ᴄʜɪᴀᴄᴄʜɪᴇʀᴏɴᴀ [random thoughts]

.039

It feels like whenever I do one vent, a deterioration of my mental health follows and I end up doing five more. Maybe that's just what happens when you have anxiety. I don't know. But I feel like I owe you guys, at the very least, an explanation on why my update schedule is so inconsistent, right now and just in general.

At the moment... I'm not feeling so great. Today I had to email my college advisors because the website isn't letting me sign up for classes (long story there) and I still haven't gotten a response from either of them. It's absolutely shredded whatever thread of sanity I was clinging to. I have been coping as best I can by working on the plot for Meet Me in the Woods a little (and browsing really adorable snippets from the Over the Garden Wall comics on Pinterest), but I barely have the mental energy to chat to friends, let alone post a chapter. I know that sounds silly, but posting a chapter always makes me antsy because I'll excitedly wait for your comments to come in on it for the first day or two it goes up, not to mention the mental energy required to write a story chapter compared to this incoherent rambling I'm doing now. College is extremely stressful. Being an adult is extremely stressful. And as you've probably noticed, I do not process stress well.

Which is partly one of the in-general reasons for my sporadic writing. Even when something like this isn't going on, my anxiety just kind of makes up reasons to get stressed out (or takes a small problem and blows it out of proportion). This makes it hard to do... a lot of things. Constantly overthinking everything and being on edge really does take a lot of your energy out of you, and since I'm not the most active person anyway, I'm almost constantly tired. Obviously, there are times when I push through and get things done. But other times even trying to write just feels like it's too much energy or too many steps and I put it off.

That's the other reason I can't always be in the mood to write. I'm the type of person who can get really excited and invested in a project, churning out eight chapters in the span of a week, and then completely lose interest and work on something else instead. The inspiration doesn't always stick around for very long, and so far it never has lasted long enough for me to actually finish a book. This makes me feel really bad because I know that when you find a story you enjoy on something like Wattpad you really, really want to see more of it, so dropping off on writing it is something I know might disappoint people (and as we've established, I don't want that). I've tried forcing myself to write when not really in the mood to do so and nothing I write in that headspace ever turns out very good. I value quality over quantity because if I don't think it's a good chapter then I don't think it's good enough for you guys.

The curse of being a perfectionist. I think I've probably mentioned what an awful procrastinator I am, and the reasoning boils down to 'if it's not going to turn out exactly how I want it to, I'm just not going to bother'. Which is a really bad and toxic mindset to have but that's just where I am I guess. I appreciate all of you being here to lift me up though. I've never thought very highly of myself, but you all seem to genuinely like me (or at least my writing) so reading your lovely comments gives me a much-needed boost.

I know it's kind of common for creators to say this kind of stuff to explain why they haven't been posting but it really is hard to work when your mental health isn't 100%. But I feel like you guys will understand that. We have such a lovely little community even if we don't all talk that often and I promise you that interacting with each and every one of you is the highlight of my day, always. I actually have gotten pretty far along with my pinescone fic's progress, and since it is just a slice-of-life fluff fic I might start posting chapters soon, since getting this off my chest just by typing it all out has made me feel somewhat better (writing fluffy stories that make me happy is a coping mechanism so don't worry about me forcing myself to do something I'm not wanting to do either, pinescone is absolutely my comfort ship). We'll see. I am sorry for starting it all over again, but I hope you like it when it comes out. My good friend Saccharine helped set up the plot and vibes (love you Sacch if you're reading this).

Anyway I guess this is just your regularly scheduled reminder to take care of yourself physically and mentally from your friendly neighbourhood Flora. Have a good one.