gonna take this as a lesson to write more straight-forward language when posting on this thread.
I was just joking, I figured she was talking about Trump haha
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big vent post. I’m at a low point before my big road trip.
Much of my community irl and online have been unwell as of late for very obvious reasons. I’ve been staying above it as much as I can until lately, and today I hit a low point. I’m marking it here so that it can be a turning point. But yeah, past couple days I have not been okay, or strong.
The strength with come when I need to go to work tomorrow and next weekend, and when I start my big road trip a week from tomorrow. But i need to rally motivation to stow everything in my van and make progress towards that trip.
I’m just Over It, should have moved two months ago, and that’s not helping me cope with the usual stuff in town.
It’s not my seasonal depression (I love this weather) it’s everyone else’s “seasonal depression” that’s dragging me down and finally gotten to me. It feels like everyone is having a bad time, and again I’ve tried to stay above it for my own survival, but I hit a breaking point. Everyone seems so on edge, and overnight the block I park my van at went from 1 big camp in the parking lot full of dudes I know and trust and who don’t keep me up all night, to suddenly 1 dude every 10 feet, for a total of 8 different desperate dudes of various determinations bothering me and trashing my block, making it look a sort of way that makes me feel depressed when I open my door. Last night I had to give my last quarter bottle of emergency booze just to get a guy who camped up right beside my van to stop talking shit to me through the wall, calling me bitch and making shit up about me.
Before that, yesterday, I had two of the shittiest uber rides I’d taken in my life, on the way to my destination I got a dude who does the incessant gas/brake/gas/brake, lurching my stomach and making me sick through traffic for an hour, and on the way home I got a guy who was already having GPS problems and punching his dashboard, doesn’t speak any english, sped up when I opened the door to get out, made me feel like I was being held hostage, being really aggressive and throwing tantrums like a pestilent child, and I started filming while he was punching his dashboard, and he put his hands on me after that to try and take my phone. I had to shout to get him to stop and let me out, all the bums on the corner at my local CVS where I got out had my back which was cool cause they recognized me, but then the driver took a photo of me and reported me, I couldn’t send the video to Uber, just a photo, and now my account is under investigation.
stowing the stuff in the van is super tedious as I have to unbury stuff to reach it and hang upside on the side of my bed, and there’s so much dust I’m wearing a mask the entire time. I have very little motivation to do this. Once I actually get on the road there will be no stopping me, but right now getting the ball rolling is super hard.
I also just feel like I’ve been on the verge of getting sick for the past two weeks. Feels bad man. I’m not okay.
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I ate a bit and make progress on packing/stowing, I’m ok
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Do any of you keep a daily/consistent journal? Do you have any prompts you use for the entries?
I’ve been journaling semi regularly for several years and have been curious about using prompts to structure my reflections a bit more, though sometimes just venting is good enough for me.
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Yeah, I do. How I got through the block was by identifying what the block was for me. It was embarrassment at my poor writing skills and horrible spelling. I was not wanting to face it. I can write when deadlines demand it but doing it for myself didn’t provide enough motivation to break through the block. I’m severely ADHD. I unconsciously use my ADHD as a psychological defense to distract myself from difficult things like facing my belief that I can’t do anything right, even write in a journal correctly. There are other smaller things that I won’t list. I’m not saying that these are the things that are preventing you from doing it but as an illustration of what they might look like. I found that just sitting down at a desk, with nothing else but a light, pen and paper for 15 mintues helps. I don’t have to write but I can’t look at my phone and if I start day dreaming just start writing the day dream. There’s important things in daydreams that I can see patterns in that provide insight into my personal psychology. Otherwise i just write about what i’m currently feeling. I don’t need to answer why I’m feeling this way but the act of identifying what you’re currently experiencing is an important practice that helped on the slow path to why I’m feeling it. It is a prompt unto itself.
EDIT: I’m not sure if I made it clear in my rambling. The prompt is that you have a block writing in a journal. The block is probably based in your own psychology. after what might be a long time of just writing about the block you might see why. In the process of doing it over and over gues what? You now have a habit of writing in a journal. Don’t fall for all that dear diary crap or any way you’ve seen a journal written down in media. A journal is anyting written down that you’re feeling. It doesn’t need to be a narrative and it doesn’t need to make sense. You just need to do it. It can be about video games as long as you are exploring your senses and emotions. That’s the only important part.
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I’ve taken to writing entries in my hobonichi when I feel like I need to get something down but I don’t always have the space or make time for it.
Before committing to the hobonichi techo life I used this #43850 steno pad that Cambridge no longer makes. I still have a few pads. These are kind of big and clunky to carry around but the quality of the paper is sublime and that’s important if I’m going to journal by hand, which I think I would prefer long-term. I write kind of big and slow but I could adapt. I’ve tried journalling digitally off and on but I find things harder to make a habit if they’re one more thing I do with the same device. It’s not beyond the realm of possibility, though. I thought using just straight up textedit would suffice but it doesn’t feel organized enough.
