Mental health

poorpete · Post by **poorpete** » Mon Feb 28, 2022 1:44 pm

My work sent this out on Friday.

How do we move forward?

Please be kind to yourself and each other. Make time for yourself. Take some kind of positive action. Find new ways of doing things.

These antidotes might sound trite, but they are universally supported by the experts.

So I finally took some positive action instead of doom scrolling, sending a few emails of support to those I know with Ukrainian heritage, and donating to Unicef: https://www.unicefusa.org/stories/unice ... isis/39542

Post by **Mike** » Mon Feb 28, 2022 3:37 pm

Good on ya, Pete. Lovely advice. Thank you!

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Mon Feb 28, 2022 5:42 pm

Yes, good stuff! I am glad Pete has reported these things.

Today my way of doing things differently was to fall asleep in a sitting upright posture in the middle of the bed, as opposed to in the bed or on a couch or in a chair leaning over a desk or table or something. Just sitting right there in the middle of the bed, 4:00 p.m., snzzzzzz zzz zzzzz. I almost wish someone had come in and taken a photo or filmed what was going on for the sheer comedy, but the relevant causal factor is that I had no coffee this morning because I was too busy to pause and drink my coffee and kept setting it down and it never got drunk! Let this be a lesson that the new way of doing things is not to suddenly go without coffee! My neck was bent at a right angle for an hour or something and it shows in the feelings the neck is offering up.

However, we still have time for the kindness and the doing nice things. Right now that means nominating friends for things and delivering a surprise cup of ice cream to my kid. I believe there is something about doing nice things for the self which would involve a cup of ice cream and orange juice, but that happens later on at the hour when things get wild! Totally recommend the ice cream in orange juice. Also to be honest I am taking this advice about Doom scrolling and there will be no more live streams from the Ukraine today. Will try to do our part on that issue another day that is not today.

Mando · Post by **Mando** » Mon Mar 07, 2022 8:51 pm

worked a lot around the farm...back is still so easily fatigued. I worry that this is what I will have to live with all the rest of my life...thought about that for all of 3 minutes and have been down ever since...today sucked.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Tue Mar 08, 2022 7:28 am

Mando wrote: ↑Mon Mar 07, 2022 8:51 pm worked a lot around the farm...back is still so easily fatigued. I worry that this is what I will have to live with all the rest of my life...thought about that for all of 3 minutes and have been down ever since...today sucked.

I hope you feel better. That sucks. You're awesome, and it's not fair that you feel that way.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Tue Mar 08, 2022 11:02 am

I fucking hate my job.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Tue Mar 08, 2022 11:10 am

I know you feel trapped but will there ever be a better time to do something about it than this year, when employers are scrambling for people? Something to ponder.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Tue Mar 08, 2022 11:56 am

Phoebe wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 11:10 am I know you feel trapped but will there ever be a better time to do something about it than this year, when employers are scrambling for people? Something to ponder.

I'm not sure I could do anything else, and certainly not with the salary and insurance. And job security. Plus my wife and I will need the pension from this job, which means at least 10 more years of this to get the pension to a decent size.

Mando · Post by **Mando** » Tue Mar 08, 2022 11:47 pm

Akiva wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 11:56 am

I'm not sure I could do anything else, and certainly not with the salary and insurance. And job security. Plus my wife and I will need the pension from this job, which means at least 10 more years of this to get the pension to a decent size.

I took a pay cut and changed my work area. I hope you can hang in there. Is there anything that brings you joy at your work...even the slightest thing?

I had a boss that I found out had dead-ended his career and I was never going to be rid of him. I took a 3 dollar an hour pay cut to get away from him and it was very much worth it. Some educators relocate to live in a more affordable area that has a better situation. Is that an option? Could you teach college? (maybe you are already and I am ignorant)

I am about to hit 54 and my view of what 10 years is like is quite different now...Time flies.

Life is like toilet paper...it goes faster the closer you get to the end...

so maybe 10 years is doable if you can find a relief of some sort.

