The main goal of 2015 was staying alive because I was probably at the lowest depression I’ve ever been in (and while this was the first time I was on meds… given that I started 2015 with getting instituionalized in January, got nms, had to go off my meds, and didn’t get to a stable place until about October). It was a rough year.

So far, 2016 had been looking better. I have/had a med cocktail that was working fairly well for me and keeping me reasonably balanced. Not too much anxiety and my motivation returned from the war. And then….

Well. For whatever reason I’ve had like five panic attacks over the past two months. Not quite sure what to do with this since my generalized anxiety is reasonably under control but… I guess the prozac doesn’t necessarily touch my ability to panic over nothing. So there’s that….

But then I made the mistake of <a href=”a href=”http://syx.pw/1oLtPoe”>http://syx.pw/1oLtPoe</a”>reflecting about the state of my life</a>, something that is almost always a mistake. I tend to shy away from self-reflection because, by and large, my life depresses me. This has always been true. I spent most of my childhood wishing that I would die or just cease to exist. The point being: I didn’t enjoy being alive. And I still don’t. Not really.

Interestingly, one of my great Autism Powers(tm) is that between that and some other features of my brain (alexythemia and aphantasia, specifically), I’m generally very able to live in the Now. To a certain degree. By and large, I don’t reflect on the past (thank glob for not having auto-biographical memory). While, yeah, I do worry about the future (I don’t have anxiety for nothing), it is relatively easy for me to sink into my routine and just…. function on cruise control, more or less. I’d say this is how I am the majority of the time.¹

My life has been a careful calculation of minimums for a long, long time. What’s the minimum grade I need to get into grad school? How little can I work and still pay all of my bills? How much cleaning can I do so that I don’t feel like I’m living in filth?

These days, a lot of ppl conceptualize the above using <a href=”a href=”http://syx.pw/1oLvGsZ%5Cn”>http://syx.pw/1oLvGsZ\n</a”>the ‘spoon theory’ by Christine Miserandino</a>. Ever since my psychotic break in my first year of university, I’ve become a Spoon Mathematician. It was either become that or, idk, likely go Crazy for good and that’d be that. And thinking about autistic burnout, its interesting how this coincides with a question I had about the spoon theory a while back:

What if the time periods for spoons is longer than a day? As in, you can spend five years of your life borrowing so heavily on future spoons that, eventually, the loan comes to term and its time to start paying back. With interest.

This pretty much sounds like my life (and very much what either autistic burnout or regular burnout is). So my loan is up for repayment and, well, I don’t have anything to give. I can’t pay. Because I still need to borrow. But as my credit score tanks, the cost of borrowing gets higher and higher, so even with borrowing I’m able to access fewer future spoons. And so my ability to be a Functional Adult is ever decreasing.²

Why does this matter? Because as my recent reflection shows, it doesn’t look like I’ll be getting any relief any time soon. Or maybe ever. Its hard to say.

And I’m so tired.

Given my life circumstances it looks like I’d need to maintain this level of functioning (or better) for at least another four or five years. At which point, maybe my bro’d be able to get a Real Job and I could take a break. Maybe.

This doesn’t sound so bad, no? Except that I think about having to stay even at my current level for another five years and I just want to die. I’m so tired. Even as I write this… I think of my current circumstances continuing for another five years and… the exhaustion and despair is indescribable.

And, this is the real kicker, you know why is the Most Depressing fact about my life right now? That this is the best my life has been since ever. My life today is so much better than it was ten, twenty, etc years ago. The past five or so years have been – despite certain events – the best of my life.

But I’d rather die than spend another five years living like this.

This is why I try not to think about my life too much.

I’ll admit, I’m more worried about myself now than I was when I got institutionalized. Then… I felt the depression more (bc of the meds situation). But, in a perverse way, how depressed I was kind of saved me. I didn’t have the energy and motivation to actually do anything. Now, however, I find myself making a suicide plan and because I have more pep in my step, I can clearly envision what I need to do to make it a reality and I have enough energy/motivation to act on it. Last time, my plans were actually more vague and indistinct than they currently are.

Maybe this time I actually need the hospital more than last… but after that experience, I really don’t want to go back (although, I’d probably go to camh rather than east general because that place fucking sucked). Urgent care won’t do much for me. What would help is having better access to mental health care.

Except that that isn’t going to happen until I manage to get healthcare through my union. But… I’ve honestly been waiting on that for around two years. And because the university is being a petty jerk about everything, I’m guessing it could be another year before we actually have a collective bargain. That’s a long time from now. But pretty much my only hope of getting better access – without my financial situation magically getting better.³

The other major reason why I’m worried atm is that I’m trying very hard to convince myself that my bro would be better off without me. My relationship with him is probably the best thing in my life right now. Last time, its what kept me going.

But now I’m thinking: Maybe it’d be better if I just died now. He would be sad for a while but he’d get over it. I know that I’m causing him anxiety and stress (because he worries about me). I know that I’m not easy to live with because of not being very flexible and generally being neurodivergent. He’d be free to live out his dreams. Blah blah blah.

You get the point.

Not quite sure what happens if I manage to convince myself… But it does look like I’m going to have to put more effort into one of my two New Year’s resolutions: not dying (the other is not getting sued and I’m being pretty careful on that front).

In the meantime, it looks like I’m back on the self-destructive habits and eating garbage again in the hopes of slowly killing my liver and myself. Even considering taking up smoking again because, well, it was a way to pass the time and one of my main motivations (well, two of them) for quitting aren’t all that pressing anymore. It’s tempting. Probably don’t have the money for it anyway (and, my god, if/when I climb out of this depression and want to quit again… that was such a fucking miserable experience that I’m not really keen on repeating).

For now, I’m eating junk food and not really trying to regulate it. My liver is already hurting me and, well, I’m having trouble caring.

So it goes…

This is why, these days, I'm such a bad correspondent. It isn't that I don't care about my friends but that I'm intentionally going through my present life on cruise control. This is how I've survived this long. And I lose track of hours and days and weeks as they slip by without notice, until I realize I haven't spoken to someone in weeks, months, years. And it has nothing to do with feelings, since the alexythemia makes it easy for me to pretend I have no feelings. (Also by 'these days' I mean the past, idk, six years or something. I think after my academic career ended and I went into a tailspin, I hit cruise control and that's where I've been ever since. So yeah. That was in 2010.) ↩

And ok. I totally rode that metaphor straight into the ground. Whatever. ↩

This is assuming my contract gets renewed at the end of the month. ↩ </fn></footnotes>