So I guess I’m really prissy and am looking for the right journal or desktop journalling app and it could just be a mirage I’m chasing. I feel like I get my thoughts down well enough already kinda, in the different forms they take: sketchbooks, hobonichi techo, the little book I keep by my bed for late-night dumb ideas, voice recorder memos fr I am not a survival horror npc, the last of my steno pads, and still kinda plain text files. I know that sounds scattered but I have a good memory for where to retrieve my notebooks and files.
Writing this post made me dig up a couple journals I had with plenty of fresh pages available. I’m gonna try to make a consistent practice out of using them.
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This has come to be my mindset as well. I treat it as a “report” on my life so it ends up being kind of a conscious record of where I am at that point in time. It’s fun to look back at my old notebooks and such from years ago – its one life project that works on itself so to speak, the habit of keeping record is me just venting, so it doesn’t feel like a “project” but it ends up that way anyway.
However when I feel sadness my prompts usually kind of delve deeper into it in a way that I worry is unhealthy or overindulgent. I suppose that’s why I hope prompts would redirect that energy into making the entry end in a more productive way to getting out of the funk. At the same time, I’ve felt like prompts usually feel inauthentic when I do them. Either way I’m open to trying new things hence my question.
I relate to this quite a bit. I’ve used/tried many tools and its lead to some things I’ve written to be scattered everywhere. It’s fun when I come across them on my hard drive, but otherwise feels disjointed and reminds me of my inconsistent record keeping and that stressed me out for some reason. I only keep one journal because scattering things has felt weird.
There’s a stationery/paper store near me that has so many pens/notebooks/little enhancements to the journaling experience. I’ve seen people in there with these beautiful leather-bound journals with nice clips for little memories like tickets or receipts, and a cool looking fountain pen. It dawned on me that if I made the actual practice of writing in a notebook feel pleasant by buying quality materials it would perhaps make me more excited to contribute to it. I actually bought a relatively cheap MUJI fountain pen and got some vivid dark green ink on it – my favorite color, and now the writing experience has a degree of novelty to it that I’ve been writing longer entries.
I’m not sure if this happens to you too but I can rarely build in time in my day to journal, and even if I can I usually only due it for a couple of days. I almost always just put if off until I feel like I have something to write down and then I do it “in bulk”. Most of my entries start with “there’s so much I can write about, and I don’t know where to start”
Despite the frustrations I love this “hobby” so much to be honest.
I have done this too, do you ever listen back to them? I’ve tried and couldn’t do it for more than a couple of minutes lol.
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I’ve been a daily Hobonichi Techo user myself for years and years, and for that time I’ve followed almost exactly the same structure—and I have a little box that I used to use for tabletop gaming wayyyyyy back when that now houses my journaling/letter writing stationery stuff, so what I do everyday includes stencils and stamps
- weather (with sun/cloud/rain/snow stencil) and temp
- My current mood (by circling one of four faces from a stamp)
- “things to do today” which follows a structure of: squares are things that I put on the list today, triangles have been on the list for two days and circle+number is the excess days something has been on the list. This lets me get a good accounting of the things that are actually important to me because if something lingers for a long long time there’s probably a good reason for it
- Things that brought joy the previous day
- An affirmation to myself
- Something I’m grateful for
- today’s target
- a daily rotating stamp that has 8 different words that I use as a prompt
- Mood/happenings journaling—this is just my standard like “how I’m feeling and what happened to me” sort of journaling. If nothing immediately comes to mind to share, I pick a specific moment and describe it in great emotional detail
- a section where I roll a d20 where each face is assigned to a very short prompt
- Any ephemera I want to paste into the previous day’s page (receipt for some reason, ticket stub, business card, photo, whatever)
- Finally, the day’s sporting events for teams I follow
My life is very very routine oriented and structured, on purpose, so as to minimize the sorts of variables that tend to lead to OCD themes, so journaling is an incredibly useful grounding exercise for me if for nothing else than it’s a daily ritualistic check-in with myself! I cannot recommend journaling enough!
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I added a voice recorder into my mix for similar reasons as outlined above. I don’t often go back to listen unless there’s something I’m specifically looking for, but I started running it through transcription (otter.ai, and then even tried whisper.cpp) and that was much better.
I saw some clip - Seth Godin maybe - talking about how writer’s block was a fabrication, and if there’s writer’s block then why isn’t there talker’s block? Dictating made it a lot easier for me to push through on days I feel mentally and emotionally in need of industrial strength Drano.
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This is unrelated to the larger discussion, but I definitely get talker’s block. For me, writing in a journal is much, much easier than talking most of the time.