BTW, I thank you for your kind words earlier. I appreciate it.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Wed Mar 09, 2022 8:19 am

Mando wrote: ↑Tue Mar 08, 2022 11:47 pm

I hope you can hang in there. Is there anything that brings you joy at your work...even the slightest thing? [/quote]

I loved teaching college. No one wanted me.

Is that an option? Could you teach college? (maybe you are already and I am ignorant)

Realistically we're not moving--family and my wife's job means we're staying.

I am about to hit 54 and my view of what 10 years is like is quite different now...Time flies.

I know. It's scary.

so maybe 10 years is doable if you can find a relief of some sort.

Not sure where that'd come from.

BTW, I thank you for your kind words earlier. I appreciate it.

You're welcome. It's just true.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Fri Mar 11, 2022 1:13 pm

Introvert crisis my land. There is only so much I can take after 2 years of a pandemic. I can't talk to all of you many people all the time. So many people all at once. I'm going to go get a bunch of that special sauce. We decided was the best sauce in the universe and eat a bunch of it and then I'll be restored for talking with humans.

Mando · Post by **Mando** » Mon Mar 14, 2022 5:39 pm

So my wife's grandmother passed away at 94 last week and I spent my birthday doing anything but being celebrant. In fact we were at the funeral home until evening, then the following day was the funeral itself, driving in the procession and singing and 2 preachers and another viewing. My youngest passed out and during the fall damaged some ligaments in her ankle.
We went to an urgent care, then home.
Finally on Saturday night I did one thing for my birthday...I had a brownie and a piece of cake...which I bought because in all the business it was forgotten. At least I enjoyed watching Ghostbusters:Afterlife with my family.
Saturday was spent on chores and taking my kids to the BTS Webcast at the Regal Cinema and then taking my wife to IKEA(I hate that place)
Sunday we went to her uncle's to fix a shower (he has terminal cancer and less than 6 mos) , then it was back home for more chores and talking to tax people online.
and the time changed!!!!!
I missed five meals and I am not even hungry. I don't know why my emotions are such a mess. I teared up just now typing that and it is making my throat hurt so bad.
TL;DR
I hope I never have another birthday like this one.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Mon Mar 14, 2022 10:49 pm

Ahhhh I am sorry, it is no way to spend a birthday! And daylight savings time, wretched! Maybe tonight you should be able to relax a bit? Do something nice for yourself! It is important.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Tue Mar 15, 2022 12:00 pm

So tired in every way.

I want so badly to be someone else.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Tue Mar 15, 2022 1:08 pm

But you have done us the service of providing proof of life, as requested, so you're doing that thing right. And frankly, under the current circumstances of our world, that's plenty. Would that everybody offer such proof from time to time.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Wed Mar 16, 2022 10:54 am

Mental health here is measured by anxiety level, which is a hidden underground current difficult to measure until it sputters out here and there. Like a planet with many moons - let's say Uranus or Neptune because that's about the number I can handle - I have to monitor the wellbeing of various entities and when I can't do this capably or it seems the wellbeing is in question, all hell breaks loose. Another relevant parallel: the mind of a herding dog, fixated on where all its assigned cows might be and why some appear stuck in a muddy ditch! Bad.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Sun Mar 20, 2022 9:53 am

Feeling overwhelmed by the self-hatred.

Need to find a new psych, but I’m not sure what the point of getting one is.

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Sun Mar 20, 2022 10:08 am

They are there to help give you tools you need to deal with your own personal mental hurdles. They aren't there to cure you, that's a life long journey that has ups and downs. It's about having strategies so that the downs aren't debilitating and the ups are recognized and enjoyed. There is no magic moment or switch. Medications can help if you need it, but a lot of the change comes from within with a whole lot of support from without.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Sun Mar 20, 2022 4:35 pm

I have been seeing a psychiatrist for about 20 years. Either he was lousy at it, I'm incurable, or I would be even worse without medication and therapy.

I hope I can get a new one soon.

