Part of my survival method is to set minimalistic goals for myself. That way, I get the sense of accomplishment without risking hurting myself too badly. And I do hurt myself if I set too many; I will ignore my health and sanity just to complete all the things.

It makes me sad to a point — I’d like to do more things. And who doesn’t? People in general like to be able to say, ‘I did that. I left this mark on the world.’ Even the lazy do, but in their case, they hope it will be by sheer luck. The ‘mean’ and ‘bad’ go for notoriety, the nice go for good deeds, and so forth. I’d love to be able to say that I’ve done things, but I’m so nonfunctional that I can’t even get to the point of identifying things I’d like to do. It’s too tiring to thing past the vaguest concepts — ‘I’d like to write stories.’ ‘I want people to acknowledge my sagely kickassness.’ ‘I want a chocolate bar.’ Okay, the last isn’t really a deed, but it is tasty.

And that’s the other thing — functionality. I think we all accept our basic level of functioning as functioning, even if it isn’t. The thinking about goals and doing things makes me acknowledge that no, I really am barely scraping by. I consider washing my hair a sing-to-the-hills accomplishment; I can only imagine people think that I’m wholly slothful rather than ‘unwell’. I was attempting to explain this to my youngest sister, when I stumbled upon this:

The Daily Energy It Takes to be Normal
http://www.livingmanicdepressive.com/C_110.html

I don’t rapid cycle, but it otherwise speaks true. It takes a lot of energy I don’t have to be ‘normal’ at the best of times. At the crap times like this? Hah. It goes hand-in-hand with the Spoon Theory to best explain what it’s like living with a mental condition. I have no spoons, and I have no focus, and deity it’s a victory that I’m out of bed and not sobbing. With that as a baseline, is it any surprise that thinking big and having lots of goals seems more like a prison than an aspiration?

With that in mind, I’m going to go eat crap food, and play video games. Because at least in that, I can feel like I’m doing something, even if it’s absolutely insignificant.

<3