2023-05-25 — Still Here

Gosh, I’m so out of it and haven’t written in so long that I forgot for a moment how I write these things.

I guess it’s been about a week since I wrote last.

It’s been a really rough week. One of my hardest, mental health wise. I’ve been barely functional as a human being, mostly not even leaving my room.

That progressive downward trend seems to have hit a tipping point: a I’ve lossed my energy and drive almost completely. I don’t even want to do the things i wanted to do. My belief that happiness is in the cards for me is all but dead, and that’s even knowing that happiness is my choice. It’s like i have a broken brain. Because i can’t resolve certain things, I can’t move. I want to, but i can’t. And i see myself unable, so I am losing hope that I’m capable.

My relapse after feeling like I was actually making good progress has been the catalyst of this spiral. And I’ve been a complete mess since. As funny as it might sound, so much of my fragile hope for some particular things in the future for me rest on staying clean.

Anyway, I know… Yeah, how I’ve been feeling sounds like real depression at this point and not just super rough times that have continued for so many years.

Probably is.

I’m in really bad shape.

I’m a little bit better right now than I have been the last few days, which is why I’m even writing something.

Mostly, I’ve just sat in my room escaping into whatever movie I can find. Tired a lot. Just emotionally… spent.

I keep hoping that somehow I’ll regain my passion and determination and drive to go out and make as big a difference as I can in the world.

But it’s not coming.

Motivational speeches… A friend suggested that I try listening to one, but I couldn’t get through it.

Helping people doesn’t do anything either. Certainly, maybe there’s a brief positive feeling for making a little bit of a difference, from lifting a little bit. But that positive feeling is significantly dulled and so fleeting it almost doesn’t even register.

I don’t know. I’m in bad shape.

Decided to date this post as today and not yesterday. Looked at the time, and it turned 11:11 a.m., coincidentally.

I chatted with my hill brother day before yesterday. We talked for a bit, and he suggested that we talk together with my mom as well, to try to help me through all of this.

So we talked again last night and made a little plan.

I’ve been taking some steps back toward god. It’s really hard because I don’t trust at all.

There’s so much pain…

Sometimes I wonder and/or worry that there isn’t a god.

I hope there is.

Well… at least if that god is the one whose heart I once thought I knew.

That god would be incredible.

If I had to choose today one way or the other (at gunpoint or something), then of course I would choose the god side. I’ve had too many experiences that I can’t just throw away, but it’s also painful because I am where I am because of what I’ve trusted and believed that I thought was directed by god. Though I fully acknowledge that where I’m at now could be completely my own fault at the same time.

Anyway, the plan is for me to come up with a question related to the most difficult area of my life, the answer to which would help me make real progress forward in my life.

The suggestion is to then share that question with a few trusted people and then take it to god together, as a council, so to speak, until we all feel directed by god and are unanimous (the basic Mormon principle of councils where decisions are not made by the council until there is unanimity of sentiment).

Anyway, so I’m taking that leap of faith, so to speak. I’ve tried to reach out to god recently, and I’ve… not had any luck. My efforts have been more discouraging than anything, honestly. But I’ll try again.

There’s… one person I’d like to invite to the council, but i don’t know if it… would be a bad idea or cause problems…

Communicating with that friend isn’t off limits or anything, but it is definitely problematic.

I don’t know.

Stuff I’m thinking about…

I want to get back to passionate and driven and hungry– hungry enough to make the difference in the world that i want to make and can handle the massive amount of work it’ll take without being discouraged and overwhelmed.

It’s all this other stuff I have going on that I haven’t been able to get past that makes everything else feel so overwhelming, even the stuff I want to do.

I have a little more hope at the moment. It’s extremely fragile–more like a wisp of smoke than even a tiny thread, but it’s… something.

I’m trying to dig out. I hope I can.

For record-keeping sake… one car on the 19th. A VW that was a no start that just needed a battery.