Things getting worse--can't stop thinking about a person I wish I'd never met.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sun Mar 20, 2022 5:06 pm

Eliahad wrote: ↑Sun Mar 20, 2022 10:08 am They aren't there to cure you, that's a life long journey that has ups and downs. It's about having strategies

Seconded and affirmed! In many cases I don't think cure is the goal, but the strategies are really helpful. Judging from the anecdotes of friends and family, it's also really difficult to find the right professional sometimes. I was in my late 30s before I came across a person who even knew what the issue was, much less how to treat it. Various well-intentioned people will hear your story and say you have PTSD, or you're depressed, or whatever makes sense according to their methods of diagnosis. But it's a tricky science and they are fallible even with expertise. As far as I know, most psychology departments still do not teach the only known effective treatment for OCD, Even though it's an extremely common problem and we've known for a long time now what to do, so I can only imagine those problems could occur with all sorts of things.

Tahlvin · Post by **Tahlvin** » Sun Mar 20, 2022 5:45 pm

I’ll third that! Get help! And if the person you’ve been seeing isn’t helping, trying someone else isn’t a negative reflection on either you or them. You need to find the person and the treatment that work for you. I hope your able to do so.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Sun Mar 20, 2022 6:36 pm

Me too. I’m not optimistic.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Mon Mar 21, 2022 1:20 am

That's ok too. You know you don't like the situation and want to try something - that's all you need. Low expectations don't seem misplaced but ... do what you can do anyway, right? Like it might be interesting, at least - you'll come up with more info to add to your storehouse. Even if results aren't there.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Mon Mar 21, 2022 7:00 am

I get that learning strategies and the like is helpful, but it feels disheartening that the best I can do is learn to live with the hell. I already live with it; how much better can that get?

Of course I don't think I'm depressed--I think I'm appropriately miserable because I desperately wanted several things and got none of them.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Fri Mar 25, 2022 3:29 pm

A terrible day to end a terrible week.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Sat Mar 26, 2022 4:37 am

Introvert issues. Need to be alone. Way too much human contact. Today: all day in a big crowd.

poorpete · Post by **poorpete** » Mon Mar 28, 2022 7:40 am

When something new happens that I don't like, I notice I spend an undue amount of time searching for any sign that things have returned to normal, instead of creating a new normal. Eventually I learn to unhappily accept this new normal, but the transition suuuucks.

Numerous personal examples, but for in the news examples, how much I was and still am pulling for an uneasy peace in Ukraine, so we can all get back to a kind of normal. (I mean not just that, no more killing is a bigger priority). Or how much say, I want Will Smith to sincerely apologize for what he did to the person he hit. And for forgiveness on both sides. But instead we'll get this war that changes everything, and, in a smaller case, norms shattered and a ceremony I like maybe tarnished forever? We'll see... I'll eventually accept this new normal... unhappily.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Mon Mar 28, 2022 8:12 am

Last night I just flipped on the end of that broadcast to see who won the big awards, and the first award I saw handed out was actually to Will Smith for best actor. I watched his acceptance speech and listened to all the words without any context of prior events. In fact, afterward Amy Schumer came in at some point and was joking about something happening and I thought she just meant that his speech was so incredibly emotional. Surprise!

I get the sense that a lot of people are hanging by a thin thread these days. But the threads vary - you don't quite know which thread it is, or which of the others have frayed. I blame the pandemic for a lot of this. For one thing, you can't lose a million people in a short span of time without causing millions of others to be dealing with grief and all of the ripple effects. So rather than the normal amount of people who are dealing with grief, I guess you would say we have a very enhanced group of people in that category. And then you have a great number of us who have learned some disheartening lessons about the society we live in. Some learned the lesson that they aren't as free as they thought they were, and they see conspiracies lurking around every corner and a breakdown of the stable paternal hierarchy they need in order to feel comforted and led. I may not get it but I know that mental health crisis is real and I regularly hear from those who are having it. Meanwhile, the rest of us are dealing with the flip side of that, whatever it may be. Like Pete said, maybe a desire to get back to a sunnier normal. In general, people probably had to live their lives a different way at some point in the last two years, which caused questioning about how they were living in the first place. If you don't regularly do that on purpose, it can be very unsettling. If this is the social response to a pandemic, one less severe than other dreaded possibilities out there, it's a delight to ponder what we will be experiencing when climate change becomes even more dramatically unavoidable.

poorpete · Post by **poorpete** » Mon Mar 28, 2022 9:58 am

"a delight to ponder" lol

Rock isn't getting enough credit for deescalation.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Mon Mar 28, 2022 11:40 am

At first I thought you meant Rock as in The Rock, and I was like, wow, I didn't hear about that part but I guess it makes sense he would step up and break up the fight?

