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The last week of * (42) – what is success anyway? #Mondayblogs

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This is 43? Quite honestly, I’m not entirely certain how I feel right now. There are so many different things that I’ve been thinking about. How we measure success. What we consider ‘worthy’ work, when we think about our lives, and how we decide to measure what we’re doing. Like water over rocks, we often smooth away the knowledge we don’t like and find a way to let it settle. And time, like water down a hill, never stops.

Judgement – my own worst enemy

Self-judgement that is. And I think that’s true of all of us. We’re ALL our own worst enemies when it comes to deciding if we’re ‘doing what we’re made to do’. Which in itself is a loaded sentence. I really hate the whole “we’re human beings, not human doings” concept. It distils and negates a lot of the struggle we all have with the needs and responsibilities, the wants and the necessities we all carry and balance. I’m a human being. I am.
What I am right now?
A little bit stressed, a lot melancholy. Because I’m judging myself against a list of things that I just can’t expect to meet.
What I can say though is that I’ve achieved a lot that isn’t ‘obvious’. I was discharged from therapy, and told I’d successfully completed the work they wanted me to which is…awesome. I went into recovery care with the local unit over seven years ago. I moved two years ago, this week, to the unit the county over. I’ve put a commendation about Dr C. and my nurse, M, with my MP, I feel that strongly about their care. The whole NHS should be praised, for the last few years, of course, but the team that cared for me over the last few years especially, since just after my 40th birthday, are people that went above and beyond and made a real change to my life.

The grain silo, Being Human and more…

I’ve talked about these essays but never finished them. Some are actually in ‘And Miles to go before I sleep…’ and expanded upon. So, along with the retrospective coming for the rest of this week, and looking forward over the weekend (the blog is going to be busy), but I’ll be releasing the essays ‘The Grain silo’ and ‘Being Human’, along with the pre-order link for ‘And Miles to go before I sleep…’ over this week. I’ll maybe even get to talk about the major business project we’re launching. On Saturday or Sunday, I’ll release our sort of calendar, and aspirations we have. And they are aspirations. Not deadlines. Not must do’s. The pre-orders are fixed, but.. other than that, we’ll adapt. And the we in this case is my beloved, my family, my friends and I. Being Human isn’t to be alone. And I’m not.

The blog of D Kai Wilson - The blog of D Kai Wilson - text by Kai

A Nanowrimo Love Story #nanowrimo2021 #mondayblogs

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I’m not sure if people have much of an idea of my history with Nanowrimo, but I’ve been writing every November since 2003. Every November, I write 50,000 or more words. The only time, to date, that this wasn’t the case was 2004.

It started in 2002 actually…

In 2002, while I was writing after breaking off ties with someone I’d been working with, and working on some pretty difficult stuff, someone told me about Nanowrimo. At the time, my ex and I were still together, and though everyone thought we were ok – I mean, my daughter was a year old, we had a three year old son. But he was pretty convinced that I shouldn’t be allowed to write, that if I was going to manage it, I’d have written that bestseller. Already.
He wasn’t a bad man – we have two amazing children, but neither he nor I were not good for one another. Between 2002 and 2003, we seperated.

Fast forward to 2003

Single, unhappy and lonely, I decided that I would take my mum up on her offer, and I vollunteered to run as an ML…for the whole of Scotland as it happened then. We all met in a very loud pub, I made lots of friends, and discovered a gaming club called GEAS. 2003’s Nano was also Glass Block. And Elliot Peters firmly entrenched himself in my life.
Elliot is Glass Block. Eventually, when the library of posts comes back online, that’ll make more sense, but he’s one of my backlist books. Tomorrow, he goes to an editor for update before we re-release him, thanks to my beloved’s help.
In 2003 though, I hadn’t even met him. Instead, I had Elliot, waking me up at 4am and telling me stories. Y’see, Elliot thinks of me as a confessor of sorts. And Internal Affairs as he’s a cop. As I live with psychosis of several kinds, this is completely normal to me, but I know some people find it uncomfortable that my characters are really real. Others aren’t. It’s ok.
I was seven months from my other ‘leading man’, Farran. Five or so from Tempus. And I quite honestly had a ball during Nano. Honorable mentions at this point to John, James, Gregor, and everyone else I met during those months of writing. You all made my Nanowrimo so much fun, and in fact, that was true for the whole time I helped out and ran Scotland as the ML.

