On Crashing and Burning, and What To Do About It

With the public unveiling of certain Files, a couple of weeks ago, I (yes) crashed and burned. We know everything’s vile, and we know we’ve been the slowly boiling frog for ten years and more, but that crossed a threshold, and I just couldn’t deal with it. Not with the constant onslaught of horrors and hopelessness, every morning, not with the knowledge of what was revealed, and what it all meant, and not with the resulting… not even depression, just numbness.

Anhedonia. Fucking Raistlin vision.

So, I decided to make some very long overdue changes. Fix my fucking dopamine receptors. Find some light. And it goes a little somethin' like this:

One: stopping with the ‘instant hit happy’. Mindless apps and/or (doom)scrolling. Brain-switch-off crap that just destroys my attention span. Enough.

Two: practicing mindfulness. Putting that motherfucking phone down and taking the moment to focus on, and enjoy, what I’m actually doing, be that reading, going for a walk, or drinking my coffee in the morning. Looking at the thing, touching it, feeling it, tasting it. Being <there>.

Three: reminding myself what I love. The reading, the writing, the creating, the gaming, the listening to music. The painting, the photography. The going out and finding new places. Doing these things, and doing them <now>, rather than putting them off because ‘meh, I don’t really feel like it’. Plugging my brain back in.

Four: cardio. I jacked in my gym membership, a couple of years ago, partly because of my back and partly because my job was/is very physical and was just making me too tired. But, while the job is very active, it’s not raising my heart-rate. So, back to the machines we go.

Five: tyrosine. My diet is pretty good (no booze, no gluten, no sugar, lots of green tea), but tyrosine helps your body process dopamine, and it comes only in protein-rich foods. (I’ve also, completely randomly, discovered that Quorn, while it claims to be gluten-free, really isn’t, and stopping eating it has really helped the fog. Who knew?)

Six: sleep. I do a lot of the good stuff already (go outside every day, keep active, not too much caffeine, blah blah), but it also talked about reading before bed and not staring at screens. We all know this one, but it’s high time I got round to it, so it’s something I’ve been trying.

All of this is pretty basic, CBT/common sense stuff, and it’s proving to be perfectly achievable. I’m already happier, consciously putting my phone somewhere else and watching Invincible with my whole brain.

I’m feeling rushes of genuine, positive pleasure, when looking at my bookcases (just for example), remembering why they bring me joy. I’ve re-organised my noticeboards (job I’ve been putting off for ever), to put up all my new book covers. I’ve started the second Lugan novel (as well as making really good progress with the one I’m actually supposed to be writing), and I’ve bought a new rug for the front room.

Just as a treat.

It all boils down to something from Stephen’ King’s On Writing (and something I’ve been saying to myself for years), and that’s clubbing that bastard Muse. If I want the things – the joy, the creativity, the writing, whatever they are – I have to go and fucking get them, not sit on my arse, gawping at all the world’s horrors, waiting for the good things to come to me.

Am I burying my head? Well maybe, but I’ve got to keep the horrors to within manageable proportions. We need to stay aware, of course we do, but sometimes, that mental health thing really has to come first.

Reading: following on from lots of Warhammer, I’ve just started Heated Rivalry, much to my colleagues’ amusement. Don’t judge me.

Watching: Finishing Invincible, ready for the new season, and wow I’d forgotten just how gory it is (lots of head-squashing). Amazing stuff, though, so many stories that wind in, around and through the main narrative, and all of them expertly handled. And fabulously morally ambiguous characters, like Cecil, who dance the line between good and bad guys, and remind us that nothing is simple or clear-cut.

Playing: our somewhat feckless Al-Qadim adventuring band continue to roll nothing but ones, make all the wrong decisions (when we can make decisions at all) and cock absolutely everything up, at absolutely every turn. Dice jails full to overflowing, again.

Anyone would think that the dice have it in for us...