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Mon Mar 28, 2022 12:52 pm

The shit continues. I have very little real things to feel this way about (compared to a lot of people), so I feel guilty for even feeling this way.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Mon Mar 28, 2022 2:54 pm

You're allowed to feel however you feel about it, honestly. However, the guilt is a common issue and one of the reasons people do cognitive behavioral therapy. Sometimes people write a script about it to be re-read when the feeling arises, or go through different procedures for evaluating and assessing the thought or feeling. This is where a person with real expertise could be helpful, but examples I'm familiar with include things like making a list and assessing it, and then selecting one item to write a script about for later use.

For example, suppose you feel guilty about something: you might list all the reasons why you are guilty or think you have done something wrong. You could assess the list by ranking it, to see which reasons really stand out to you as the worst. Then you could try to assign some type of distribution percentage of negative feeling - like when you think about this reason, do you feel 50% anger and 25% guilt and 25% fear that someone else will judge you? Or is it 75% anger and 25% guilt? Etc. The numbers don't matter as much as the exercise of examining what you are feeling about a specific thing. Then you go through a standard process of identifying false or unlikely beliefs associated with the feeling. For instance, you might challenge the belief by asking what else would have to be true, in order for the belief to be true. How likely are those things, relative to the others? Many of these exercises are like a standard list of cognitive fallacies: black and white thinking, confirmation bias, coherence bias, etc. Rather than just assuming they aren't relevant, you have to ask what they WOULD look like, if they appeared in this situation. I.e. if you were going to make the judgment that displayed coherence bias, what would it be? Is it the same or different from your current belief?

It can be helpful to imagine a second person who is like you: suppose this person reports feeling exactly the same guilt you do, and provides the same reasons. Pick the top reason: what could be said to challenge its veracity or likelihood? We know this won't apply to YOU, right, because your mind will always find reasons why YOU are guilty that don't apply to this other person, but put that aside and just focus on what you'd say to the other person. How would you doubt their belief if you had to do this? From there, you generate the content you would use to write a script, by focusing on what you claim to believe is true about another person just like you in the same situation, and the gap between that point and what you believe about yourself. It can help to list all the reasons why you believe you aren't like this other hypothetical less-deserving-of-guilty person, and attack THAT list with the same method. I.e. Rank these reasons strongest to weakest, and then take them one by one and ask how you would exhibit different cognitive biases with this reason, if you had to. How would you take this reason OUT of its proper context? How would you attempt to prove this reason through confirmation bias, if you had to? Etc.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Mon Mar 28, 2022 4:50 pm

I talk to a PA tomorrow about my meds, and I hope getting a new psychiatrist. So I’m assume I’ll be 100% fixed by tomorrow evening.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Mon Mar 28, 2022 6:25 pm

Absolutely! Wednesday at the latest. Well, not all change is good but there has to be some kind of move if you want it to go somewhere else, and this seems like a good kind of move!

poorpete · Post by **poorpete** » Tue Mar 29, 2022 1:03 pm

I changed therapists a few years ago and then made the most progress in the years since. She was open to pushing me to change, challenging me, and helping me assemble the puzzle to why I react in certain ways. Not to say that will absolutely will happen for everyone, and I'd say over the pandemic we've been more interested in staying-the-course than pushing me to confront some of my biggest fears, but there's benefits to that.

So Will apologized to Chris publicly and graciously and this is what I wanted, and I hope there's a return to normalcy. If there's true healing between them too after this, even better.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Tue Mar 29, 2022 5:30 pm

So of course the appointment got cancelled. So I have to wait ‘til tomorrow to achieve Total Mental Health (tm)

Post by **Mike** » Tue Mar 29, 2022 7:34 pm

So close!

