I was hospitalized in May and spent a chunk of June off my feet. July was a stressful busy month. I started back at my day program for people with disabilities earlier this month and at the end of the day after program I am exhausted. I think these defeating thoughts came on the heels of that.
With thinking that my writing is awful also comes the fact that I'll be 30 next year and still haven't gotten a novel published. Having a novel published by 30 was a goal. Having not met it makes me feel like a failure.
I’ve gradually shifted to the “system approach” from the “goal approach”, after also spending a lot of time vowing to do this before 20, that before 35, and so on.
With the goal approach people throw everything into achieving the goal, but the rest of life is on autopilot, and tends to sabotage one, as entropy begins to accumulate all across the system of one’s life. What you achieve, you achive
in spite of the state of your life (and the compensatory tendency to use 'fake boosts' like drugs and alcohol in order to claw at the goal while everything else is in shoddy condition, or even in a state of collapse). With the systemic approach, one makes a plan to gradually raise the quality of every aspect of life, including, in our cases, writing. What you achieve, you achieve
as a result of the state of your life. Without the crazy need for lots of legal or illegal stimulants, and therefore paying such a hefty price when the collector comes a knocking.
When life’s different aspects are gradually coming under control (within reason, per the realistic boundaries of the situation one is in), the overall level gets raised automatically, and after a certain point success rears its sexy head from every side (especially when one has taken off the 'freaking out goggles' and the various 'successes' become visible, as opposed to being blotted out by relentless grandiose fantasizing). Adding a 3% life bonus here, a 2% life bonus there, all across the board, can suddenly combine into very serious positive changes beyond the sum of their parts.
Figuring out how to eat best along the budget-health spectrum (often a can of tuna and a simple soup or basic pasta is way better than fried crap and chips and the like), how to sleep best as in when and how long, how balance the various responsibilities and desires, including keeping one’s immediate habitat tidy and non-toxic, helps stopping freaking out.
(Feng Shui may sound like superstition at first glance, and maybe much of it is, but to me it makes perfect sense that our immediate environment has a mirror duplicate in the subconscious layers of the mind--per Melanie Klein's vintage theories, for example--and when you take care of the external half, the internal half also stops being a swamp of entropy)
Freaking out burns too much energy which is much better directed into maintaining health, happiness, and work.
And lastly, concerning depression and anxiety, a lot of it is related to the body’s chemistry (as opposed to only the brain's chemistry, which still tends to be viewed in isolation, and not an intergral part of a larger system), which in turn is related to the body’s chemistry-regulating organs, including very much the adrenal glands. Giving them a break for a week or two, with no or little caffeine, sugar, greasy foods, exciting films or music, etc., may very well allow them to bounce back from the constant overstrain we tend to put them through, and once they bounce back, after a transitional period of brain fog and fatigue, the moods and energy levels stop the ‘sharp high’-‘sharp crash’ nonsense and settle on a more sustainable, reasonable level.
Once the adrenal glands and the endocrine system have recovered some semblance of balance, much of the daily stress starts feeling like a mosquito bite as opposed to a shark bite. Which, IMO, is the way it's supposed to be. When the fight or flight reflex is back in decent working condition, instead of giving false positives all over the place.
Good luck with everything.
**
How not taking care of the stomach can bite one in the
ass brain and promote depression:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-bacteria-may-exacerbate-depress/
https://kellybroganmd.com/from-gut-to-brain-the-inflammation-connection/
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/healthy_aging/healthy_body/the-brain-gut-connection
How maxing out on the "nervous energy" of the adrenal glands can bite one in all the asses imaginable:
https://adrenalfatiguesolution.com/adrenal-fatigue-symptoms/
https://www.bodyandsoul.com.au/fitn...e/news-story/89f84dfd83b3a552e52cd8b26e3f0915
https://empoweredsustenance.com/adrenal-fatigue-recovery/