Off the prompt "cuddles."

Managed to be rational enough about depression to do things for myself, both things requiring energy (hard to find in depression state) and things of a wallowing nature, which--frankly, when I'm depressed, I sometimes need time to just be depressed off in a corner. And that's okay, as long as I let myself. It's when I beat myself up about it and feel like a failure for hiding in a corner that it spirals and gets out of control.

(It feels so weird to be in a depressive funk and not be a million miles behind on everything. Also to be in a depressive funk and also be mellow and at peace with myself instead of hating either myself or everyone else in the universe.)

And I drank. I drank enough to get giggly, and it was pleasant, and I am somewhat concerned because... because I took DARE twice when I was a kid so I'm still shaking off some brainwashing and because my grandmother says my grandfather was an alcoholic and because it seems unlikely that a depressant would be a good treatment for depression and because drinking doesn't to much for my productivity, just my mood, and on a temporary basis.

But this is how I know how to take care of myself, worked out haphazard-experimentally over years: eat something to make my brain function; eat something that, being delicious, brings me joy; let myself be alone when I need to hide but ignore the impulses to sabotage all human relationships; spend time with my friends, even if we are just being antisocial together; dye the streak in my hair new colors, for joy and redefinition and self-esteem; occasionally get dressed up in platform boots and a push-up bra and relish being tall and busty; and drink, to the point of silliness, with friends I trust.

Oh this is no way to live.

Last weekend I developed this twitch in my temple that I couldn't tell if it was a vein throbbing or a muscle or what--sometimes it was regular like a pulse, sometimes not. I could feel it externally when I put my fingers to it which reassured me that I was not, in fact, having a stroke, though that was totally among my worries. Eventually it went from bizarre to actually painful and niqaeli hauled me over and started massaging my head. She identified it as--she actually knew the name of the muscle, I missed it, but it's muscle involved in the closing of one's jaw, and the tendon runs through the temple. Then she poked the same muscle on the other side of my head and while it wasn't twitching, it was also tight and unhappy.

I haven't had the weird twitch since she worked on me but I keep getting headaches in my temples that I can tell are the same issue. Tonight three ibuprofen and a cider and a half loosened me up enough that it stopped hurting.

I'm sober now. I know because it hurts.

Off to take more ibuprofen. Tempting as it sounds, I probably shouldn't chase it with more booze. But yeah, I've got to find something that works and leaves me functional, because at the point where my head stopped hurting I was also too toasted to play solitaire.