If you ever have a romantic partner who pressures you into deeper levels of commitment, and acts hurt if you don't want to move so quickly or don't want to commit at all... just like, that's his problem. He can go to a therapist or whatever. If he needs commitment because he's looking for security or a certain family structure or whatever, then he can break up with you and find someone more into that.

Me taking the last name "Lindsey" for him as my pen name, and then plastering it all over my professional brand, that's a specter that has damaged my career and followed me a decade after leaving him.

I did that because he pressured me into agreeing to an engagement, when I had repeatedly said I hated weddings, and I never, ever wanted to be married again.

And while we never did get married after a couple of years of engagement, he reminded me frequently how hurt he was that I continually postponed wedding plans. Yet would not engage with me about my doubts over relationship issues.

His name is on my work. Many of the publishing platforms will not let me change my name in the listing. Reader are confused at my multiple bylines. I've had to mess with domain redirects that don't work anymore.

Just, if someone wants you to commit and gets hurt by your hesitation, that's a them problem. They need to work on it, not you. You're just fine.

#UnsolicitedAdvice #Recovery2026 #DarkSojourn

In deep detox.

Mild depression is a thing I haven't had the luxury of dealing with in many years (possibly 15), though at one time in my life, I was functionally depressed every few weeks. I've been mildly depressed since late last week. Hard to believe how long it's been since I've experienced this, and yes, it's a major sign of growth.

Now trying to remember how to function outside of emergency mode. I can do stuff if I have to, but I don't have to. Sure, we need water. Sure, I'd planned to go into town today and get water. But there's backup water in storage. Don't really feel like pushing myself — there's no immediate reason.

I created this situation on purpose, now I'm trying to feel glad I've arrived at what I worked so hard for, but also struggling to figure out how to "be" when not absolutely pumped up on cortisol and adrenaline fueled by existential threats. But if I can just be when I'm suffering at a 9 on the 3rd Tier pain scale, then I can just be when I'm sorta meh, too.

Will I feel better if I pull it together and go into town today? Probably. That's how I used to cope with functional depression. But also maybe I don't care to feel better.

I want to take a sick day but I'm not exactly sick. I've had enough rest. Pain levels are minimal, tiredness is minimal. It's not brain fog — I know how to push through that. It's more like I just don't care to think.

I didn't accept 9-T3level pain as an excuse before, until I did and learned to rest.

So maybe I don't need any excuses at all.

#Recovery2026 #DarkSojourn #journal

Had a really bad flare up yesterday that is overflowing into today. After several really good weeks.

I don't know what triggered it.

I can't believe I used to feel like this, or worse, every day.

#recovery2026 #MECFS #DarkSojourn

I recently learned that you can relax your vagus nerve by massaging your ears. (This sounds like a setup for a joke, but this time, it is NOT.) It seems to work.

I stopped stimming my ears as a small child, when my mom would freak out that I had an ear infection. There are a lot of behaviors I repressed because my mom thought it meant I was sick, and she'd give me prune juice or put something up my nose.

My body knew what to do.

My mom isn't quite Munchausen or by proxy, but she leans in that general direction. She has always been sick with something and always thought I was sick, and unless I wanted to get out of work, I did whatever it took to hide whatever she thought made me sick. Lately I've been learning that some of tho behaviors were beneficial.

And upon individuating, my reaction to that upbringing was to swing the opposite way, to suppress and deny when I was tired or sick. I hardly ever took sick days (not that work would have let me anyway), and just powered through until I got permanently sick, and still powered through. Even my burnouts had burnouts.

Weird that I ended up with my mom, caretaking her endless illnesses while she ignored my pleas – "I am sick, mom! I need to pace! You need to prioritize my energy! The yard is clean enough! Stop calling me for useless things after 9pm!" and that's when I *really* well and truly broke beyond repair.

#Journal #DarkSojourn #Recovery2026 #IGuessImProcessingInteadOfLookingForWorkLol

I've seen several playthroughs of Disco Elysium (one was over eighty hours), played it partway through twice myself, and seen several video essays about it (including one by Jeffiot that was *five* hours).

