#i wish i could say something coherent about this but brainfog | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dredshirtroberts · 5 months

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I am working on acceptance.

I gotta be real with y'all, thought i had this one down. we were working through the anger and the denial and the depression and the other things, but... acceptance, man. that one sneaks up on you.

because there's a difference between saying you understand that this is the way life is and these are the things that have happened to you and this is where you're at now and how you're going to move forward.

and actually understanding it.

because intellectually i am more than fully aware that there are limits to my abilities, there is pain i will have to endure in order to experience good things, things have happened to me that i should not have had to go through but i did it anyway and now we're here.

and it's another thing altogether to go "and the entire rest of my life will be spent working around these things."

I got to go on an Ooting today, and i enjoyed it. I knew it was happening, I was as prepared and well-rested as i could be, and I made sure i brought everything i could possibly run into needing while out and about. It means bringing along a huge bag, and having to take a seat on a bench every so often, but it's fine.

And i'm still in immense amounts of pain just getting up to go to the bathroom. and I will be, probably tomorrow and Saturday too. i did it right, i did everything right and knew my limits and worked only within those and i still...

I wish I felt less like I was being punished, and I think I've said that before. That this just feels like punishment for having a good time, for enjoying myself. And it always has, and it's the most Catholic thing about me tbh.

I wanted to cry again, slightly earlier. we moved past it, but... it's still there. lingering. it'll probably happen later tonight, and that's... expected.

Perhaps this will be easier to deal with when I am home and no longer masking the fact that i'm at minimum 17 possums in a trench coat. i've been doing amazing at it, i hardly even noticed it was happening until i couldn't anymore while we were out. Thankfully it was just with G and Vx so it was safe, even though it was in public, but it...

sorry. my brain is kind of everywhere. i think what i used to believe was brainfog due to Exercise (a thing i assumed everyone had a struggle with post exertion) might actually be associated more with the pain post-activity and that realistically what's been happening this whole time is i've just been in so much pain i can't string words together in a... coherent way. I mean i can, obviously since i'm writing this, but like. it's hard. is the point.

everything is hard. all of the time. even on easy days things are still hard. and that... that sucks. I think part of the issue with acceptance is that i.. don't want to think about that. About the fact that every. single. day. for the rest of my goddamn life (and up until this point too, let's not like...let's not forget i've already been doing this for several decades now) it's just going to be difficult to do things.

i don't want that to be the case. of course i don't. who would?? who would want life to be exponentially harder day after day after day with no end in sight?

but... i'm going to have to live with it. and part of learning to live with it is accepting that it's real. that there might not be an end until the day i die.

that every joy will come with a price of pain. that every moment of happiness is because i am sacrificing something - or had something sacrificed on my behalf years ago.

one of the way's i've been coping is by framing myself as the Fantasy Protag Who Got To Retire. you get picked for your adventure as a kid, maybe as late as a teen, you go and you get beat up and you get back up and you beat the bad guys. You win. You've survived.

Now what?

your war wounds, your battle scars, your injuries and your mental health don't heal right. Can't heal right - you were doing triage on the field, and never had time to go to a proper healer before it was too late. now all you can do is Manage the Pain.

So i'm managing. I'm 31, about to be 32. there are no more adventures for me unless someone's willing to carry me, or push me. And maybe I'm too tired for adventuring anyway.

idk the metaphor isn't perfect yet, i'm still workshopping it. but... it helps. not a lot, mind. but enough. most days.

i don't have a conclusion here. i just... idk. if you're reading htis and going through the same stuff, hey. i'm sorry that happened to you. i'm sorry this is how things are. come sit in the rocking chair on the porch with me, we'll have some tea and lemonade and we'll watch the adventurers leave town for their quests and remember when we were them. And we'll have quieter adventures in books and art and music and pain. and it'll be okay.

you're not alone and neither am i. Be kind to yourself, you deserve that.

#ope made myself teary-eyed despite my best efforts #ah well

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