My poor brain

First off, if you want to check out the story I submitted, it's at this link. The theme of the website is male mind control. Many of the stories go in ways that don't really appeal to me, things like humiliation, guys becoming sex slaves, guys turning into certain body types that don't do it for me (bears, twinks, etc.), but on occasion there is a story that really seems to click with what turns me on, which is what keeps me coming back. Typically I like stories that are a little bit more romantic, with the mind control simply changing the characters sexual preferences rather than taking away their free will. My story centers on muscle growth. Not to say that I find bodybuilder types the most sexually appealing (there's such a thing as too much of a good thing). But the transformative aspects (both body and mind) are a turn on for me.

Now an update on my life. Forewarning, this is going to be a rambling, venting entry. I've recommitted to using this blog as a means to help me. I need a place where I can vent and sort through my thoughts, and I need to check ego at the door and not feel guilty about feeling what I'm feeling.

My next appointment with my therapist is on Thursday. I'm going to ask for a referral to a new psychiatrist. My anxiety/depression has become very problematic. I am at the point where I am waking up in a state of anxiety, which makes it very hard to get up in the morning. The last time it was this bad was when I was 25/26, in the midst of my first career crisis after having second thoughts about doing a PhD. I don't count my post-breakup depression, because that was a different type of animal.

Other health concerns are complicating things. For more than a year now I have been dealing with various foot problems. It started with pain in one of the sesamoid bones (located at the big toe joint) in my right foot at the end of 2014. I started seeing a podiatrist, who tried putting me in a walking boot for several months. While I wore it a lot during that time (Feb-Apr 2015), I wonder whether I should have been even more strict. I didn't discontinue improv during that time. Instead I performed with the boot on. And I would take the boot off for very short distances (walking around the house, walking from the car to a restaurant, etc). At the end of that period I switched to wearing athletic shoes and walking carefully. This actually seemed to help my problem quite a bit, so I began to be hopeful that the worst was over.

I was wrong. My foot really became aggravated when I traveled in Italy during the summer. Since I didn't start off the trip with very much pain, I thought I would be okay. I brought plenty of kinesio tape to wrap my foot with for extra support. But by the end of the trip, I was in agony. I think I was compensating for the sesamoid pain the whole time. That altered walk was very hard on the ball of my foot, and when I got home I was experiencing a lot of metatarsal pain. I went back to the podiatrist and went back in the boot for a time, but it didn't seem to help. The podiatrist signed me up for physical therapy. Meanwhile, I tried wearing metatarsal pads in my shoes. This seemed to create other problems, as I would feel weird pain radiating up my leg. As soon as I discontinued use of the pads, oddly enough, the pain seemed to improve dramatically. Soon it felt like I was mostly back to just having sesamoid pain.

That lasted until January, when the metatarsal area started hurting again. I started using the boot off and on again for relief, including on the trips I took for work and my cousin's wedding. A new orthopedic surgeon I saw in December finally got back to me last week to confirm that I did not seem to have a sesamoid fracture. I went back to ask him about the metatarsal pain, but he very condescendingly told me I just needed to go back in the boot and wear it very strictly for several weeks, then gradually wean off of it. My pain is probably the worst and most constant it has been now, but the ortho doc waved away my working theory that I have a metatarsal stress fracture from the compensation I was doing.

So where I stand now -- I'm wearing the boot at all times again. My left foot has started to bother me too because it's having to bear the brunt of the work.

tl;dr: My feet are screwed up, have been for a long time, and they are not making my anxiety/depression and motivational problems any easier to overcome.

I'm trying to do the best I can. I am limiting walking however I can, and I am on an indefinite hiatus from performing in improv shows. Since improv and my troupe friends are such an important part of my life, I am still attending practice and doing music duty several shows a month. I'm also keeping my monthly show going, but more as a creative director instead of a lead performer.

In addition to trying to heal my foot injuries, I'm also taking it easy because of a minor back injury I sustained in a car accident last week. I was in the passenger seat of my car coming back from a three-day weekend trip (my friend was relieving me for a while as I had driven the first half) when a big pick up truck came out of nowhere and hit us in the back passenger-side. The truck ended up rolling onto its side on the shoulder. We were very fortunate, to say the least (and the other driver was okay too). Just one more thing to deal with right now. My car has been in the shop for the last two weeks.

So basically the main stresses of my life right now are my chronic foot problems, my car in the shop, my back pain, work stress, and figuring out my next career step. It gets me overwhelmed, and some days I just don't feel motivated to do anything except distract myself. At least I'm not so down about my dating life currently, but that's mostly because I've pretty much accepted that I'm likely not going to have a relationship in the foreseeable future and that the career things need to be figured out first.

I know there's a lot to be grateful for in my life. I know it's a bad idea to compare myself to others. I know a lot of my problems exist only in my head. But it's so hard to figure out what to do to make things better! Arbitrarily pick a career direction and do it just because? That's pretty much what it's coming down to. Not a very inspirational reason to go in a career direction ("I was suffering from anxiety and depression, and I knew the only way out was to move forward, but since I couldn't find a path that really spoke to me I just tossed a coin, and that's how I got here!").

I try to remind myself that the sexuality crisis I went through has a lot of similarities to the career crisis. When I was choosing between dating guys and dating girls, there were valid reasons for each. I had low hopes of ever having an actual relationship, let alone finding someone I could actually fall in love with. And yet, a mere few months after I made my decision to date guys, I had wound up in my very first relationship and had fallen in love. The passion I had for that relationship was not preexisting. It's not like I had a hint of passion for Ben when I decided to try dating guys . . . I hadn't even met him yet! So sometimes (always?) passion follows action, it doesn't precede it.

The lesson I am trying to teach myself (I saw it on a website recently): Clarity comes from action, not thought. My brain has been a helpful tool during a large part of my life. It allowed me to excel in school, in classes that many others struggled with. It has allowed me to do well in improv and turn it into a wonderful, enriching pastime (which I also discovered and grew a passion for, rather than already having one). But now it's time to cut down on the brain power, because it's hurting me. A lot.