Something I found kind of interesting, for people who may also find it kind of interesting.
Pretty much my whole life, I've been a constant worrier, really hard on myself, a workaholic to the point of endangering my personal health (due to guilt/fear that I'd let someone down if I didn't work "hard enough"), dismissive of my personal feelings, put everyone else's opinions of what I should do and be first, etc.
Whatever weird path I've been stumbling down over the past 14+ months has been slowly but pretty dramatically changing the way I think, behave, and respond to things. I can't really tell you how and I can't say for sure what changed when, but... it's been something my close friends and family have all noticed, even with me being kind of notably unstable for most of that period of time.
Before, I'd have little periods of really pronounced joy/elation, which would calm down within a few hours to a day or so to a sort of pervasive relaxation where I didn't worry about things or what "needed" doing, etc anymore. Inevitably, it'd always dissolve and I'd be back in my old mindstate; afraid of everything, afraid of judgement, messing up, constant guilt, etc, which would last for weeks to months at a time.
But I've basically been taking time away from everything to dedicate to nothing but self-reflection and related study. And about a week or so ago, something shifted in me hard.
In the past, I'd have periods of calm clarity, that sort of thing. But since that recent turning point my base mental state seems to have become some sort of odd, soaring... giddiness, almost? I was a very serious person, and even though I was capable of joking and laughter, it was easy for me to go on the defensive.
Now I'm at a point where, naturally, there seems to be no reason to worry about anything. Everything is potentially fascinating, potentially funny, and worth sticking my nose into for the sake of curiosity, fear be damned.
This is a lot of buildup to make a point, but here it is.
This morning, I was practically bouncing off the walls, but vaguely drowsy, and I wanted to try to stay up a bit longer for the sake of just enjoying life a bit more. So, I had some caffeine, which has pretty much always woken me up for a while... in the past.
It kicked in... and booted me straight into a calm, quiet, serene sort of mindstate with a startling amount of mental, audio, and visual clarity. I stayed up for about 20 minutes to think about for a while before noting that I needed to go to bed, and promptly conking out.
I'm not making any hard claims here, but I do know that caffeine affects some people very differently (my partner is one of them, in fact). This has never happened to me before.
I can't help but wonder if, whatever has happened to my mind has literally affected something in me chemically? Like, wow, I'd almost kill to have some freaking brainscans to check this out with or something.
Ultimately, I guess it's really just anecdata, and it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of anything.
But I'm really damn fascinated by the changes I've gone through in the past year, and curious to see whether or not this is here to stay now...
kianamaiart
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