You will fall...

What do you know about women who procrastinate until they no longer can? My culture is not your costume. I want to apologise for ghosting, but am I really back?

Regularly Scheduled Programming

Depersonalization-derealization disorder. (n)

Depersonalization-derealization disorder is a mental disorder in which the person has persistent or recurrent feelings of depersonalisation and/or derealisation. 

God bless the internet for allowing people to come on it and yap about their various mental illnesses and symptoms. God especially bless TikTok for giving a name to a symptom I frequently experience. 

So, I have a thing—a thing where I call myself a hard guy - an uncaring alien with an unfeeling core. The truth is a lot less maneater, Miranda Priestly core, I am a softie. The softest of softies, I don’t just give a shit, I give multiple shits and fucks. Which leads to being overwhelmed and unhealthy coping mechanisms. 

One of those coping mechanisms is now a symptom of a depressive episode: Depersonalization. “Depersonalisation is the persistent feeling of observing oneself from outside one’s body or having a sense that one’s surroundings aren't real.” - Definition by Google.

You know how, in movies or animations, a character would be floating out of their body? Whenever I got/get overwhelmed, I’d remove myself from the situation by depersonalising; there’s no need to be worried about something if it wasn’t happening to me. 

Depersonalisation, as a symptom and not the disorder, frequently follows a traumatic or stressful event, or occurs in a manic episode, it can also be a symptom of an intense depressive episode. You’re welcome for the free mental health lesson by the way. 

But depersonalisation is no way to handle any event, to truly make decisions that would better your life, you have to be in tune with it, and make peace with the fact that it is happening to you. That’s something I’m struggling with, making decisions for me. 

I just finished reading a book I found on Pinterest, Almost Adulting, by Arden Rose. Usually, I think self-help books are trash, but I have found that it’s a certain genre that sucks, and I can find plenty of helpful stuff in reading about other people’s experiences. I haven’t read a self-help book that has told me something I do not know, but it’s nice to have it repeated to me in a way I haven’t heard before.

Arden kept repeating that things may happen, but we have agency, and we can change things, hard as they may be to change. That’s the energy I will take into the next quarter. I have agency, and I can change the things I do not like. 

On Life.

There’s something about midnight on Sunday that makes you feel like you can change your life if you just write a concept note and watch a YouTube video. It’s that energy that made me finish the concept note for my pet project for Q4. It’s also that energy that is making me write this. 

Despite the fact that I haven’t written in a while, ILL stays on my mind (hehe), but then I get anxious thinking about the fact that I haven’t written since May and then I couldn’t find anything that was ‘profound’ enough to write about. Before starting on this letter, I kept rereading the old ones to find that line, that thread of sensibility in my old letters, and find where that smart girl was. But then I realised that I have this freak out at the beginning of every letter, and they come out looking coherent, so I am doing something at least. 

It’s Q4 in a bit and I am now staring at the goals I made at the beginning of the year, and lmao, I did not do jackshit. I kept my goals as simple as possible, and still, the only thing I achieved was taking my skincare seriously. And maybe I started eating healthier. But that’s about it. I have approximately four months to get somewhere, and that’s hilarious to me. Time dey, but time no dey.

Big on YouTube videos as background noise, and I stumbled into the gorgeous black women talking into a camera rabbit hole, my new favourite is Hailey Gamba, mostly because she’s an ADHD woman actually doing stuff, stuff that at some point, I’d like to do. You should check her out if you’re so inclined.

Back to my goals, it’s not that I didn’t try, well for some stuff I didn’t even try, but for others - the gym - I kept starting and stopping. Health, being busy with work, and those days when it took all my energy to stand up and not bedrot. I keep falling and stumbling on my goals, and shame keeps me from standing up and continuing. 

Some internet stranger once said, “The time will pass anyway.” and I really need to write that down and put it on my wall. Because the time will pass anyway. The sun will rise, and it will set, and the earth will rotate on its axis, whether you do the thing or not. 

Is it not better to do it, to try and fail, to fall and stand back up, than to sit on the floor and wallow? This is really just me motivating myself, through mental health issues, time blindness, and a phenomenal lack of personal planning, that maybe standing back up is what differentiates the people who win from the people who don’t. 

Every day is a day to stand back up. And if you fall again, you stand up. No matter how exhausting it is, maybe you wanna lean into being on the floor a bit; that’s fine, as long as you stand up in the end. 

On Books

I really have not been reading. My 2024 challenge is looking at me in shame. But I have incorporated reading into my daily schedule, and I hope that I can get out of this reader funk I am in. 

On Music.

Megan Thee Stallion dropped a song with RM of BTS, and we’re so back; we have never been back like this before. 

Speaking of moving on, somewhat, Linkin Park got a new lead singer, which, considering it’s been seven years since Chester died and everyone just kind of assumed they weren’t going to make music again, this was a welcome surprise. I really like her voice, and although it’s not Chester’s, it has the raspy quality that I know and love. Listen to the Emptiness Machine.

Lemonade

One thing about a year that will test you? It will bring the most amazing people into your life. I am very big on the people in my life; somehow, I get the best ones to walk the earth. One time for Zia’s friends.