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Tue Mar 29, 2022 9:45 pm

From the googling of medical matters:

"How long is too long for a period during perimenopause? Long cycles are common during perimenopause and can be as long as 38 days or more. If you're experiencing one, speak with your doctor."

Excuse me but I will be speaking with the whole management of this place, not "my doctor". Did she cause this type of b******* to start happening to people? Did she design all of this? I want to talk to the person in charge and I want to talk to the person who's responsible and I want to know what they were thinking. Yes, I'm putting this in the mental health thread because if you were dealing with this type of thing you would need mental help too.

poorpete · Post by **poorpete** » Wed Mar 30, 2022 2:11 pm

Helpful advice. I keep it all here so everywhere else I can do this.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Wed Mar 30, 2022 6:28 pm

I feel cheated.

Still not fixed.

As evidence I offer exhibit A: can’t stop thinking about a person I wish I’d never met.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Wed Mar 30, 2022 7:59 pm

Is this something you need to fix? Honest question. Maybe it's okay to think about people more than the amount that seems proper or acceptable, since after all, your private thoughts are your private thoughts and it doesn't really matter what they are to anyone but you. Intrusive thoughts often are like that: the more you dislike the intrusion, the more they tend to intrude. But there they are, oh well. It matters if you're making regrettable choices or doing regrettable things because of intrusive thoughts, but otherwise it's just you sitting with yourself. This is one reason why I like to reach the state of forgiveness: I don't want to have to sit with anger against somebody as opposed to thinking about the circumstances and finding a way to forgive if possible. But if you're just having wistful or forlorn thoughts or whatever they are, regrets and sadness of some kind, maybe just let them live there the way that you would have to welcome the ghosts into your house. When you go into a new place to live, you have to welcome the ghosts, right? Let them know you don't want to push them out and they can show up if they need to. And maybe the thoughts are welcome to stroll through if they need to. One of my friends has been carrying the torch for almost 30 years for the one and only woman he ever dated when they were young college kids. She's been married and had kids and everything else and he doesn't care. When he said he loved her and wanted to get married to her, he was not joking and nothing has changed. I think most other people would have moved on or would have stopped thinking about it entirely, but not only does he have the thoughts, he prefers to live his self-declared monks life rather than do anything else. He does not mind living with his ghost. Some ghosts are probably a heck of a lot more pleasant than the real person.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Thu Mar 31, 2022 7:39 am

The problem is that the thoughts are really fucking painful.

Eliahad · Post by **Eliahad** » Thu Mar 31, 2022 8:35 am

It's not like going to a mechanic. A new psychologist or psychiatrist needs time to understand your specific issues and goals. It sounds like you are thinking about this person because the new psych dug deep into what's bothering you and so you are accessing these raw emotions. Were you also given a few beginning strategies on what to do when these thoughts begin? You're allowed to have these thoughts, as Phoebe said, but you don't have to let them dominate you, even though that might happen for awhile as you figure out how to deal with them.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Thu Mar 31, 2022 8:56 am

I wasn't given any strategies, but it was literally a 15 minute appointment primarily to (a) make sure I have my meds and (b) start the process of finding a new psychiatrist.

Given that I've been on meds and in therapy for about 20 years, I'm not too optimistic.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Thu Mar 31, 2022 10:45 am

Eliahad wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 8:35 am A new psychologist or psychiatrist needs time to understand your specific issues and goals.

Yep - but also if they don't appear interested in doing that, or offering some tools tailored to your needs, and they just want to write a prescription and check in, then they probably aren't going to be much help to you.

This particular article is often referred to as a standard when people are developing and testing different CBT interventions for rumination and depression-linked rumination: https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2008-01984-001.html
I think it is 100% worth the read - ideally someone trained as an expert in CBT can help people work through these things, and having a true expert is helpful because this is a situation where clever brains will trick themselves and find all sorts of ways to scurry this and that way, reproducing their unpleasant conditions or even further entrenching them. The expert can serve as a bulwark against that, by noticing when you are tricking yourself into thinking what you are doing is OK, when in fact it needs critical examination.