I did promise you a love story, didn’t I?

Well, the truth of the matter is, and it’s a story I’ve told several times, without Nano, I wouldn’t have gone to GEAS, and in all likleyhood, Tempus and I wouldn’t have met. I can’t actually say that for sure, because I might have taken it into my head to look into D&D again, but… I’d given in on that having my kids. Tempus and I have been together 17 and a half years. We origonally just decided we wanted to hang out and have a bit of fun, but…a year in, when it came down to actually thinking about the future, neither of us could actually picture a time without one another. By 2006, we’d moved to where we are based now for his work, as he’d graduated in 2005. 2007-2011, Uni for me.
It’s not all happily ever after. My mental health is a challenge we meet with varying success, but he and I share many interests (newest one, solving our arguments with lightsabers, aka we’re both going to train and learn Ludosport.). It’s no secret we’re both gamers, and we’re both super geeky, but we do have enough divergent interests that we can be together or apart. But, I truly believe I was lucky, and that Nanowrimo plays a huge part in that for me. Our love story isn’t over. I don’t believe it ever will be while either of us are here, but it’d be nice to think that we’ll have a child together and live long, happy lives together. I really do love him, and without Nanowrimo, who knows if I’d have had this chance. You’ll note, I don’t refer to him other than ‘Tempus’. It’s because he’s not keen on talking about himself online. There are a very few pictures of us together, and I’ve added on to the bottom of this post, but I do know one thing.
My life is a very good one, and I love that it’s with him. This is me and him, 2018, in the Dominican Republic. The full length shot of me with a boogie board was taken about an hour before, for those that know it.
Tempus and I, Macao Beach, Dominican Republic, late August 2018.
He’s my bad idea bear, my beloved, my companion, my gaming and sparring partner. We talk books, games, movies. We tell each other jokes and pass on research from cyber security and infosec, and have a date night every Saturday. We go exploring good places to eat, we giggle at one another playing Fallout 76. We have our friends over for Gloomhaven. We’ve raised two wonderful young adults together since the 20 year old (@artenapan) was about 2 1/2, and her older brother too (he’s just as private as Tempus in many ways, so you’ll see him referred to as ‘Wonderboy’, or Titanboi. He’s in his 20’s too, and a wonderful man, and all of us are gamers of one sort or another.
But Tempus… He’s the best person in the world, and I’m so blessed. And, one final, bonus fact. He’s the reason I have most of my pen name. He encouraged me to stay as Kai when I explained why I’d changed my name, and I did. In late 2004, after we’d been together for a few months, I asked him if I could use his last name so that when we get married, I didn’t need to rebrand. He didn’t even blink. Like I said, he’s an awesome guy.
And that’s my Nanowrimo Love Story 🙂

The blog of D Kai Wilson - The blog of D Kai Wilson - text by Kai

Love, Muse #poetry #Nanowrimo #andmilestogobeforeIsleep

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The night before #nanowrimo21 and I’m sharing ‘Love, Muse’.
Sit down.
The dishes can wait.
No, the baby isn’t stirring.
That’s it.
Let me tell you a story.
It won’t take long
Sit down.
That wasn’t the door.
You don’t need more coffee
That’s it.
Fingers on the key.
We’re off.
Love,
Muse
by D Kai Wilson-Viola

The blog of D Kai Wilson - The blog of D Kai Wilson - text by Kai

Two steps back, or gathering strength #Mondayblogs #selfcare #chronicillness

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road under cloudy sky One of the major mindset changes I’ve been trying to work on is not looking at any delays in my life as ‘delays’, and instead look at them as chances to… I guess, design my way around the things that others consider limitations, I guess. Today for example, I’m operating under the influence…of a migraine.
Migraines are the bane of my life. Or one of them, at least. I live with several chronic conditions, but migraines are one of the few ones that stop me dead in my tracks.

(Authors) living with chronic conditions

I’m probably not preaching to the choir here, but, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. In part because of Alchemy of Kindness, but more importantly because I’ve had to completely redesign the work that I do and how I do it. I have clients to look after, and my own books to do, so in the last few years, I’ve been refining how I work, and more importantly, WHERE I can work. Can’t get out of bed? Got a tablet that I can use with a bluetooth keyboard.
Stuck in appoitments for treatment? Smartphone and several apps for the win. But, on the flipside of all of it, I’ve also had to teach myself when to stop.

