Mental Health

There isn't enough of it lately. My dear girlfriends artremis & otterylexa are both having a bad time for different reasons, and I am exhausted. The fact I have started cognitive behavioural therapy again, this time in an attempt to deal with anxiety & my medical phobia, really isn't helping. (Pretty much all types of therapy make you worse in the short term while you unpack the unhelpful "coping" behaviours.) I am finding myself procrastinating everything, even things that should be entirely stressfree - like starting to play the game I planned to spend the evening playing?! Even Richard, who at worse suffers from mild dysthymia, has been having episodes of d00m and gl00m. I blame the complete and utter lack of sunlight at this time of year. If any sunlight existed today, it was before I got out of bed. Blah.

I am also having weird physical health stuff going on - inability to control body temperature and my version of "glandiness", which isn't the same as Ludy's but has some features in common. On Wednesday I came back from the therapist, put the heating on, and crawled into bed, fully dressed. I was so cold I pulled Richard's duvet over myself as well as all my own bedclothes, and I even fell asleep for a couple of hours. Have been having random headaches & neck pain & feeling puffy around the gland region, & random other aches, & annoying phlegm in my throat despite the fact I don't eat dairy products. This is all within the range of "normal for h-ls" (i.e. symptoms with a known medical explanation), but I prefer for it to not happen. Am desperately trying to refuse work, because we have enough money (!!), and I don't need to work to the point of physical collapse. Moan moan moan.

hatter & I are supposed to be having a Tax Return party on Friday 21st. If anyone else has a Tax Return to do and is free during the daytime, feel free to come round to my house anytime after 11.30am, and we'll sit and do them together. Richard's laptop might be available, I'll have to check.