tired

(family + fatigue) x heat = hell on earth

i did not know how tired you could feel until recently. everything within me is beyond exhausted. i'm weary... my bones creak and groan with every movement... i feel like a car that ran out of gas and the driver decided to punch their feet through the floor-boards in an attempt to keep going like some fred flintstone shit.

take a nap and wake up feling mildly better than before. but sleep more than a nap and wake up an absolute bleary eyed mess. drink some red bull and dust off the annoying brain-fog for a few minutes before succoming to an adhd "brain finally quiet" coma. give in to the insomnia and stay up for days on end? i feel better for a day or two. but its not sustainable since my schedule then Drifts into being fully nocturnal again.

even with an understanding boss and coworkers, it feels like my time as an independent, working, autistic-adult is running out. i'd like to give it a few more years but i'm already on fumes. and every extra social or family obligation takes so much more out of me than before.

case in point, mom's visit this weekend...

not only was it the second hottest weekend of the year, but i had to sink energy into getting dressed, leaving the house, being upright/vertical more than i have been in the past month (POTS is a blast)... and then there was the passive aggressive digs, purposely mean gifts, resurfaced childhood trauma, and constant jabs at dad (who she divorced like a decade ago).

i try to do the "grey rock" thing people recommend using on narcisists (which works on dad), but it feels like mom is more in the sociopathy camp; manipulation, deception, disrespect... it's enough. my response, or lack of one, doesn't really matter(?).

so i spent labor day depressed, crying, and dissociating... and today i took a mental health day bc the thought of getting up to join zoom calls or deal with email/slack messages makes me wanna take a toaster bath harder than i've felt in months.

(caveat for those worried about that last statement: i have always struggled with suicidal ideation, for as long as i can remember tbh. but yesterday and today has been extra bad; i let friends know and they're checking on me so chill the fuck out).

i'm hoping i can pull shit together and work the rest of this week but who knows at this point. i'd kinda like to just crawl into bed and watch "little miss sunshine" on loop for the next few weeks while eating enough mcnuggets to put a small victorian child into a coma. but that feels like i'm letting mom win somehow and as much as i try not to care, i love to prove people wrong so i'll probably be back at the desk with compression socks and gatorade tomorrow.

...but, wouldn't it be great if capitalism bit the dust and we didn't have to kill a tiny bit of our soul every day just to stay alive?

09.05.2023 / a disgusting pool of sweat & tears