Self-care is not a bad word

I’m my own worst enemy for this one, but, I tell other people that they need to put themselves first. But honestly? Here’s my almost…dirty little secret. I absolutely believe OTHERS should take time off when they need it, but when it comes to me? I prevaricate. I don’t deal well with taking time off, or slowing down. It’s important to note that I do take time off, but the guilt is always terrible. Which is why we’ve spent time trying to ‘mitigate my guilt’, but quite honestly, after I write this, I’m going to go curl up in a dark room, avoid tech for a bit and see if my migraine shifts as fast as possible.

But some of us don’t do well with self-care

I can’t say whether it’s to do with having CPTSD, or if it’s my personality type, or if it’s just how I am, but there’s a lot of time that I do have regrets because I’ve had to take time off. Tried to put myself in a position of understanding. Tried to treat myself as gently as my friends. I’m not very good at it though. So, I’m working on that. I can’t see it going away overnight, but I am concerned that time that I spend worrying is just as unproductive. It’s a bit of a catch 22, I guess. Anyone got any suggestions on how to deal with the guilt of taking time off? Other than instead of seeing it as two steps back, and instead of resting and prepping? I’m taking this time, other than lying in the dark grumbling, to think about books. And where I go with my websites. And what I’m writing for Nanowrimo this year!

The blog of D Kai Wilson - The blog of D Kai Wilson - text by Kai

Kintsugi and Levelling up #gamergal #mondayblogs

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So, firstly, I’ve spent the last week with shingles all up one side of my face. It’s not the most painful thing I’ve ever felt, but gotta be honest, it’s close. Because of this, my ‘October announcements’ post and this one have kinda rolled up.

The pot of my soul, cracked as it is

I’ve been talking about ‘levelling up’ a lot on my private groups. I’ve been talking about several things really, but I want to be clear. My major one is community. I talk – a lot – about #payitforward and that the #writingcommunity is very important to me. To do that, I’ve been thinking about levelling up my life.
I’ve lived my whole life accommodating various things. Mostly, I guess, psychosis. My mental health is a major element of my life, and even when I’m at my best, I’m… not? I live with imperfect cracks, like a little jar, a Kintsugi pot fixed with the things I find around me. My soul is visible in places – in others, it’s patched and safe. There are raw patches, that I guess I’ll eventually cover over. But that little pot is pretty tight right now. I’m managing to fill it up a lot more often, even if there’s…less space in there. We’re working through various things as a business team, because we do sort of have some plans.
For now though…

Substacking

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This is my newest project. I’ll be sharing snippets and more. But this Kintsugi thing? I’ll be talking more about it.
As for levelling up?
Because I’ve had shingles this week, I’ve not managed as much as I wanted to. But I’ve taken a couple of things forward. I’ve grabbed a Duotrope trial, to start working towards getting to my stories out there and building my name as a writer, but also to bring in a challenge. To ‘earn’ it, I have an amount I have to be paid for the pieces I submit, and that’s ok. It’s a low goal.
I’m using my diary again. I’ll be clearing my office space. I’m also getting Uni work done – I’m booked in for tutorials, and I’ve got my books ready to go. I’m a bit excited to complete my first year of Uni, and start moving towards my PHD.
And I’ll keep condensing down stuff to here. I’ll talk about that more in the coming weeks, but it’s pretty much a clean up and combine exercise right now 😉 And that’s me this week. Oh, and Kill Kit Killers is out on the 15th. That’s kinda exciting, and I know what the next three books are too! Woot!