However, in the immediate absence of an expert, there's a lot you can figure out on your own from this. One example of the way that rumination can either further entrench depression or help alleviate it is found in counterfactual thinking. Certain CBT exercises in counterfactuals can help the person enhance the already-present sense that they did something very wrong and are to blame for how their choices have resulted in miseries. CBT that uses this tool is unlikely to help! However, if the same patients are offered different kinds of thought experiments, their patterns of thinking and emotion are found to shift. Example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7820069/
This is why it's a good idea to have exercises where you think about another person - not yourself - who is in similar situations - not yours - and do the same kinds of counterfactual thinking about them. What are you concluding, what are you advising this other person to do? From this you can construct a repetitive script that gives your brain an alternative rumination task occupying the same space, as it were. Kind of like taking a bad item from your dog and substituting the appropriate chew toy.

(This strategy of advising another person is good in SO many situations including teaching a group - you might even want to try it on students - like what advice would you give to a person who was in THIS scenario? E.g. the scenario involves historical events with significant consequences, and the students gets to place themselves in the role of detached judge while explaining the basis of judgment - takes advantage of the fact that people a) like to judge, b) will quickly move to higher order reasoning in that situation without being pressed, c) want to tell others about it, and d) will offer better assessments of the causal relationships in such examples than they do with parallel questions in their own lives.]

Here is another example - linked at end of paragraph here. I know this website says that this ACT therapy is a preferred alternative to some CBT for dealing with negative experiences of rumination, but I would say this is simply BETTER CBT. Therapists can screw up CBT by speculating about how it works rather than sticking to highly specific strategies that have been tested empirically. By contrast the people at this website, whatever labels they are putting on it, do a nice job of explaining some of the issues with rumination - attempts to reject or suppress are generally lousy, so analyzing, dividing, diverting, and re-thinking are much preferred strategies. This one is about how you re-think by accepting certain thoughts and experiences, however painful, and diverting your efforts toward specific helpful activities. https://cogbtherapy.com/acceptance-and- ... os-angeles

Sorry to babble on but I am a big believer in empirically tested, cognitive interventions in psychological problems. Not saying I oppose medication but even medication helps so much more (proven so many times!) when combined with proper CBT. Problems are that people (and by people I mean experts with PhDs and publications and clinical experience) often get CBT confused, so you need to dig for the best options and tactics, and that's when people use CBT at all. There are still people teaching Freud, for heaven's sake!

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Thu Mar 31, 2022 11:00 am

Phoebe wrote: ↑Thu Mar 31, 2022 10:45 am Sorry to babble on but I am a big believer in empirically tested, cognitive interventions in psychological problems. Not saying I oppose medication but even medication helps so much more (proven so many times!) when combined with proper CBT. Problems are that people (and by people I mean experts with PhDs and publications and clinical experience) often get CBT confused, so you need to dig for the best options and tactics, and that's when people use CBT at all. There are still people teaching Freud, for heaven's sake!

No problem. I just expect (rightly or wrongly) that it won't help. I really should at least try some of these and see if they work.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Fri Apr 01, 2022 11:56 pm

Two hours of trying to be social and have friends = five hours of self-loathing, shame, desire to hide in a dark corner, and inadvertent exclamations of how much we hate our dumb self. Yep, post-covid living right back to a smooth normal.

Akiva · Post by **Akiva** » Tue Apr 05, 2022 8:02 am

Still having a terrible time.

Sometimes I just need to vent, even if it's not actually helpful. Thanks for putting up with me.

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Tue Apr 05, 2022 8:35 am

It's OK - we all have to put up with ourselves so in comparison you are easy to tolerate!

Phoebe · Post by **Phoebe** » Wed Apr 06, 2022 6:29 pm

Error: I looked up my physical symptoms on the internet, realized I had badly misread and misunderstood an earlier effort to do this, and now I'm convinced that I'm dying. I mean we're all dying slowly, right? Stop, I have to force myself to stop typing about it.