Day 125: The right path

I’ve been drifting of late. Going to work, coming home exhausted, feeling a miserable and stubborn thing inside me refusing to engage with my writing, so I’ve spent the evenings instead watching Netflix or playing Zelda or napping, and as the night has gone on I’ve felt worse and worse, and finally forced myself to write a few paragraphs, and then stayed up too late, got up the next day on four or five hours sleep, repeated the whole process.

Isn’t it odd how we can work out precisely the course of action that will be unhealthy for us - and then go and do it anyway? How sometimes it’s like we’re wanting to punish ourselves, or wanting to prove to everyone what screw ups we are? How when your self-esteem is low enough you simply can’t accept that you are capable of creating value, can't accept that you are worthy of love. It doesn’t compute. You have to sabotage your life until external reality corresponds with the ruined reality inside you, because that makes sense.

Well, I’ve done that for so many years now. I guess it’s time I started working on it. I’ve got a day off tomorrow, and I plan to spend the time showing myself some self-care, doing the things that need to be done - showering rather than staying in the t-shirt I slept in, getting exercise rather than sitting slouched in my office chair all day, changing my sheets, putting on washing, working on that bloody story structure post and the film reviews…

Instead of lowering my external reality to make it line up with how I see myself I can put that energy into raising my inner reality up. Even when I’m tired and my mental health is bad and I’ve got very little to give, I can still treat myself kindly, I can still go ten steps, two steps, half a step in the right direction, rather than curling into a ball and letting myself roll backwards.

Now for step one: get some sleep.

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