The blog of D Kai Wilson - The blog of D Kai Wilson - text by Kai

Changes, struggling with writing and more…#mondayblogs

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I’m on a few weeks of classes, to learn how to work with one of the major systems we’re using right now. I’ll be talking about that more, and I have to say, I’m really excited.
The next few weeks are also ‘Freshers’ for me. I start back at Uni next week, and have several exams that I need to prep for. But, I’ve got a few things to talk about…

Changes

One of the major things I’m noticing is that I’m still as willing to do everything I used to get up to, but I get about three into my 20 piece daily list (I used to manage it), but I’m not who I was. Part of that, I have to be honest, is probably to do with being depressed. Part of it has to do with my issues with anaemia and persistent illness. A LOT of it has to do with maintenance insomnia. (I’ll be coming back to that one later, but the short version of that is I have finally taught myself to go to sleep pretty much when I go up to bed. Sometimes I go up and meditate and I fall asleep. Sometimes, I just go to sleep after reading for a bit. What normally happens though, is around 1am to 2am – one and a half to two hours before I’m thinking I fell asleep, I wake again. I don’t really help myself at this point, because I’ll have a drink of iced tea. Sometimes I can roll over and go back to sleep. Most of the time, I can’t. It lasts till…sometimes…8am, before I finally get to sleep. In short, it’s hard to plan a day when you don’t know how much sleep you’re getting the night before, and unfortunately, whatever else I have going on, sleep creates problems if I don’t get enough of it).
Most of this is all pretty well known, if you know me, even in passing. It means that my hours are often a bit scattered, but, I’m working on that. My partner and I have talked. While I’m not an early bird, I don’t like that I’m split shift sleeping. I don’t know if what I’ll end up doing is sleeping for a bit, getting up to work, then sleeping more. It might mean I can write in a set period of time, I don’t know. The changes though – to make things easier for myself, and the things I want to do, while I’m doing my classes on WordPress design and Fresher’s week for the Open University, I’m going to start setting up all of my blogs, and connecting them up, collapsing or closing those of them that I can’t spend time on right now. It’s not permanent, I hope, but even if it is, moving on isn’t always bad. So I’ll be mapping that out. It’s the first step in about a million, if I’m honest.
I’ve got books, I’ve got information to share out, I’ve got things I need to – and want to – do.

Struggling with Writing

One of the things I saw that was interesting this morning – in fact, it was the first thing I saw opening my phone, was this post from Neil Gaiman.
Click through to Neil’s Tumblr. https://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/663460764030517248/yesterday-was-a-bad-writing-day-i-spent-a-lot-of 🙂
I think there’s a lot of this that’s important. For writers, creatives. For life. We have bad days. We do what we can, but sometimes it’s just a day that doesn’t move…anything. And then, one day, a good day. Maybe a few. Maybe a whole bundle of them, in a row, like a huge gift. And really, I do mean this could be anything we do in life. Sometimes, we find that it’s hard to do things. That’s ok too. I’m between my good and bad right now. On that middle ground of being able to see both. I might slide back into bad. I’m working on the things I can reach from here. It’s all ‘low hanging fruit’ and learning for me. Uni starts next week, and I’m getting through to finish year one of three just as soon as I pick myself up and get a plan on…. Which is next.
You’ve got this guys. And so have I…

The blog of D Kai Wilson - The blog of D Kai Wilson - text by Kai

Changing around some categories – housekeeping 2021 – Part 1

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While my blogs merge down, I’ve got some housekeeping to do. Some categories will move, some will merge, some will redirect. Hopefully I caught it all while I was housekeeping, but I’ve made a list. Some of these don’t always make perfect sense – they straddle two lines, I guess.
Eventually, some of these will be moved wholesale off my blog to new sites, or subdomains, or other places. There will be a housekeeping post about that too!
And I was kidding myself when I thought I’d get this done.
There will be an article that you can read these in a series to see what I’m up to, but for now, there’s just this.

Category redirects (including organisation/re-naming and nesting)

Category delete/merge

About Kai/D Kai Wilson-Viola merged into ‘About D Kai Wilson-Viola‘
The ALL category is gone and should simply flatten down to the blog itself.
Naming conventions – converted to a tag.
Amazon Kindle – I’m revamping how I talk about my writing, so platforms aren’t going to be categories, they might end up in tags.
books and writing is moving just to ‘writing’
Featured articles has been ‘combined’ with ‘featured’ though, it turns out this is mostly because I merged blogs. This will be more and more common as I merge down.

Category additions

The blog of D Kai Wilson - The blog of D Kai Wilson - text by Kai

In the wastes, on the curves

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bird s eye view of roadway surrounded by treesThe last few weeks have not been the best for me, but by far and away, the things that hurt the most are, if I’m honest, the way a few friends have reacted to my boundaries. And how, from there, pulling in to defend myself has been ‘abandoning’ them. And how that’s left me with issues with all sorts, from what I do from here to my religious outlook, to how I move on.  I don’t think I’ll address all of it here, it’s a bit complex.  The two bits I want to touch on are boundaries, and being out in the barrens.

