I spent one and a half month in isolation with only the absolute minimum of contact with any other people. It wasn’t only the online social media I left, but every other contact as well, besides a couple of visits to the store. Watching videos all day and most of the nights while playing the same mini game over and over again, I still had time to think, I still had time to try to figure things out and I was gradually, though very slowly, beginning to feel better. I was beginning to deal with the mess my mother made of my house during her reign of My home. I think she managed to move everything around in a way that makes it impossible to find anything. Cleaning and sorting everything to get it all back to where it belongs is a hard work for me in the state I’m in now. My back makes it practically impossible to do anything, but as it’s “only” pain I have worked harder than I’ve done in a very long time. By “only” pain I mean that even if it hurts very much just to stand up there’s no danger of making things worse. The injuries I have can’t get worse. Physical pain will pass or at least become more tolerable after some time’s rest.
Before I was too depressed, had no motivation to do anything.The fact that anything I do hurts would always weigh more than any wish to do even the simplest things. I didn’t care. The first thing to motivate me was this writing challenge and this blog and for a long time I did write a thousand words every day. For a long time I published a post every day, when I could. Losing Internet doesn’t count. Later I started to take walks, to take pictures that I would post every day. These things became important to me, made me feel better and it felt a lot more useful than playing Minecraft all day and night. Or retweeting other people instead of my own stuff. Not that I have anything against video games, or Twitter, but for me it eventually became more like a waste of time than anything meaningful. To begin with it gave me friends and a social interaction I could take part in even though I couldn’t leave my home, or, as has been the case many times, my bed. I played Minecraft lying in my bed, it works okay as long as you don’t have to talk to anyone in chat, though I tried that too. Sitting is not always the best thing for an aching back. Not if you’re online for hours at a time.
Anyway, I was beginning to do more of the things I used to before. Getting my home back to the order I want, feeling good about “taking my house back”, making it mine again. While my mother still lived here I got used to hiding in my room leaving the rest to her to do what she wanted with, and she did. Not that I could have stopped her even if I’d tried. My mother does not understand the word “respect” and she can’t understand that I want thing my way in my own home, not her way. But I was beginning to get it back, feeling good about myself. I got bored with the minigame and the videos, cleaning was more fun. Imagine that, I must be really sick, right? Now and then the over thinking would get to me, especially if I tried to sleep without NCIS playing in the background. I started to miss the writing, realizing that by putting my thoughts and worries in writing I didn’t have to keep them in my mind anymore. Not that there was any need to keep any of them anyway, but the art of overthinking has a tendency to consist of loops running through my mind like a playlist on repeat. Writing the thoughts down can help breaking that repeat pattern. Can doesn’t mean that it always works though. Still it made me miss my writing and my blog.
Another thing I didn’t find as fun or helpful without the social media was the photography. It’s not at all as fun when you don’t post the pictures online, on Instagram, in my case. Even though I hadn’t really been working my Instagram account for very long I had made friends and I started to miss them, to share pictures with them. I wanted to go back online, to my social media, to my friends, maybe even Minecraft. The thought of returning was with me for a long time before I actually made my comeback yesterday. I had thought about it before, but I didn’t feel ready. The new year felt like a good time to start over. Coming back online again I was met by many people welcoming me back, but also wondering what happened. I felt I had to explain, maybe as a last and final time to deal with what had happened. But, all that talk about it made it all come back. In the end of last night I felt as if I was back there again, feeling the way I did when it happened. I was shaking, crying, feeling terrible. And, I didn’t sleep last night. Right now I have been awake for almost thirty hours straight. I am back where I was again as if I didn’t take a long break to think, as if no time at all has passed, as if I haven’t gotten any better, not healed a bit. And I can’t help thinking that I made a mistake in coming back or at least that it was too soon.Or maybe I shouldn’t have come back at all, maybe I should concentrate on getting back on track with my offline life instead. Getting my health back, finding a job, maybe going back to uni eventually. Get in touch with my old friends again, people who live here, in my timezone, people I can have dinner with, go to a movie or a club. People I can hug for real instead of only through words on a screen… *hugs you*
Thirty hours, over a thousand words and now I do actually feel a little bit tired for the first time this year. Good night people, see you tomorrow. Virtual hugs to all of you!!!
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