A Very Self-Involved Post

I think I was addicted to SparkPeople. In the way that people get addicted to activities. Or maybe the habit was just so ingrained I didn't notice how integral all the little things were to running my life.

Well, whatever it was, something "fixed" it.

I started taking Rhodiola and St John's Wort less than two weeks ago. Last Friday, I thought the Rhodiola had helped kick my energy levels back to normal. Unfortunately, last Friday was an anomaly, not the new normal. The new normal is still the old normal, where energy is concerned.

Problems with energy levels, problems with digestion -- things I thought were fixed have now returned to their previous state.

But the Spark thing.

I have this weird aversion to SparkPeople now. If I didn't have the upgraded app that lets me "spin the wheel" on my phone, I would have broken my login streak. (Luckily it is still intact at 224 days.) My mind is actively rebelling against any sort of self-improvement, so the Hogwarts Challenge is... best not go there.

I feel broken. I feel like my brain is broken.

I am weaning myself off the St John's Wort immediately. I'll take it every other day for about a week then every few days until I stop entirely.

I have an appointment with the health professional who suggested Rhodiola to me and I will ask her the best way to stop taking it.

Even if my stomach does feel completely empty every two hours now, I can still deal. My new way of eating is ingrained, and my lack of energy makes me want to stay at home and hibernate, so there is not much damage I can do with food.

Well, that's not true. It's a kind of equilibrium. Whatever makes me against self-improvement also seems to be against self-destruction. So it's not like I'm going to say "the he** with it" and eat myself to oblivion. That would require an effort of will.

I feel lost, really.

I was going to use a forest analogy, but I think a winter tundra would be more appropriate. A vast, empty, arctic tundra. Big and flat and white and empty in every direction.

Okay, so I will work with that today.

First I'll find a rock with some lichen.

Then, a caribou. Because caribou eat lichen. That's why they taste so good. (Caribou meat is the best meat on earth. You hate me now, don't you?)

Okay, maybe not a caribou.

A dogsled then. My sister-in-law has dogs and a dogsled. I'm sure DH would contact his sister and send her out after me.

So that's what I will do.

I will sit on my lichen rock and pull out my phone and use GPS to find my co-ordinates and then I will broadcast them and trust my family to bring me back.

Family is real and SparkPeople is virtual. Family is more important. That is my self-created affirmation for today.

Happy Birthday to me.