22:55 Today has felt a little easier, helped by the fact I’ve been quite busy doing driving work. Overnight I felt like my brain was re-balancing and finding a more natural state. I’ve left it a little late to write this as I’m a bit too tired. I was expecting to be at a support group this evening but it turned out when I got there that it was cancelled. So I’ve spent most of the evening sorting out my room which had got into quite a state. So that feels good. I’m sure I would have spent the evening in a much less useful way before I went cold turkey.
Thanks to a mention of it in a Matt D’avella video I’ve discovered a really good Chrome website blocker called Stay Focusd which has a “Nuclear Option” that blocks all websites on a blocked list (or even all websites) for a period of time you set and there’s no way to get out of it. I was using BlockSite but that’s too easy to switch off by just going into the Chrome extensions screen and disabling it. It makes it slightly harder to get onto sites you want to avoid but for me it’s not enough. Initially I think I’ll probably set the timeout for a number of hours in the hundreds to keep me off blocked sites for quite a few days while I’m in the earlier stages of cold turkey.
Today I allowed myself to watch two consecutive episodes of Big Bang theory as I’m still not totally sure if I need to make TV part of my cold turkey and maybe it’s best to start by cutting out the worst things, which TV isn’t. I also allowed myself to briefly go on Tinder to contact 3 people that I’d been messaging with for a couple of weeks, two of which I’d discussed meeting up with. I hadn’t messaged anyone on there since a week ago when I suddenly had more important things on my mind and had started to seriously question whether I should be on there at all. So as far as they knew I had just dissappeared, and it doesn’t feel great when someone just stops messaging, so I wanted to get in touch. My objective now is to exchange phone numbers with the people I already have conversations with so I don’t lose the potential to meet someone but can get off Tinder.
I made myself some new sobriety coins for days 1 to 6. The ones I already had from when I went cold turkey from Facebook in 2019 started at One Week. Maybe I had more determination or willpower then, or maybe Facebook on it’s own when I didn’t have a smartphone seemed easier to give up than it seems now to give up the worst aspects of having a smartphone, including dating apps. I don’t really feel like I have much of a problem with Facebook anymore, and I’ve never had the app on my phone. Maybe it’s just that I’ve moved on to other things which are worse.
A few weeks ago I went with a friend to see George Clinton. I used to judge people who videod gigs on their phone and watched through their phone on the basis that as they are actually there they should just enjoy experiencing it. But I was standing there when I should have been just enjoying the music, swiping on Tinder, which is so much worse. At least the people videoing it on their phones are focused on experiencing the event they are at in some format. I became aware of this contradiction, but couldn’t seem to stop. I guess that’s what an addiction looks like.
I didn’t know what to call this post, and I’m not sure the title I’ve chosen really narrows it down. Sometimes I feel like I hate my life. Right now my brother-in-law who’s been in my life for over 20 years is in intensive care, after going into hospital on Monday with a panchreatitis. This is obviously a difficult time for my sister, made even more difficult by the fact that she and my nephew have long covid causing them to suffer from chronic fatigue. I’ve been doing what I can the last couple of days to support them. At the same time I’ve become very stressed about money the last few days, am trying to get out of a very bad lapse of device addiction, and today got very wound up by yet more text-based conflict with my housemate who for the year we’ve lived together has opted wherever possible to not speak to me, even when we’re in the same room/hallway. (we are rarely in the same room because we’ve got into a habit of avoiding each other). I wrote some detail here about what the conflict was about, but basically I threw away some carrots which looked rotten to me and I thought were intended for the food waste. The assumption was then made that I did this out of spite. I don’t think I’ve done anything out of spite since I was about 14. It even feels stupid writing this much detail because it’s over something so insignificant.
Part of my motivation for writing a post was that I don’t really feel like I have anyone to talk to about any of this right now. I thought seriously about calling Samaritans earlier, but I don’t feel bad enough for that now. I think going for a walk in my favourite park helped. That always helps. The last time I called Samaritans was probably 2012 when I had such chronic anxiety that I found it very difficult to function.
Writing things helps. I write a journal most days but a lot of days I just write factual stuff and don’t get as far as the feelings.
I feel like I’ve tried hard all my life to be a good person, but I seem to have had a few situations the last year or so where someone, presumably due to their own issues, makes wrong assumptions about me and decides that some or all of my actions are out of malice. And explaining why I did something doesn’t help, and if anything often seems to make things worse. I’ve admitted to myself recently that I avoid conflict. I’ve also realised that this extends to the fact that when I’m in conflict with someone I always try to remain reasonable and calm, which it turns out can be infuriating and I think often if I just said how I was feeling it would diffuse the situation.
This has turned out to be another stream of conciousness post, but hey whatever, writing this blog is more for me than for anyone else, and better out than in right?
Tinder is horrible. I had an addiction to Facebook before I got a smartphone (Oct 2019) that had a seriously negative effect on my life. But Tinder is so much worse. I’ve slipped quite badly since I went back on it after a relationship I was in ended after about 2 months in mid May. Since then I’ve increasingly felt it was bad for me and thought about going cold turkey but I seem to be actually doing that now. A few years ago I made some sobriety coins to help me stay off Facebook and I think its time to use them again. I think I need to include all dating apps, social media and even TV. Oh and porn. I’ve been through phases where I felt like I was becoming dependent on TV and just doing stupid amount of binge watching. Episode after episode after episode, even when I’d stopped enjoying whatever it was because I’d watched so much of it.
It’s after 11pm now and I’m tired and have run out of steam. POST.
