We Can't Rewind, We've Gone Too Far

I am having a lot of trouble both picking up books to start and concentrating on them while reading. Even reading D&D sourcebooks, which is all my brain really wants to do right now, I sometimes have to read a sentence three times for it to penetrate. This is probably seasonal depression.

Anyway, I have still read some.

Recent: I finished Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft earlier this month, straight through, with no particular reason or plans to work on a horror campaign. Enjoyed it very much.

Finished Packaged Toronto: A Collection of the City's Historic Design, which I got from the spacing store last year and have been reading slowly ever since. Vaguely related to Four Apples but also just my city, yay. I would have liked more detail on most things but that's a constant state.

And in my quest for ever-smaller M/M pairings, I have started reading D&D: Honour Among Thieves fic, and I recommend Counterpoint by Geese_In_Flight if you like plot and ethical conflicts and people not talking about their emotions.

I also read or reread a bunch of short stories: more than half of The Bone Key (great as always, would have finished it if not for library holds), "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (definitely an early 19thC New England gothic story), and Mistakes Were Made by coveredinfeels (awesome. I don't know Dragon Age beyond watching consultingpiskies play a few times, so I can't speak to canonicity, but lots of fun and set in my favourite kind of modern AU).

Current: This is the part where I feel like nothing's happening. I am flipping through various D&D sourcebooks and reading the sequel to Counterpoint, above. Other than that, I have not made much progress with Middlemarch, and I read the first 15% of The Teller of Small Fortunes and I like it, there's no reason for me not to read it, but I haven't got back to it. Maybe because I haven't spent much time on public transit (I wrote that yesterday, but today I was on public transit and the focus still wasn't really there).

Future: I have got The Dire Days of Willowweep Manor out of the library again.

I have a Jeannie Lin novella out from the library, I have various fics lined up, and I am wondering if audiobooks would be more manageable right now. Alternatively I am considering taking March off from expectations.

So yeah, if anyone has techniques for dealing with anhedonia now would be a good time for me to hear about them.

So my medium-term plan is to go to college to become an electrical technician (we're calling this Project Tesla). In order to do this I need to take grade 12 math, since I skipped it the first time round because it was optional and I was really into literature and also for reasons we won't go into I missed a lot of junior high math so I didn't have the necessary background to do well in math in high school.

I started doing that in an online course last week. I was worried about this because I do not trust my ability to self-motivate, but so far I've done at least an hour of math every single day for over a week now.

And earlier today I had a lot of free-floating anxiety and then I went, "Okay, I'm going to do my math homework." And I did. And then I felt better.

It's reasonable: I focused on something specific with no emotions attached for a fixed length of time--but it's so far from what I expect of myself.

And Mom's in Italy right now and I have been calmly cooking and doing the laundry and picking up the mail and so on. While working and also seeing people. For that matter, I have a medium-term life plan right now.

It's not perfect--the next two weeks are going to be busy and work keeps changing my schedule on me and it's concerning. But I can look at the pros and cons of, say, going to the climate protest tomorrow morning, and be reasonably confident in what effect it will have on me and that I can deal with that effect.

This is because I am properly medicated and had useful therapy earlier this year. But it's so weird.

Well, it's a good thing I finished my Yuletide assignment early, because this depression is not making things look good for finishing the treat I've got half done.

(Or even yumadrin. Oh dear.)

ETA 27th: finished treat, no drabbles, go me.

Title: Inclination
Author: Violsva
Fandom: Sherlock Holmes
Rating: G
Warnings/Enticements: Case Fic, PTSD, Canon-Typical Violence
Word Count: 2966
Summary: A convalescence, a revelation, and a promise.

On AO3.

So in October when I wrote this I was horribly depressed and I thought it was awful and I felt awful about even submitting it, but decided that was better than defaulting, and I've just reread it and it's actually pretty good. So. We persist.

I'd have something more specific to say about skewed self-image and things, but I'm not better enough to know what it is. I really am glad I was wrong about it.

People keep saying there’s a link between creativity and depression. And there is. Specifically, you’re MORE creative when you’re LESS depressed.

I know that when you have a mental illness you want to feel like there’s an upside. But the whole point of depression is that there isn’t one. It sucks. Maybe there is a link otherwise, maybe people who have been depressed but aren’t now are more creative than other people’s baseline. I don’t know. Studies are inconclusive. But being actually in a state of depression right now means being less creative than you could be.

If you are creative when depressed, you will be so much more creative when not depressed. You rock for being able to overcome the ‘hating yourself and everything you do’ part of this illness. But imagine not having to overcome that. Because the drugs or therapy techniques are overcoming it for you so you actually have time to get shit done.

So everyone should go read The Café Elsinore by hoc_voluerunt. And then come here and talk to me about it.

It's made me think about modern adaptations and changing portrayals of mental health and the cliched argument over the transfer of power between generations in comedies vs tragedies and how parental relationships in Shakespeare compare to parental relationships in fairy tales. And I haven't had all these thoughts in my head at one time since university or mayybe when I was reading Aurora Leigh the year after, and oh, my brain is back.

(My brain is actually having serious difficulties at the moment, but the return of my critical reading skills can only be a good sign)

Washed dishes
Called in prescriptions
Researched archaeological digs (OMG!)
Sent letters
Wrote about 300 words on a couple things, and I'll do more in a sec

Went to library
Bought groceries
Researched alternate employment, sort of
Edited a lot of things

Last part of Arte Regendus is now over 12000 words and honestly almost done, yay. And i am having ideas and it's rather nice. Even if I'm also clearly still sick.

Went outside rather than hiding in bed all day. Returned library book. Talked to knumpify about work stuff.

Also I just look up the Trillium Drug Benefit form.

Some of my physical issues at the moment may be related to stress, but some of them are definitely due to forgetting to eat, goddammit.