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It's strange to be writing on the blog again... It's been so long. I've missed it. I mean, I've missed it many times over the years of relative inactivity but lately I've really missed it. Maybe it's nostalgia? Or maybe it's the calm of my own little space where I can post random thoughts without the chaos that posting the same things on social media inevitably brings?
You know, I never would have thought having an opinion was evil - everyone has them, right?! - but in the world of social media, if you have the "wrong one" on any topic, you are eeeeevil. There's no nuance anymore. No agreeing to disagree. No taking someone as the sum of their parts instead of a single random thought or one weird belief/lack of belief spoken carelessly into the ether... And I'm not talking about the fundamental disagreements on the big stuff - like human rights. I'm talking about the craziest, inconsequential shit that people get internet lynched over.
It feels like everyone is so intolerant. Judgemental. Angry... And I get it! I do. I'm fucking RAGING at least 50% of my day. Usually when I look at the news or spend more than 5 minutes on social media that isn't carefully curated. The world really is a massive, steaming, pile of crap and it often feels hopeless. So, I get the rage. But not everything is bad. There IS good in the world and there are so many people trying to focus on that, and the little joys, instead of trying to perpetrate the madness and misery. Unfortunately, that just seems to further enrage the folks that believe that joy, and peace, and self-care, should be crushed under boot-heels until the world no longer sucks or until there's "peace for all" which I don't think has existed throughout the age of man. Not even once.
My way of coping with this over the last few years has been... Not so great. A weird mix of arguing with idiots until I want to set them on fire, retreating into self-imposed internet exile so I don't have to deal with it, deleting social media, regretting deleting social media, creating new social media and then... never posting on new social media. So, shall we say, chaotic?
It's further compounded by not knowing what the hell I'm doing with myself anymore too. I used to love being in the bookish space (hell I've been here since 2012) but it's so different now. I never know what to post, what I want to post, or when to post. It's all algorithms and aesthetic (and arguments over AI!) and it's almost impossible not to let my ND brain hyperfixate and overthink absolutely everything resulting in not posting, even when I want to!
I miss my brain before covid lockdowns stripped me of all my coping mechanisms and broke it. I'm technically recovered from my complete fucking breakdown back in 2021 but I'm not the same. So much so, I quit my "super stressful and important" job early last year because I was sick of how unhappy it made me and, how since returning to work after "the breakdown", I never really managed to settle back into "normal."
Since then, I've been on a rollercoaster of self-employment, self-doubt, avoiding (or trying to avoid) self-sabotage and self-discovery. I work freelance and I finally wrote a book! I'm currently rewriting/heavily editing my book and hopefully will get to self-publishing it sometime this year... If I survive the rewrites and then further editing! Kinda amusing really when there was a point I had zero desire to write.
The whole writing and other creative endeavours thing cycles back into the posting paralysis on the socials too. Like... Can I continue to be my bookish self? Or do I need to pivot to a more "author branded" kind of thing? I don't even know what that would look like. So... ignore. Avoid. Go in circles until I go slightly nuts.
Then there's the absolute SHIT authors are now dealing with like, they used punctuation! It's AI! They write too clean! It's AI! The writing is shitty... It's AI! They publish too fast! It's AI! They publish too slow - I'M DONE WITH THIS SERIES. They're revisited their own IP... CASH GRAB! They published something that started as HP fan-fic! They're EVIL TERFS! The book didn't go the way I wanted it to, REWRITE IT! This author said something about a world event - THEY MUST BE PUNISHED! This author said nothing - THEY MUST BE PUNISHED! It's too clean! It's too smutty! It's too long! It's too short! Not enough diversity! Shoe-horned too much diversity!
How is anyone supposed to survive that?
Did I mention I'm now unmedicated? It was a delightful (aka fucking shit) process of weaning myself off the crazy strong brain drugs that made me a zombie and took over a year. I genuinely thought I'd die during the final withdrawal phase, I felt so physically unwell, and then it was over and it was like the curtains had been opened, the sound turned up and I could fucking FEEL properly again. I mean... The awakening was gradual with each lowered dose but that final step? Like seeing sunrise.
I don't regret being medicated, and know that sometimes it is very necessary (like it saved my life), BUT I hate that I stayed zombied up so long. Interestingly, I can manage my "crazy" just fine now I'm no longer trying to be a 9-5 person in my "important grown up job." Go figure.
What was the point of this post? No idea! But if you made it through it, thank you! Hi!
PS - I've been silently stalking some of my "historic blogger peeps" through the years so don't think I've forgotten you! Even though I've been awol. Maybe I should pull my head out and actually start engaging once more? 🤔
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