Boundaries 101

I’m actually fairly odd in the sense that I don’t ‘like’ boundaries for myself. I feel that it’s very artificial to tell someone you ‘can’t something’ that isn’t basic human decency. And that, I hate to say, was my first mistake. The rank bitterness alongside that first mistake and trying to understand why people behave this way has been painful. Adding to the depression that was already settling on me, I’m really struggling to deal with anything right now, but, as I’ve been asked to write some mental health books if I get through this bout of crippling misery. But it’s made me evaluate a lot of things, and why my life isn’t ‘right’ and it all comes back to routine and boundary. Both of which, my brain seems to process much the same.

On the curves?

Honestly? There’s another word for what happens when I lose everything, whereas this is kinda like where I end up when everything is gone and I’m left to clean up a mess or three. And there are many versions of this place.  There’s the one I deliberately create when I need to move on from a bad place, and have to destroy it to cut ties.  There’s the one that happens when I’m sick and can’t tend my stuff, and then there’s this one… This version of it though is kinda worse. Because it’s a bit of both. In an irony, I’m honestly not sure even *I* really understand, when I’m sick and come off routine, that’s when the trouble really starts.  Free spirit and all that, I still need a pretty firm framework. And currently… I’m not sure I know what to do.  I feel horrible, if I’m entirely honest.  I’m not exercising or eating regularly, I’m not sleeping correctly.  I’m disrupted understandably, because of the changes in the house (we’ve still got our BED to replace).  And I feel a bit like a brat, if I’m honest, but we’ve changed so much in the last month and a half, and it’s been a lot of ‘I don’t really get the choice’ belonging disposal, as the garage flooded/was damaged.  Again, I’m well aware I’m lucky.  It’s not everything I own.  It was a LOT of my books though, a lot of stuff we moved and stored (I’m now learning that storing in the garage is not for cardboard boxes.  So, we’re converting what we are storing out there to plastic tubs.).  It was stuff I’d protected when I left my ex.  It was mine.  It’s gone now.  I don’t feel happy (Marie Kondo lied) – but I’m so overwhelmed, all I can really say was it was books, and some other ‘stuff’.  Because at some point, to keep dealing with the garage, I had to just stop paying attention.  So, I’m a little bit miserable, if I’m honest.  I do really feel like of everything that went, it was old toys and lots of my things.  It’s not *accurate*, but it’s been something I’ve learned over the last year – there’s a difference between what I know, what the reality is, and how I feel about it.  And that I’m not – really – right or wrong.  Just sad. We then did the conservatory, the dining room (converting it to my office, in part), and we got brand new couches (I’ll share some before and after photos once we’re all settled properly).  But, for someone that doesn’t *like* change, it’s been a lot for me to deal with. And it’s stirred up stuff I really don’t like. This is where I say ‘no more’.  Not no more change, just no more slipping schedules, no more ‘skip exercise, can’t be bothered’. No more accepting that I have to feel this way.  We do, most of all, get to decide how we react and change things, if we can, and quite honestly, I would be remiss in not trying.  I’ll be stuck within the limits of my spoons, of course, but I think some of this is…inertia.  So I want to deal with that. Maybe it’ll turn out all I have is the spoons for this, maybe it’ll turn out that I’m just tired and not doing as well as I could because I’ve accepted that.  I honestly can’t say on that score.

But…there’s more…

The thing is, this time, I’m going to talk about it, and whether what I’ve learned this year works, starting from about as close to ‘base’ as I get.  And, quite honestly, though I’m not in a place of complete ‘clear board’, I *am* close enough that I can maybe get this to work. I’ve still not decided exactly *how* I’ll be talking about it. Whether it’ll be a blog, or vlog, or a mix, but, as I’ve also been tagged to talk mental health for a series of books, and burnout is a real thing that often leaves people in barren areas a lot like this,  so maybe this isn’t quite so self indulgent as it feels, and I should be less self-conscious.  There are other elements to this, such as our complete inability to remain pregnant, which I don’t think is exactly helping my state of mind, but mostly, I’m just struggling to find my way, and I want to do something about that, even if that something isn’t what others think of when they think of the stuff I’m talking about.

