The longer that I deal with these mental health issues, the more that I am starting to categorize the symptoms that I am dealing with. Working on the new book means that I am trying to balance my writing time with the stress that I am under, which means that I have absolutely got to give myself grace.
I didn’t go on a single walk throughout 2021 until this month. I spent most of 2020 accidently losing weight by going out to Vancouver every single day, but this year due to the pandemic and the drama of it all, I just spent my time focusing on working and writing and building up content for the website.
This week however I decided to switch things up and I started walking down to the crossroads again, which is about a quarter mile and a half maybe slightly less, from my house. There are 3 crossroads on the north side of my apartment building, one on one side, two on the other, and each of them remind me of different deities who I believe have kicked my ass more than once.
Each of these places have a special place, and the more that I found myself pulling away a little bit from Loud Mouth Brown Girl, the more I found I was craving being in the same places that I used to walk the dogs. Rosie and Whalley are very much missed in my life.
A lot of my brain work is taking what I am thinking and feeling and putting it on the page for you all to consume, and it helps. It helps to know that there are people who are reading, and listening, and adding their own point of view and their own advice.
Brain Work Causes Physical Ailments to Appear
The thing that I am starting to learn is that I get very tired very easily. This isn’t something that used to happen at the church, it’s something that’s only started to happen predominantly in the last year or so, and more specifically the last six to eight months.
I know that this is in part due to the stalker and their bullshit, but I also know that part of it is the fact that I am dealing with trauma 24 hours a day, and as soon as I start to get comfortable and start to feel like I’ve hit a groove, something happens to knock me off course, because that’s life.
The brain is a muscle like any other muscle in the body and when it gets tired, the rest of your body whether you like it or not follows suit, because the brain does this thing that is quite reminiscent of a toddler in a shit storm. “Wha, I’m tired, I wanna go to bed,” and the moment that you decide you’re going to try and push through, the rest of your body dives down the rabbit hole, and suddenly everything hurts, and everything is suddenly tired.
Brain is tired often equals:
- Muscle pain
- Exhaustion
- Feeling stressed and anxious
- Feeling extra sensitive to things that wouldn’t normally bother you.
Being mentally emotionally drained has such a huge physical effect on me, and I have a horrible habit of taking a nap when I’m tired, calling it meditation, and then waking up later in the evening and working until the wee hours of the morning.
It’s a terrible habit because one day I am going to have an office, but right now my working habits are entirely based on the times when I am emotionally strong enough to do what gets to get done, so that this blog can matter as much to the audience as it does to me.
A lot of this blog is less about the “brand” stuff and more about the “see I can do this, yes I have mental health issues, but I can build something in spite of them.” And that pressure that I am putting on myself is an absolute lot.
The thing is that I don’t know how to do less. I feel like if I am awake I should be working, and if I am working then that time should matter, but I am also finding that I am more interested in doing prep work than I am in promotions, and that’s a huge switch because when I was a kid I wanted to be the one with the sign on the street corner.
I was absolutely convinced that I’d be genius at marketing, but now that I’m older, I’m realizing that it’s not fun.
Figuring out what I love doing, vs what I do just to get the job done is a pain in the ass, because I thought I knew what I wanted, but as I grow and evolve what I want and need changes and evolves too, and I feel like I can’t quite catch up emotionally.
Mental health issues are a constant balancing act, and the more that I learn about my own the more passionate I am about finding ways to deal with them and pass them on, but I have to tell you, working on a work book is sapping my energy like nothing else on the planet.
YES You will be okay, and NO it’s not going to be easy, so YES give yourself patience and kindness, without stressing about what OTHER people think.
Recently I’ve been writing about conditioning. We spend a lot of our time being conditioned:
- Buy this
- Think like this
- Date, marry, have babies
And inevitably in that list are a bunch of people screaming “go for a walk” at the top of their lungs as if that will solve anything. But playing a video game for an hour could also work, masturbation, sex, hanging with friends, or alternatively turning on every movie you can find where everything blows up. There are a variety of things that you can do to get out of the funk, but the number one thing that you have to do is give yourself permission.
Permission to breathe, permission to relax, and permission to tell nosy friends and neighbors to fuck off when they catch you smoking a joint with your feet up instead of cleaning your house, because damnit you’re tired, and you don’t have to justify that exhaustion to anyone, regardless of what they think.
Good luck with it my loves, and if you come up with any ideas, I’d love to hear them, so feel free to share them in the comments below.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
Loud Mouth Brown Girl 