Spiralling.

One day, maybe I'll get to write some posts about other things than mental health....but not today. 

Yesterday, at the shops, I had an anxiety attack. Which was new to me. I'll often get anxiety at the shops (I'm not sure what from exactly, I've had it for years now), but this was more intense, and resulted in some quite obvious stimming to try and calm down. Those who know me well might be surprised that I actually have stims. I've been a bit more free with expressing them over recent years, but they're usually happy stims. I've rarely had anxious ones. 

But these were. I was repeatedly grabbing onto my left arm with my other hand, and repeating that motion for probably about half the time that I was at the shops. Mentally, and emotionally, I was not in a good place. And as I mentioned in a previous post, I haven't really been in a good place for a while. 

There's part of me that thinks I should probably be in mental hospital at the moment. That I should have been there months ago. Most of my energy these days is poured into keeping me together. What does that mean? Kinda a lot of things. It means not letting the various fears and anxieties I have take over. It means trying to do simple things like keep myself fed, and watered, and rested. It means getting myself out of bed for work. It means working up the willpower to actually go to work. It means trying not to dwell too much in negative emotion, and not let things spiral into feeling suicidal, giving up on life. Some little things, some big things.

But I keep getting more and more burnt out by life, and by work. And it keeps draining more and more energy. Which means I have less and less ability to hold shit together. That's meant a lot more forgetting things, and head empty moments. A lot more needing to just rest. A lot more needing to just do things halfway, or not at all. A lot more times of feeling depressed. And now, things like the anxiety attack showing up, and anxious stims.

Many days, I find it harder and harder to find reasons to keep going with life. It feels absurdly difficult. Like I'm living on challenge mode, and it just gets harder as you go. I am still finding joys amongst everything, and they help - but they've become a brief and fleeting respite from the normal fare.

Going to go bigger now, and talk beyond me for a bit. 

In a world of abundance like we have today, with access to so many resources - this shouldn't be happening. People shouldn't have to choose between financial stability and mental, emotional, and physical health. But so many do, every single day. In countries that are supposedly rich, and wealthy. That's not even getting to the state of things in poorer countries.

We need to get better at looking after people, on a structural and systematic level. Personal level is great too, like, look out for the people around you, great. But these systems need to change. Because they're slowly killing so many people, who can't see any way out.

The other week I felt like I was coming out of it. I was like, "Wow, I'm feeling great! I'm feeling really happy and laughing and positive and everything! I can't remember the last time I felt like this!" I think it lasted maybe a day before that started to fade. I've been in survival mode for a very long time now. I would rather like not to be.

I don't have a neat bow to this. Don't know if there are any.