To start?

To start, I’m going to do something about my wake/sleep cycle.  And eating regularly.  And, I’m going to see about exercising daily.  That’s the framework.  Everything else, like work and writing will still happen, and fit in around the other stuff… but….that’s what I’m going to focus on for a bit. Hopefully in time to start back at uni, who knows.

The blog of D Kai Wilson - The blog of D Kai Wilson - text by Kai

Depression

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I’ve been on about three false starts for this post, this week. And I’ve tried to write and explain this feeling… this weight for years.
It’s odd. I’m a writer. I should be able to explain this. But I’m depressed. It’s a hard time to write in the first place, and then, to write about how sad I am… I guess it makes sense that it’s hard to deal with.

Depression just is

Believe it or not…this is one of the millions of faces of depression. And it’s mine. That’s me on Saturday, after The UK Games Expo. My daughter and I had a ball, but I went to bed Saturday with the post-con blues, and woke up with full blown, not done this for a while, “oh, I thought I’d seen you for the last time, oh well,” depression.
I have CPTSD, I’m somewhere on the autistic spectrum, I have anxiety and psychosis. Depression is a MAJOR part of my life, unfortunately, but, I’m not particularly gracious about it. Depression isn’t something we need to be gracious about, but… as a mental health advocate, I kinda feel like a fraud posting photos and smiley selfies when I feel like rubbish. I do want to talk about that later – it’s important, and it’ll be linked from here when it goes live. But, I guess this is the other side of it. One of many sides, I feel. You won’t look at me and think ‘that’s a depressed woman’. Not unless you see me in what we call my ‘meltdown moments’. But just because I’m smiling, or interacting on social media, or Facebook, it doesn’t mean I’m ok. In fact, often, I find that’s when I know it’s coming. When I have to start forcing myself to open my laptop, I know things are getting hard. I know it’s really hard when I can’t find nice things to say to people when they need help. I know I have to step away when stupid incidents wind me up to spitting teeth, and I DO walk away when I’ve had a week like this, where I was bullied. It’s not overly common, but it does happen. Add all of it together – the post-con blues, bullying, sadness and inability to focus, and oncoming depression?
That’s kinda a perfect storm for me to get into real trouble if I don’t step away and let the darkness pass over me.

It’ll pass, but it’s not the blues

One of the conversations I’ve had when talking about writing about depression of any kind is that it just is. A friend that talked to me last night, when I mentioned I wanted to make this post but I was struggling with it, suggested that I should call it ‘I guess that’s why they call it the blues’. Other friends have talked to me about telling people about how I battle, how it’s a fight.
I can’t do that. It’s not that I don’t agree that people frame it their way. I just can’t frame it that way. Depression just is. It’s a part of my fabric, and there are, when I’m in less bad places, I guess, upsides to it. I understand exquisitely the depths of darkness and the heights of joy. I know it’ll pass. It always has in the past. It’s not easy to keep that in mind right this second, but, it does. I know it does.

Depression just isn’t….

It just isn’t something that goes away. As I’ve mentioned, I don’t really deal tell other people how to feel, but I’m not really comfortable with the stuff that comes with talking about depression. So, I’m going to say, if you’ve read this post, please remember three things:
  1. I’m currently *very depressed*. Be kind, because I’m not in a place where I’m very good at censoring myself.
  2. I don’t want to be ‘sold’ to. I meditate, I use essential oils, I read and write self-help books. I know all of the suggestions that I’m to follow. In the coming days, I’m going to start pulling back, start making space, start going back to basics. I’ll probably talk about that later, but less social media, more real life time basically sums it up. Eat properly, and go back to a rigid schedule till I feel more comfortable.
  3. Finally, if you don’t have anything nice to say, please don’t say it. No ridicule, no bullying and please, this is one of the few times I also ask that you don’t say ‘oh, I know how you feel’ and launch into why. Knowing others are depressed (which I *know*, believe me, I know) doesn’t help me. I will take advice without needing people to explain why they want to give it. But if you’re struggling right now, I’m sorry, I’m not the person to tell. It hurts more.

