Life Between 0 and 1

To say that I’ve been busy the last few weeks is a massive understatement. There are certain things that I do daily and weekly that help me cope and process the outside world that I have not been able to do for various reasons. Work has been crazyballs. Home has been crazyballs. It’s hard to sequester yourself when there is so much to do every day. I get those looks that say without words “You’re really going downstairs?” that convey a disgust in the fact that I have things I need to do so that I can handle being around people on a daily basis. When I don’t get that time, I then am just irritable towards everyone and then get the recursive “Why are you acting like this?” looks. It gets to the point where no matter what I do it’s perceived as being selfish.

Well, yeah, it’s selfish of me to take the time I need to process, reset and recharge my ability to be around people when my preference is to be alone. My wife gets it, I think, so does my daughter as she’s showing a similar drive to want to be alone as well. I will always choose to be alone rather than be around people, especially if I don’t know most of the people around me. My energy is drained like an iPhone running Snapchat where my wife in the same situation is recharged quickly.

What doesn’t help is that my wife has no idea what I do despite explaining to her multiple times what I do. Due to the fact that I can’t be alone in a work environment, my Monday to Friday is a struggle week in and week out. The act of just driving home is often a minor respite for me so that I don’t walk in the front door with the stress from the day, but when it’s really busy like now, it’s near impossible. Knowing that I can’t be alone every night, I will be in the common area watching television most nights. Even that has started to become less effective because the house can’t stop making noise or doing things on the main floor because I’m watching television. What should be relaxing and brain clearing instead turns into one distraction after another to the point where everything becomes something I get angry over.

The only thing that has marginally worked is getting up early in the morning and going for a walk. Regardless of the day, I have been getting up early. One major negative to this is that if I don’t head to bed early the night before, I feel worse the next quicker if I’m getting up so early. My balance is completely messed up right now and I’m not sure how much longer I can go with it being like this. I know where this will end up if I’m unsuccessful finding a solution to this problem of being so busy. I’m out of ideas and open to suggestions.