It's been nearly 6 months, time for another post! :P

Apparently I can access LJ from work, but not Dreamwidth, because the firewall recognizes DW as a blogging site, but not LJ. The ways of the firewall are many and mysterious.

It's been a... not great few months. The last time I posted was in September, I think, and that was shortly before everything went a little bit to hell. I despair of being able to keep up with my friends' posts, too, which makes me feel like the shittiest friend ever. So, you know, sorry for not keeping up with all of your lives! I will try to do better, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

First, the very bad news. I will put it behind a cut because it is very triggery for some. ( Cut for chronic illness, cancer, and attendant stuff. )

So that's what was happening with my mother. In the meantime, I was still trying to juggle mediation training, my masters' classes, and work, which blew up in my face. We were facing another staffing shortage, and I ended up being called in for quite a bit of overtime. The money was nice, but I didn't really want to go in, and it cost me dearly. The short version is that I fucked up my health, and then my sleep got even more messed up, and I fell really, really behind in my classes, so much so that I ended up dropping one even though it meant losing the tuition money permanently. It was either that or fail both courses and flush the entire amount of money down the drain, so in the end the choice was a no-brainer.

The health thing has been weird. Part of it is a flare-up of Menière's (vertigo, puking, tinnitus, etc.), but there were a lot of mystery symptoms, too. My best guess is that a lot of them were stress related.

I ended up stepping down as clerk of First Day School at Quaker Meeting, and I haven't been back since August, for which I feel incredibly guilty. I should go back, but I'm a bit of a shame spiral about it, and the longer I stay away the harder it is to go back. I feel like I let everybody down, and I don't know how I'm going to look any of them in the face after giving up on FDS. Objectively speaking I know it was probably the best decision to make, as I've hated the position ever since I accepted it in 2015 and it stressed me out to no end, but there was never anyone around who wanted to take it up and FDS is too important to let it go entirely, so I just kept going until I absolutely couldn't anymore.

Mediation training is done for now, and I am trying desperately to get some experience, but so far I haven't heard back from the places I've reached out to. I've scaled back to one class this semester, and even there I am falling behind with every passing week. It's a little dishearteneing, but I am going to make a determined effort to catch up. At least I am finding the subject matter really interesting, and since I'm doing this for my own benefit and nothing else, that's what I'm focusing on. The moment this stops being interesting or enjoyable, I'm going to stop.

Work has also been extra amounts of not fun.( Cut for work-related things. )

Work nonsense aside, I am trying slowly to come out of this nearly five-months slump. I am considering asking my doctor to up my Wellbutrin again, and see if that helps. I went from a non-therapeutic dose to the actual minimum therapeutic dose, and that did help a bit, so I wonder if a higher dose might not actually get my brain to cooperate more.
( Cut for domestic things which are not super interesting. )

I don't know if I'll be able to make it all work. Maybe if I can get my act together a little bit, I can at least try to keep track of my progress (if any) here. I keep trying to check in reglarly here, but I keep getting overwhelmed and then not coming back. I have no idea if I can break that pattern. We shall see, I guess!