’Til This Pendulum Finds Equilibrium

God forbid you ask a pharmacy to fill a prescription

cannot understate the value of turning a few no-thought-required chores into your idle animation. I am wandering around in aimless restless need, unsure what kind of stimulation I crave, compelled to seek it out and yet unsatisfied by all that I attempt? ok I can do that while I put the dishes away. or fold some laundry. recently I was able to add 'washing the dishes' to the list and it's been a game changer. I can settle into the physical motion and very low-level mental requirements of doing the chore, and the rest of my brain can turn over the problem of What Should I Do Next. eventually I think of something I could try doing instead, and by the time I do I've folded three shirts and half my underwear. and these are all chores I can drop almost at once (except washing dishes, I don't like to leave the soapy dishes out, but rinsing is mostly quick). so as soon as I want to not be doing this anymore, I just stop!

there came a moment in my youth when I was preparing to #lie to someone and was stressing out about them not believing it and getting mad at me because I knew I was going to look shifty the whole time, but then it occurred to me that I knew all my tells because they were things that momentarily made my anxiety go down (turning my body away from them a little, looking at the floor, using excessive filler words, over-explaining, etc.), and since I could feel what they all were I could just. not do them. and suddenly it felt like I had stopped existing as a single unified being with my feelings and body inherently interconnected and instead was able to use my body like a very sophisticated tool that responds to precise instructions and only does what I actively tell it to. which made me very good at lying and garnered me a few student acting awards, but also led to some other problems of various natures further down the line. alas.

a side effect of this is that every so often, when someone around me is upset to the point of tears and I'm trying to help them, I'll get a sudden violent pang of envy that they're even capable of doing that at all. they don't have to go through the endless drop down menus of "am I feeling something?" -> "what am I feeling?" -> "how would I express it?" -> "would now be the right time and place to express it?" -> "now? do I do it now? right here right now? what happens if 'the person who never cries' bursts into tears?", it just happens for them all at once, no middlemen. expressing a real emotion often feels exactly the same as lying because I have to put exactly the same amount of active effort into both of them, and sometimes all the little choices that go into Looking Upset make it feel like a whole production, like an artificial performance, so I mostly never do it. which, though I would never let this come out of my mouth because I'm aware that it's wildly unfair, also sometimes turns up in my most uncharitable thoughts when other people are upset. a little "cmon mate, this is a bit much," at the back of my head. "I don't ever do this, so why don't you put in the same effort?"

if i dont respond to a message from you i can basically guarantee its not because i dislike you. im just getting attacked by imps and shit all the time genuinely.

Office silly sien

SEPARATE CHURCH (AO3) AND STATE (TRADPUB)

if she’s your girl then why is she giving me her green girdle to keep my head from getting chopped off