Meditation; Anxiety; How Real My Feelings

Five straight days of meditation this morning! It's not a real big deal, but it's good to celebrate the wins when they come up.

I'm starting to feel the "benefits" of the meditative brain now. It's easier to recover from inattentive spells and get my focus back on track. I can notice thoughts that I would have a harder time not acting on now, which is great. It's easier to push myself to do things that make me anxious -- like work on my resume or my game, or do any creative endeavor.

It's like this every time I re-establish a meditation practice. Suddenly the focus and motivation problems I have get easier and I'm shocked -- shocked!! -- at how much more functional I am. For some reason I assume that I can't get shit done because I'm not trying hard enough in the moment or I don't have enough willpower/discipline. In some ways that's true, but for some weird reason sitting and focusing on your breath for 20 minutes a day settles you right down.

I've been a lot more regular about taking Adderall, so that might have something to do with it. A drug that speeds up your brain enough to catch up with...everything else? Why am I not taking this more often??

Yesterday was fairly chill. Handled tickets at the day job, which took the whole shift alas. I was hoping I'd be able to dig into my QC queue but no dice there. That's partly on me, though; I got in my head about a few tickets and procrastinated longer than I needed to come up with a good response. I'm getting better at developing a "professional style" for this place, though. I'm not sure why it took me so long to feel comfortable with reaching out to coworkers; I think it might be a deeper-than-usual bout of crippling anxiety.

I've been noticing how afraid I've been of...well, everything. That's really nothing new, being a rabbit. But I've caught myself thinking that I could actually write something enjoyable this week, or that I could come up with a respectable presentation for an extracurricular project. The thought of reaching out to a writer I've admired for years doesn't fill me with so much anxiety I can't even think about what to say. I can experiment with ideas and not feel paralyzed with the fear they won't work out.

It's hard to explain how it feels to run at this high level of general anxiety for an extended period of time, what it does to your mindset. The thought that "I can't do this without a lot of prep and/or help" becomes so normalized that ANY new thing you want to do feels like a whole THING. I have to call the optometrist to reschedule an appointment the doctor missed, but it's not just a call. I have to find the number, try to remember what the appointment was, find my Vision Insurance, etc. etc. etc. etc.

Everything feels three times harder than it really is; sometimes, it's self-generated extra steps I don't really need to mess with, and others it just feels like a simple task will break me if I get it wrong. I know it's irrational, but my to-do list feels like a whole group of predators surrounding me. The ONLY safe move is to burrow and hide.

It's so easy to get overwhelmed by that anxiety, and it sucks. I'd love to take on more responsibilities, do more things, be more reliable to friends -- but once I cross the threshold some switch gets flipped and I freeze or flee.

I know the solution is just to find a way to deal with the stress, but...this is where perspective fails me. I'm not sure folks understand how paralyzing anxiety can be, and how close I am to being overwhelmed all the time. Am I actually just being a giant wuss? I know I'm more resilient than I give myself credit for, but it takes soooo much brainpower to nudge my brain out of 'deer-in-headlights' mode once I'm there.

Maybe writing out my anxiety sources might help? The resume, the game, the Patreon. :) That's it for now.