💾 Archived View for tilde.team › ~mathpunk › journal › therapy.gmi captured on 2024-03-21 at 16:07:51. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Therapy

If you read the poetry I post on this capsule, you probably know I've been feeling pretty empty inside lately. If you read my gemlog, you'll know it's because my grandpa died recently, on my birthday. Almost like something out of a drama film. I remember being woken by my parents at six in the morning, explaining he was being taken to palliative care, and they were going to see him, but I couldn't come because the hospital had a visitor limit due to COVID.

So I guess I didn't get to say goodbye and I guess I'm processing a lot of regrets around that. Again, this whole stupid saga feels like something out of a fucking drama movie. I normally try not to be too down about it, but this gemlog is going to be specifically to talk about how I'm feeling, so if you don't wanna see that, here's your warning.

So anyway, I've more or less given up on myself and my life. I couldn't tell you why, it's not like I want to. There are clearly still things I care about, especially things that remind me of my connection to him - fixing things, for example. My grandpa was the kind of madman who repaired his own extension chords, despite probably not being qualified to do so. His workshop was covered in extension chords that really should have just been thrown away instead of "repaired." It was absolutely not safe, and seeing it made me realize where I get it from. I'm proud to have inherited whatever brand of stubbornness it is that drives a man to take the rubber coating off of broken chords in order to repair the wiring instead of just throwing them away.

I can fix computers sometimes, I guess. And whatever I can't fix - sinks, furniture, cars - I'm willing to learn how. I find joy in it. So it's not like I don't care about anything. My grandpa liked to build things, my dad likes to build things, I like to build things. But I'm supposed to be taking these math classes because I guess I wanted to be a mathematician or whatever. And I just kinda... stopped going. My classes don't take attendance and I got an extension on deadlines because my grandpa died, so it's not like it's completely unsalvageable. But I can't bring myself to actually give a shit. My instructors email me and I don't respond. I don't practice math anymore, I don't do any of my assignments... I don't care. By now, it's getting pretty late into my extension. I could salvage it if I really buckled down and studied nonstop for a couple weeks... but I especially don't want to do that.

It's a miracle that I shower. Or get out of bed, which I don't do before noon most days. I'm pretty convinced I'm gonna fail my classes, and that makes me more depressed, but that doesn't lead to me actually giving enough of a shit to study. I don't want to fail, but I don't care to succeed. I'm stuck here, and I don't know how to get out.

Which brings us to the title of this gemlog: I'm in therapy. We had a session last week and it actually went really well. I came out of it feeling hopeful that I could turn things around, and I decided I was going to write a letter to a friend about what my therapist and I had talked about, in order to solidify it. But I got distracted dealing with that day's crisis, because something has to go wrong at least once a day now, and I completely forgot what we had talked about and why I felt so hopeful in the first place. I had started this gemlog in the hopes that maybe writing about it here would jog my memory a little bit, but that doesn't seem to be working. I don't know.

I learned a long time ago that posting cries for help online isn't a very healthy way to deal with your problems, so that's not what this is. There is a way out of this. I know because I saw it last week. But now it's gone, and I can't seem to grasp it or figure out what it was, and it's going to be another two weeks before I can see my therapist again, and I don't know if I can save my grade by then.

That's the thing. My therapist told me it's not a big deal if I fail. I guess I can't accept that because I'm terrified of what my parents will say, but I didn't say that to her because I didn't realize as much until just now. I guess that counts as progress of some kind, so writing this was productive.

I was hoping I would at least grasp some of whatever it was I saw last week, but I think that's just completely gone now.

I feel like I should apologize for depression posting, but I think that's because I'm still social media poisoned. I used to have an unhealthy relationship with posting about my problems online, and it was pretty counterproductive. But I think writing long form journals on a gemini capsule is different. This did feel productive, even though I don't feel much better.

If you read this post, thank you for your time

Back