Compulsive comfort-seeking
Sep. 17th, 2016 01:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
breakinglight11Sorry to complain so much lately. I should probably just shut up. But I feel so uncomfortable lately. Nothing extreme, I guess, just a constant low-level of physical and emotional discomfort that's been dragging at me. It makes concentration, particularly when I'm struggling to feel interested in anything, even tougher than usual.
The thing about it that's throwing me most, though, is that this state of discomfort has made me uncontrollably comfort-seeking. That is normally not me AT ALL. Usually I'm pretty damn self-disciplined in the service of the things I want and am working toward. But not right now! Now I'm eating compulsively, and where once I was successfully avoiding carbs and sugar six days a week, now I've started back in on Coke and junk and can't seem to stop. My body is achy and sore, my energy level is low, so all I want to do is lay in a heap. I'm also spending too much money, because it makes things easier, even though it's a terrible idea for me right now. But again, my self-control is almost nil.
So, with so much screwing around, the biggest problem is I'm struggling with how to spend my time. Soon I'm going to be so full up with school and show stuff that I won't have spare moment. I really, really don't want to waste this much time. But everything that occurs to me to work on just seems stupid and pointless, which kills any resolve I can build up to work on it.
Probably I just have to choose something and do it. Or else I'll do nothing. But I do hate when I waste effort on something that would be better spent on something else. How do you build up focus and interest in things? Is there anything you can do, or are you at the mercy of the natural reactions of your brain? I've never successfully found a way to make myself care about something I don't naturally care about, but lately I don't even care about that stuff.
The thing about it that's throwing me most, though, is that this state of discomfort has made me uncontrollably comfort-seeking. That is normally not me AT ALL. Usually I'm pretty damn self-disciplined in the service of the things I want and am working toward. But not right now! Now I'm eating compulsively, and where once I was successfully avoiding carbs and sugar six days a week, now I've started back in on Coke and junk and can't seem to stop. My body is achy and sore, my energy level is low, so all I want to do is lay in a heap. I'm also spending too much money, because it makes things easier, even though it's a terrible idea for me right now. But again, my self-control is almost nil.
So, with so much screwing around, the biggest problem is I'm struggling with how to spend my time. Soon I'm going to be so full up with school and show stuff that I won't have spare moment. I really, really don't want to waste this much time. But everything that occurs to me to work on just seems stupid and pointless, which kills any resolve I can build up to work on it.
Probably I just have to choose something and do it. Or else I'll do nothing. But I do hate when I waste effort on something that would be better spent on something else. How do you build up focus and interest in things? Is there anything you can do, or are you at the mercy of the natural reactions of your brain? I've never successfully found a way to make myself care about something I don't naturally care about, but lately I don't even care about that stuff.
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Date: 2016-09-17 06:54 pm (UTC)Willpower, self-control -- these are things that we have limited amounts of, and we have less of them when we are worn down in some way. Every decision, to some extent, wears down our self-control; I would bet that you feel you have no self-control because you are using it making decisions in other areas of your life.
As far as building focus and interest... for me it has always been a kind of "fake it until you make it" sort of thing. If I get away from writing for a while, I'm not interested in the project when I come back, and so I have to set a timer and force myself to work on it until I gain interest again.