PERSONAL

5

1,400

Unplanned Week Off

2 years ago533 words

I didn't intend or even want to, but I ended up taking this week off!

I've been writing for a few weeks now about how stressed and anxious I am about the upcoming next stages for Atonal Dreams (promotion, Kickstarter, etc), and the thoughts about how I'LL FAIL AND THEN I'LL NEED TO DRASTICALLY CHANGE MY WHOLE LIFE AROUND because it's in a terrible state that've been brought out by it.

Well, those continued, plus I had a string of like five days where one thing after another hit (including some 'family stuff' I shouldn't write about here), with the worst things being terrible physical sensations like a severe, unfamiliar headache and a general feeling of 'being badly ill' which I'm hoping were 'just' an unusual manifestation of anxiety, but which may have had something to do with the vaccine I recently got, since I did get side effects immediately after that?

Plus there was the terrible (though thankfully short-lived) heatwave which affected me much more than I expected it to, possibly because of all the other mess in my mind at the time.

And the week before, I'd been barely eating due to the stress, then suddenly started trying to eat more, and I think that must have had some negative effect as well.

So I spent a couple of days in bed just doing nothing, barely even able to play games or mess around on my phone, which was hellish.

But it'd got fairly deep into the week at that point, so I just said to myself "fine, I'll just take this week off then!" And the next day, as if by magic, I felt way better, just knowing that I could focus on other 'meaningless' stuff - mostly personal creative projects - without having to worry myself sick about Atonal Dreams.

I'm still annoyed by it, though, because I hate how I keep making up excuses and the game's already taken forever and there's still so much left to do. And I feel I'm stuck in limbo until I finish it. But pushing myself to madness (or rather further into madness) won't lead anywhere good. I've learned THAT from experience!

I'm reminded of the guy whose Kickstarter I linked to a few weeks ago, who had to give his own personal project away to others to finish after pouring years of his life into it, because he'd just pushed himself too hard, through all the signs telling him he needed to take a break from it all. And of course the same happened for me after MARDEK 3.

So yes. I never like writing "I did nothing this week!", especially since I know other people have to work whether they feel up to it or not. But they also get paid a living wage for that (hopefully), which I don't really for this, so there's that.

I'm hoping I'll get back to work tomorrow, unless some weird random thing happens like an asteroid hitting my house or something!

Oh, and I still need to see someone about mental health stuff - obviously! - but haven't made any arrangements about that yet. Because of the mental health stuff. Annoying how that works.