNF and gave it a one-star review. The book made me not only mad but anxious. I felt like a little kid again, sitting on the front pew of a church, with a disapproving old lady staring at me. Except, this author was like the Karen of the book world. It felt like nothing you could do would please her. It was awful. 

You're probably wondering why the heck I'm even talking about this, but I swear I have a point. I think. I honestly am not sure anymore. I may just be writing in a stream of consciousness. 

Did you know that people with anxiety tend to watch the same movies over and over again because they don't have to worry about how they end? Uncertainty is an anxious person's worst nightmare. Okay? This same concept can be applied to books. 

When you have anxiety, you have to be careful what you read. I love angst stories, but if I just had a breakdown or a panic attack, reading one of those will send me into a depressive spiral. I have very specific books that I keep to read when I am anxious. They are not always ones I've read before, but they are ones that I know the author's style well enough to have an idea of where the story will go. 

My parents had a habit when I was in high school of asking me, "What kind of books have you been reading?" whenever I acted out. I used to get so angry at them because my anger back then had nothing to do with the books I was reading, but now I feel like they were asking a valid question. You can tell a lot about how I am feeling by the book I am reading. I like to listen to self-help books on Sundays because that's the one day I have set aside to take care of myself, Saturdays I will work on reading a longer book because I have time to dissect it and I can step away if it overwhelms me, and throughout the week I read short books that I can finish in under 2 hours because my head is already full of so many concerns that I feel like it might explode. 

I don't know who is reading this. For all I know, this blog post could float on the web unnoticed for the rest of eternity. If you are reading it, though, look at the book you're currently reading and think about your life. Take a couple moments, just a few quiet moments, to contemplate why you picked that book. What is your reading choice trying to tell you? 

Tonight I got mad at my reading choice and even though I should read something else after posting this, I probably won't because I just took my medication and my Paxil tends to give me a headache for a couple hours after I take it. I blame it on my brain not realizing what it is supposed to be doing with the serotonin it's producing. 

Take a few moments for yourself, okay? It's okay to relax. It's okay to step back and let your mind wander. That's how we discover who we are. 

Last week was bad for me, but this week is going to be better. I'm going to make it better. I'm going to give it 110% and I challenge you to do the same.