When I’ll be back

Usually I am gone for a week or two when this happens. Sometimes I pick myself up and get back into writing, or find something that I can be proud of, or things turn around. My mood is related – a lot – to what I do, what I succeed and how I spend my time. I’m hard on myself, as many people are. You don’t need to have depression to be tough on yourself.
But, living with depression when you feel like you’re failing…it’s so hard. Getting up and out of bed, cooking…eating. Even staying clean and brushing my hair…it’s all so many more spoons than it takes me to get to where I am just to sit down and do my work during the day. Work is…. daunting, terrifying, horrible. Even when I complete something, it’s never enough. Not for me. I’ve done some really amazing things for my clients, and I know I have because they’ve told me that I’ve done something amazing. (I moved someone from an Exchange server for Pete’s sake! It might not be a big thing, but I’m not Windows. I’m Linux. It’s a daunting thing to move 7+ years of archived emails. I discovered, as I researched that it’s not actually that difficult, it’s just…a bit…fiddly to get people swapped over for access if they’re not really technical, but we did it. People are happy. I’m even talking to people on the phone to do it.)
All of this is HUGE. I still feel terrible though. And a lot of this is my mindset. Some of it is worry that I’m doing stuff wrong, because I’m always learning new things. Some of it…I dunno. Some of it is just life. I feel like I’m not achieving much when I’m moving things around and reorganising my own stuff, which is what I’m doing now. But…I’ll be back. I’m going to keep working on my books, if I can. I’m going to keep the business running. I’m going to try and do what I can to help others, when I’ve got spare spoons. But mostly. I’m just going to work on resetting things. My meditation practices have slipped. I’m not exercising as much. I’m not eating more than once a day, most days. And most of all, I’m not interested in going and messing with my Cricut. We’ve got a new resin printer here and I’m not asking to unpack that. All I really want to do is lie in bed and wait till this passes. (and yes, I know that’s stupid. That I can’t just wait it out. I’m not very good at looking after myself, but food is one of those things I just kinda view as ‘I need to do this’ when I’m in this mood. I’m lucky, my partner looks after me, as do my kids, but seriously, don’t pillowfort till you feel better).

The blog of D Kai Wilson - The blog of D Kai Wilson - text by Kai

Trying, failing, trying again

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stack of books on white table After my last post, Is it Though?, I’ve been trying to… plot and plan and think through what to do next.
I did mention that I punctuate the phrase ‘if at first you don’t succeed. Try. Try again’, and I got feedback from people asking what I meant by that. So. I thought I’d explain that.
And maybe show off some new stuff at the end of the post 😉

If at first you don’t succeed. Try. Try again

One of the things that my wonderful psych team (Dr C and MW, my psych nurse) who I was discharged from at the end of last month, worked on with me, was my mindset. And this really does say everything about my mindset, in more ways than one.
It acknowledges, in part, that I’ll fall and get back up, over and over.
It acknowledges I don’t get it right first time.
But… unlike one of the comments (which turned into some serious nastiness, so was deleted) I had, it does not imply I’m setting myself up for failure. It does NOT imply that I expect to fail over and over. In fact, I’m often pleasantly surprised when I get it right faster than I expect, and I enjoy that.

It’s all about perspective

One of the essays in one of the new books announced this week, (Miles to go Before I Sleep, November 12th 2021) is called ‘it’s all about perspective.’ MtgbIs will be discussed in great depth later in the year, I guess, as an ongoing thing, but the perspective essay has a critical point in it.
“It’s really easy to say ‘I feel positive’ and be lying in some ways. Mental health isn’t binary. You can say ‘I feel positive’ and it really mean ‘but I’m still ready for it to go wrong’. It’s not a betrayal of positivity. It’s practicality. It’s just remembering that on that see saw, you’re supposed to be closer to ‘positive’ than ‘ready to deal with’.” And I think that’s what I try to explain to others. I am upbeat, positive and often, just chugging away. But I am also often prepped for things to need adaptation. I expect to fail, and have to keep trying.

And keep trying…

How about some good news now? I’ve got three books up on announcement for release right now. I’ve told my street team, and shared on my own personal profile, and we’re just getting my publisher blog sorted out, but… And miles to go, Before I sleep Kill Kit Killers – Book 1 And A House at War – Book 1, House Arrath and With Benefits You can read more about them on KushkaPress 🙂

The blog of D Kai Wilson - The blog of D Kai Wilson - text by Kai