caffeine enthusiast

It may sound woo woo but it’s an important skill capitalism and hyper individualism have robbed us of as human beings.

Learn to process your emotions. It will improve your mental health and quality of life. Emotions serve a biological purpose, they aren’t just things that happen for no reason.

1. Pause and notice you’re having a big feeling or reaching for a distraction to maybe avoid a feeling. Notice what triggered the feeling or need for a distraction without judgement. Just note that it’s there. Don’t label it as good or bad.

2. Find it in your body. Where do you feel it? Your chest? Your head? Your stomach? Does it feel like a weight everywhere? Does it feel like you’re vibrating? Does it feel like you’re numb all over?

3. Name the feeling. Look up an emotion chart if you need to. Find the feeling that resonates the most with what you’re feeling. Is it disappointment? Heartbreak? Anxiety? Anger? Humiliation?

4. Validate the feeling. Sometimes feelings misfire or are disproportionately big, but they’re still valid. You don’t have to justify what you’re feeling, it’s just valid. Tell yourself “yeah it makes sense that you feel that right now.” Or something as simple as “I hear you.” For example: If I get really big feelings of humiliation when I lose at a game of chess, the feeling may not be necessary, but it is valid and makes sense if I grew up with parents who berated me every time I did something wrong. So I could say “Yeah I understand why we are feeling that way given how we were treated growing up. That’s valid.”

5. Do something with your body that’s not a mental distraction from the feeling. Something where you can still think. Go on a walk. Do something with your hands like art or crochet or baking. Journal. Clean a room. Figure out what works best for you.

For instance, Japan has spent a great deal of money on anti-suicide infrastructure, doing genuinely cartoonishly things like putting rollers on bridge railings so you can’t climb over them and slide right off, putting blue lights in the subway so it’s harder to see to throw yourself in front of a train. It’s not working. Japan’s suicide rate rose again in 2022. They are not addressing the root causes and stressors in their citizen’s lives and social barriers to mental health care and psychiatric medication.

And that I know my friends are busy and if they didn't actually like me they would spend more time watching TV than listening to me ramble etc and all of those are very good points!

However something that I think is also important to internalize is that--

Yes your friends and loved ones do you think you're annoying sometimes. It's not the end of the world! Because everybody's fucking annoying sometimes and *you* think they're annoying sometimes too. Even people who really really enjoy your company and like you are not going to like you 100% of the time. That is perfectly fine and normal.

The problem arises when people snip and snap at each other because they're annoyed and don't apologize or acknowledge it, right. There are many times that I am annoyed with my loved ones and so what I do is if it's not some actual big problem that needs to be unpicked I just take a deep breath and go take a walk or disengage and do something else.

You have all made a pact with each other that we like each other enough to move past any of the annoying moments. Again as long as it doesn't become toxic and it's not an actual issue.

Like sometimes I get in a mood and I talk and don't make sense or I'm grumpy or I honestly just talk too much or I talk in circles

I imagine at certain points that can be annoying

Anyway just a revelation that I had that it's fine if you're annoying, it's fine if you're a burden, we're all burdens on each other, that's called being alive and having relationships. Deciding to stick with a relationship and to keep working on it is the commitment we all make and choose to continue carrying that burden. Hopefully it is reciprocal but it will go in phases and cycles it's not going to always be 50/50.

Take a breath. It's just a meal, like any other meal, which can be hard to remember with all the fanfare around the feast.

It's okay and normal to eat a little bit more than usual on a holiday and you don't have to feel guilty about doing so. You also don't have to feel guilty if you can't.

It's okay to take some space if you feel the urge to binge. It's okay to take some space if you feel watched.

You're allowed to set boundaries if family members comment on your portions, eating habits, or body. You're allowed to ask them to stop, walk away, or, if you're not feeling up to confrontation, to just take some space in the bathroom and have a few affirmations and deep breaths.

If there's nothing on the table you can eat, it's okay to bring your safefood. It's not rude to make sure that there is something you can eat. People don't always understand things like ARFID, obscure food allergies, health conditions, or fear foods. Their lack of understanding doesn't make it less real.

If you struggle at all tomorrow, remember that you are absolutely not alone in finding the day difficult.

If you relapse tomorrow, or if you have mental health struggles tomorrow, or if you hold it together just by a fucking thread tomorrow, remember that it will end. After tomorrow, it will just be Friday, a new day in which you are free to start fresh.