1/8/17
i'm thankful that though i couldn't sleep last night and didn't get to sleep until very early this morning and woke up feeling bad, i have a job where i was able to take the morning off work and try to go back to sleep. i'm thankful that d, who usually stays in bed next to me in the mornings got out of bed, closed the blinds, and closed the door so it would be dark and quiet for me. i'm thankful that i actually did sleep, which is a rare thing for me outside of nighttime hours, and that when i woke up again i felt better and was able to work a half day.
i'm thankful that though insomnia sucks, it is really refreshing now that my occasional insomnia is just that, insomnia, where i can't go to sleep and it's frustrating but not like (in the past) where i couldn't go to sleep and then i worried something was wrong with me and then, trying to relax, i would feel some odd little sensation in my body, a pulse in my foot, and start to fixate on it, intensifying its presence, and then suddenly it is the next morning and i am walking through the winter to the grocery store to check my blood pressure in the blood pressure machine and it is high because i have been having a panic attack and walking in the cold to the grocery store and worrying about people watching me take my blood pressure and then i am, because i am scared to go to the doctor because every time i do they tell me i'm fine and treat me as if i was stupid to worry about this again, so i go to the health food store and buy hibiscus tea and take it home and drink it obsessively multiple times a day because i read on some scam website on the internet that it is good for lowering blood pressure and all the while this constant worry is burning a hole in my stomach.
i'm thankful i don't think like that anymore (i say in the past tense, as if it wasn't just last summer i went to the emergency room at the culmination of week of panic about chest pains while exercising, but six months without being afraid of my death on a semi-regular basis is pretty huge for me). i'm thankful to have a whole space in my mental real estate now that wasn't open before because it was occupied with always being afraid i was going to die. i'm thankful for antidepressants, which are what have made this and so many things in my life that are possible, and though i think there are other things in the world that we could fix to make people less anxious and depressed and though i think the american pharmaceutical industry is an example of some of the worst things about capitalism, i'm thankful for antidepressants. i'm thankful to hope that we are working to make the world better instead of just finding better ways to tolerate how terrible it is, but i'm thankful that asking and thinking about that question feels like something that only people who are sane and stable are able to do and that is not me if i don't have this medicine.
i'm thankful that though i made a mistake at work this afternoon, it wasn't that big of a deal and i handled it quickly and capably. i'm thankful for my new manager, who reached out in a DM to tell me that it wasn't a big deal and i'd done everything really well, just in case i had been worried about it. i'm thankful he went out of his way to further emphasize that he didn't think i would be worried about, but that in case there was a chance i was, he just wanted to make sure i knew it was okay. i'm thankful for nice gestures like that. i'm thankful that the head of our department recommended me for an opportunity at our retreat in a few weeks that i'm excited about.
i'm thankful after the bashing my head against the wall that was saturday afternoon that i made a lot of progress on my app very quickly yesterday and that i think i might actually be able to release it for beta testing this week, which is something i'm really excited about. i'm thankful to e for her help with some mobile testing. i'm thankful that though i want to work on it right now, i don't want to get too worked up (the mania of focus, which feels so good when i'm in it but has such a hangover) and risk not sleeping well again tonight, so i'm going to close my computer after i send this.
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