Personal Diary / Journal - art, addiction and a whole lotta love

2020 Mar 11 Wednesday

Wednesday, first day of quarantine. Watching all the news, it feels necessary to mention that we're not officially quarantined, it's more of a self-imposed disposition to leave the house as little as possible. I'm in charge of the garbage management, in a sense i'm Garbage Master. What does this mean? - you may ask, it means that we separate our garbage into wet and dry, and we'll take it out only when the wet one is full.

I remember taking this measure during my last psychotic episode, when the garbage in our building was clogged for like a week, or what seemed a really long time. My dad was the savior then, taking my garbage to another building since i was too anxious to leave the apartment.

The day commenced peacefully and is going as a regular day. Both me and Baby Love are in the mood to go out, but it's out of the question. Tell this to the sun, who is shining brightly in the sky, turning the gray buildings visible from our windows to yellow.

Last night, upon making the decision to limit our out-going, i felt a little claustrophobic. There were some arrangements to make, some people to inform, my therapist, my band, plus the tv was on and the cat was playing so there was no time to sit quietly and process, prepare myself for the limits.

Baby Love mentioned that lately i've been engulfed in States almost every evening. I think it's because of the contrast between the quiet day and the onslaught of tv and the cat playing. We decided that if i feel anxious i should ask for less volume on the tv or i should go into the living room and unwind alone, so as to not pressure Baby Love with my States.

[..] 6 thirty pm. Two things i wanted to say. First, i played a bit of chess and got stressed, even though i won again. Afterwards i was in the shower (you have to shower frequently during quarantine to keep morale up) and i was thinking "man, when i was little, i was a rock! Nothing could stress me out! Even contests, exams, personal stuff, i was never stressed". My therapist would say that children have no anxiety, but teens i'm sure develop them, who hasn't heard of teen angst? Back then life was much more stressful than it is now.

So i sat thinking this in the shower, and i was asking myself what could i do to become a rock again. Bottling things up isn't a good idea either, i may start being psychotic again. But i suddenly thought "mind over matter", or in this case "emotion". As it was with jealousy, i asked my mind to relieve me of stress and i was suddenly de-stressed! I plan on trying this again. Related to this: while watching a garbage tv show, i noticed that if i follow the discussions with my mind instead of focusing on the injustice of such stupidity even existing, the outrage doesn't get to me. So next weapon i shall try to combat stress will be my mind. Soon i will test myself, today or tomorrow. Will keep you posted. Let me reread this until i move on to the next topic so as to make sure my ramblings make sense to the alien eye.

Ok done some minor edits and it seems fine. Next i wanted to say that if the people of Earth had acted sooner, all this madness with the virus could have been avoided. We clearly weren't prepared for this. The situation seemed to get worse and worse in Wuhan, we should have said: "ok, close all the borders, quarantine every city on Earth for 20 days. We'll handle exceptions as they come", but the general order should have been, from the start, what already happened anyway. Volunteers and funds assigned to administer food and water everywhere, hospitals prepared everywhere, you know, a bit of organization. Many lives would perhaps have been spared, and all the hysteria overrun by the decisiveness of the authorities.

Mother called today inviting us to their home Sunday, but i declined. I felt really bad, i should have been the one to call first (i was sorting trash and wanted to call when the chores would be over) and announce our inside-the-premises development. Agreed that we should facetime more often, she will call Sunday and i would call during the week so she doesn't feel she is overbearing. I wanted to write this and then call her, afterwards going back to bed next to my beloved Baby Love.

[past 10 pm] i'm trying to implement a 20 minute timer between my puffs. Puff cycle. At the same time, i've named the mental influence over my emotion "my cool". "Where's my cool?" Is the question i ask myself when i feel i'm getting riled up without good. Without good. Without proper cause and desire.