Three cars on the 20th, a Ford Transit connect and Bella Vista that needed a battery, but they gave me the wrong VIN number, so I had the wrong battery. Gratefully, AutoZone very quickly delivered me the correct battery.

Then I spent some time hanging out with Miguel and one of his employees who were both at his shop even though it was Saturday.

I spent a lot longer there than I should have, but that’s fine. After that, I had to Springdale and put in an alternator in a 2011 Jeep Liberty. It was the same customer I put a window regulator in for A week or so ago. The last car was a 1997 Toyota RAV4 in Fayetteville that needed a radiator installed. At first, it looks like it would be easier than the labor hours indicated, but oh my goodness. Nope. I think it took me like 5 hours, having to disassemble parts of the front end of the car.

It was the typical nightmare job.

But I finally got it done somewhere around 10:00 or 10:30 p.m., I think. Spend some time talking to some Puerto Ricans who were there in the parking lot working on one of their own vehicles they were trying to flip.

Anyway, that’s the work update. Since last Saturday, I haven’t had the mental or emotional capacity to deal with even really leaving my house. So I’ve just been home… wasting my life away.

I still try to lift the world even though I’m messed up and I’m significantly reduced in my ability to do so, but I at least can send text messages to people who might be having a hard time. That’s about the extent of my strength right now, but I guess it’s something at least.

As I finish up this post, I’m trying to get myself out of the house and get going. I don’t want to. I just want to sit in my room, find another movie on Amazon Prime, and disappear into virtual reality, so that i can even temporarily be distracted from the pain.

Speaking of pain… i guess I’ll give some health updates.

I think maybe my joints have gotten back to pre-New Zealand levels. They still hurt, but I think? that is about where it was before? Maybe I’ve recovered from that hike that left me barely walking for the last couple weeks or so of my trip.

One of my favorite places I’ve ever been to in my life. i recognized in the Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power Amazon tv show.

Start at minute 14:33 and go to 14:44 of episode 2 of season 1 of the Lord of the Rings, Rings of Power. That scene with the huge cliffs and gajillions of waterfalls. That one, unlike many others, isn’t CGI. I’ve been there. 🙂 After that, it’s definitely CGI, and they might have added some waterfalls to the section i refer you to, but there were so many gazillions of waterfalls anyway, that it still has about the same effect in real life? I’d have to compare the scene in the show to my pictures, but it was amazing to be there.

I noticed the same place in the Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey when they are starting to climb through the mountains after leaving Rivendell, i think it was. Fun fun fun. 🙂

Squirrel.

So… Though my joints hurt like they did before the trip, I think they’re back to at least that level.

My hip injuries seem to be improving as well. Neither hio has given me issues that I can recall. Maybe a little pain here and there (and since I haven’t slept in a bed, I don’t know how my left hip would do with pressure on it, but at least for the moment, I seem to have significantly improved. Hopefully, it’s not just that I haven’t put it in bad positions.

My left shoulder that I hurt caving in the North Island and that his bothered me for all these months since, seems to have turned a corner. I can tell it’s still not happy, I don’t think, but it seems to have improved significantly recently and quickly after many months of feeling like it was super bad.

Cross your fingers. It would be nice not to have to get surgery.

My stomach and heartburn issues are just as bad as ever. In fact, possibly worse. I can’t lie down. Bending over is a problem, and both of those are a problem given the mechanic work I do which requires being on the ground all the time and bending over and all sorts of stuff. It’s like my esophagus no longer even has the valve that keeps the stomach acid in the stomach. It’s like I’m a vase, tip me over, and everything will spell out.

My esophagus is burning as we speak right now even though I haven’t had anything to eat for quite a while. And nothing that should give me heartburn anyway.

That one’s worrisome. I might finally break down and get an appointment for a doctor who probably won’t be able to do anything or will say everything’s fine. But if I let this go on too long, and hopefully it’s not too late already, I could end up with permanent damage if the issue is what I think it is.

(sigh)

Doctors. Ugh.

Well, folks. I finally wrote a post.

Love and hugs. 😊

Lift the World

~ stephen