I haven’t been myself lately.

Yup, you read that right. I haven’t been myself lately, again. Just when I thought I have finally moved past that phase. It’s been five months since I last wrote that first entry for The Dusty Diary where I talked about how my anxiety has been getting worse during the pandemic. I said that I’ve been trying out different things that I think might help me get through it. I didn’t write any updates about it, but during the past couple of months, I really felt like I’ve been doing better.

So to give you a brief run down of what I’ve been busy with during the past couple of months, I’ve been:

• reading a lot, of course.
• watching a lot of anime.
• buddy-watching a series with my boyfriend.
• active on bookstagram.
• trying to do bullet-journaling.
• doing some workout.

It worked for a couple of months as I’ve mentioned at the start of this post. But in the past week, I’ve been feeling a bit down for no apparent reason. It’s frustrating just how when I thought I am finally getting better, here’s the anxiety again, looming over my head like a dark cloud. 

So I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking what I could have done wrong in the past couple of days for my anxiety to resurface, and I came to the conclusion that maybe I’m just feeling a little burnt out from work. I’ve seen it coming, but I didn’t know how to deal with it because what should I do? I need to work to earn money and suffice my needs (and wants). So I ignored it, whatever it was, I just had to ignore it because I can’t file a leave every time I feel this way. I thought it will go away eventually. I was wrong.

During work days, I always wake up with dread knowing that I’d have to spend 8 hours of my day in front of my laptop, attending meetings, and dealing with my tasks. Sometimes, even a small task feels like it’s going to take me forever to finish it. I keep reminding myself that I’ve done bigger tasks and have submitted each of them way before the deadline itself, but it just doesn’t work — I feel entirely restless most of the time. So I always find myself just looking forward to the weekend, so I can have all my time to myself. 

Yet, these days, it’s either I sleep a lot or don’t get any sleep at all and it’s infuriating. There are nights where I’ve been awake until the wee hours of the morning, listening to music that might help me fall asleep while drawing spirals, the way John Green told me to. It’s funny thinking about it, if you’re not suffering from the same thoughts.

I’ve also been suffering from migraines more often these days which almost always result to my being irritated. I snap at everyone who talks to me because I feel like I need more silent moments — I just don’t want to speak with anyone. There are also times when I am in a desperate need for an escape and on most days, it’s through reading that I find my peace. I lock myself up inside my room, just so no one can come in and pull me away from my book. Sometimes, it’s through journaling as it keeps me busy, especially when I’m trying to think of ideas that will make a spread look pretty enough. But there are days when I crave a different kind of escape — I just need to get away from this dark empty space inside my head.

So, yes, here I am again; back at where I started. Again, trying to write all of my thoughts thinking that if I do, this blank space will take all of it away. If you made it up to this point, thank you for listening, even if this doesn’t have any conclusion at all.