Since I usually don't like to repeat content, I wondered why I was so obsessed with it.

From a video essay, this quote answered that and hit me hard at the same time.

"Disco Elysium isn't really about getting better. The more I played, the more I realized it wasn't teaching me how to fix myself. It was teaching me how to move while I was still broken." Jazz Stewart, YouTube

(If you've not experienced a run or partial run of this game, this video will not be the best introduction. I'm just including it as the quote source. If you're interested, it's best to play it or watch a playthrough, preferably raw without knowing too much about it.)

(But also it's a fine video to watch if you're already a fan.)

https://youtu.be/AQUSYk8OA6o

#DarkSojourn #Recovery2026 #DiscoElysium

I'm resetting after a weekend of basically not worrying about much of anything.

So last month, I had that hip injury, and on top of that I had a cold. While I'd gotten through most of my years-long backlog of high-priority emergencies, I still had plans to continue pacing myself through the remaining list items in order of priority/distastefulness. But my hip was so bad that I basically just spent January focusing on recovery, the barest essential daily tasks, pain management, and my two hours of billed work per day.

It forced me to rest-rest. Like, super rest. Not very relaxing, given the pain I was in, my mobility issues and the fear that caused me, and all the trips to the chiropractor. Not restful rest. But in terms of forcing a total reset on my brain, that did it.

Through that, I finished up my work project of three years. Last Thursday.

I still had a couple of hours of loose ends to finish up, mainly just emailing the client and getting all her files in the right format and uploaded, final invoicing.

But Friday? Instead of doing that, I just crashed out. I overslept, and overslept some more. Friday wasn't even fun, because I had that feeling of having sat still for way too long. But I had zero motivation to do anything whatsoever about it.

Saturday, same thing. Only by then, I'd gotten a new game that was sufficiently giving me dopamine. Like, way too much, so then I had insomnia 😂 I've also been watching nonstop spooky YouTube since the injury started. Unsolved mysteries, nostalgia, found footage, lost media, internet history, weird Wikipedia, Reddit drama, reviews of unethical 2000's era reality shows, ghost stories, weird weather incidents. Whatever is creepy without being triggering. So it's kind of a mood.

Yesterday, I scraped together the final work stuff in one hour, then went back to doing nothing. Because except for a few expected loose ends for my client, I'm technically unemployed now.

(And my tooth chipped all by itself in the middle of the night? So that's weird.)

There were several points during the month at which a grocery run seemed incredibly urgent... but then my sister brought some fruit and bread from the food bank. There was enough frozens in the freezer to get me by a little longer (because being a food packrat needs to pay off from time to time). Then my sister brought some of my old food from my mom's house. And I'm just skating by. Consider the lilies of the field, and all that.

This weekend was the first time since I can remember (13+ years) since I have felt zero sense of urgency, zero sense of responsibility, zero sense that even though I was resting, I still needed to be ready to pull myself together at any moment. Even when I was sick in my bedroom all those years, there were still things needing doing that took everything I had to push myself into.

This is first time I've felt a sense of "That's uncomfortably too much rest actually, but I think I'll just rest some more." Actual boredom and being fully rested. Since at least... 2013? Or earlier?

And also, no pain. All weekend. Except for my hip mildly aching when I slept.

Even with all the pol drama going on, I simply did not care. I didn't even feel like cracking jokes. I dipped in here from time to time to get quick updates on the state of the world, but it was mostly rather uninteresting.

It feels like a total reset. I have a vague sense of boredom, of sluggish thoughts, and no real need to pull myself together, other than a distant feeling that I really do have things coming due soon, and I really should be looking for work.

But .... there's time.

It's the weirdest thing. As I slowly roll back into activity, I have no feeling of fatigue or tiredness, other than having overslept.

I have no idea what my fatigue levels are should I try to pick up pace again. But no sense that I need to be on nearly the pace I was.

Unless I want to be.

#MECFS #Recovery2026 #DarkSojourn #journal