Who Can We Get on the Case? We Need Perry Mason

On some level, I think I thought that writing one entry would help me manage my depression and everything would be OK. That turned out not to be the case and I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. 

The last 24 hours have been bad. And I feel like I need to emphasize that I am not actually in any danger. Self-harm is not in my bag of tricks. This is not a cry for help and nobody should be worried about me. I mean, a little worried because, as noted, a podcast ad read made me burst into tears. But nothing worse than that.

All that said, even on a good day I have problems with sleep. For so long, I would just stay up ridiculously late watching TV or playing video games and then get up very early for work and just eventually catch up on the weekend. I know it's not super healthy, but that was me. That segued into insomnia and about two years ago I discovered that I could sleep better if I slept on the couch with the TV on. Which is bad for seratonin or something, but it worked for me. Put me in a bed and I'll toss and turn - I need furniture where there's no room for me to move around. Right before quarantine I was in California (this will probably come up a lot because those were the Last Good Days) and I spent one night in a nice hotel where there was  couch and also a bed and when I couldn't sleep, I moved over to the couch and I was out.

Picking a TV show to have on is very important. It needs to be something I care about because I'm still a TV snob and I'm not going to fall asleep to 2 Broke Girls.  (I can't remember if they spelled out the number or not and I'm not going to look it up.) But I also can't care about it too much or be watching it for the first time. I can't fall asleep to Better Call Saul, but you hit me with American Ninja Warrior or Killing Eve, and I will drop. The Walking Dead shows are really good for this - I actually like Fear the Walking Dead, but the pacing is so sonorous. And lately, it's been Perry Mason.

I'm loving the HBO Mason miniseries, and up until about a week ago, it was good at putting me to sleep. Again, not the first time through the episode. But the color pallette and the performances and the music are so suited to relaxation. I mean, it's literally about a woman who was accused of fake kidnapping and then killing her baby, but that doesn't matter when you're trying to sleep. Other than that WWI flashback at the beginning of Episode Two, it's perfect for sleeping. 

But the last week, absolutely nothing puts me to sleep. I had nights when I watched every episode of Perry Mason and I was excited when a new episode came out on Sunday just to mix things up. I've had multiple nights where I'm awake until an hour before my alarm goes off and then the same thing happens the next night. It's a nightmare because my job is hectic and I get yelled at all the time and coming in after one of those sleepless nights is unrelentingly terrible. Last night, I didn't sleep at all. Not for one minute. And I'm exhausted but I already feel like I'm just going to be watching five straight episodes of Perry Mason tonight.

So it was a tough day just on that level. But, and I acknowledge that this was an exceptionally crummy work day, I had my first anxiety attack in a long time. And the dumb thing is, it was after five. I don't like working late, but that's the only part of the day I do like. The office, and most of our business partners are officially closed so there really isn't much coming in and I'm not obligated to communicate with anybody. I can get stuff done without all the nonsense. And somehow, it just felt absolutely unbearable today. Like, I genuinely didn't know how I was going to get everything done because my brain insisted all of it had to be done first. And that didn't matter because we were closed and nobody would even know I did it until tomorrow. Still, I was paralyzed and panicking and I couldn't do a damn thing until it passed. 

You know what? That's not part of the deal. Depression? Fine, if that's where we are, I'll deal with it. Badly, but I'll deal with it. You don't get to throw anxiety into the mix, brain! I had that handled and you can't bring it back for a Greatest Hits. What's next, dad stuff?

Since this is very unstructured and I don't know how to end a post where I didn't make any kind of point, I'll just say that, speaking of dad stuff, about two months ago I woke up to see a Google search on my phone that I must have done in my sleep. I Googled "Did my dad get coronavirus?" The search results were not helpful.