On topic: sometimes I use a structure when journaling, but it’s usually a simple “question and answer” type format, where I pose a question (to myself) and answer it. Most often I just write about how I’m feeling, getting fully indulgent in the moment, with some caveats. I practice some ACT-related skills of mindfully observing my emotions, and I find writing in a journal helps me do that. So I’ll write something like “I notice that I feel…” and go from there. I find it very helpful to articulate my feeling in order to fully access them. I have a tendency to push down/ignore/numb out instead, and over the course of my life it became difficult to even consciously feel my emotions, even though they were definitely still there and affecting me.
EDIT: I want to explain what I mean by “talker’s block,” because I realized it’s probably different than what this person meant. I just mean forming verbal language is sometimes a hard thing for my brain to do. All my words can be jumbled in my head and don’t come out right. I used to stutter, and still do sometimes. There are times where I simply cannot talk without some kind of intervention, like sitting in a quiet, dark room under a weighted blanket.
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Wow this sounds wonderful, I can definitely see this become a soothing experience too. That’s the ideal of using prompts/structure, it becomes more of like a ritual than what sometimes feels like a sporadic venting out of emotions. Great list!
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I feel you!
Regarding the survival horror npc joke, outside of it being placed in the perfect location so as to make the whole concept of finding one ridiculous, I find it absurd how coherent they sometimes are.
My “talking journals” are all over the place which is why it’s hard to listen to them, I bounce around the stuff so much that as a listener it’s like dude calm down! But it works in the moment. I usually record them when I’m pacing/doing one of my “I’m feeling anxious” walks around the park :)
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If you are going to go cheap I recommend the Pentel Stylo JM20 disposable fountain-style pen. It has a fixed reservoir like a ballpoint but a flexible plastic nib that can be flipped for two thicknesses that can be modified by pressure. It’s become my new favourite pen for writing or sketching.
I think if I make my way through the journals I have I’m going to go with something A5-sized next time. That feels like a good size to let every line and entry breathe. There’s a stationery place by me too that sells a sketchbook I like: Midori MD notebooks come in blank off-white, are really bare-bones and minimal with a great texture that is not super smooth like the really cheap stuff. They also come in lined and grid. I would recommend checking those or Itoya Oasis notebooks out for anyone seeking a hobonichi-adjacent experience but can’t find the hobonichis in stores or don’t want to pay shipping. The Midori ones also include a little ribbon bookmark.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that approach. That’s kind of what I’m doing. You might not know what comes out of your pen until you sit down and start examining your day though. An entry doesn’t have to be lengthy, either. It doesn’t even have to be WORDS lol.
I definitely do find it hard to cram just about all my habits into every day. With this one I’m just gonna have to remind myself not to get uptight about pumping an entry out every single consecutive day to maintain some streak, so I don’t feel like a failure when I miss one. That’s how habits fall apart.
For me this is almost always the sign of an emotional block causing anxious avoidance lol. Not saying that is you. I couldn’t log how long I’ve had a task on the books. If it still needs doing then I’ll keep adding it until it gets done.
I do! And I actually find them really amusing most of the time, like a little podcast I recorded for myself. At first I definitely cringed and groaned and couldn’t stand to listen, but I think it’s worth it to get past that. I originally got my little Sony recorder for voice training purposes.
On the subject of talker’s block: this might be in part down to how isolated I am at the moment but I love using my voice and rambling feels so much easier than writing when I don’t know what to say. In the absence of a good listener I try to be that for myself. It feels like exercise and like exercise I can feel myself loosening up and getting a boost out of speaking, and of becoming animated and recruiting my body into the act.
I feel like “talker’s block” could mean many things to different people. I also can stutter and trip over my words if my anxiety is triggered. That almost certainly comes from the completely dysfunctional communication that took place in my family growing up. Sometimes I’m with someone and just not able to relax and that anxiety can flare up and put me in my head more than in the moment.
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I really liked hearing your perspective - and the self-Q&A is how I’ve pitched journaling to friends who had shared they were struggling and something that I thought helped me. Something about that self-conversation: no judgment, no misunderstanding, and full trust of myself. Yeah, maybe I’m facing my own demons, but my demons are still me in some perspective of me.
My earliest dictation play was in early high school where I’d pretend to do “Captain’s Log” akin to Star Trek, but I came back to it several years ago when my health was Real Bad and I had difficulty walking and using a phone to jot down random errands or such that would bubble up during the walking portion of my commute. I like the general practice of blarting thoughts by whatever means seems to maybe work. Can’t bring myself to write - I talk. Can’t talk? Then write. Purge or processing, it all feels healthy. Those dark times were also when I got on the Hobonichi train like people have shared above, although I started with the Jibun Techo (more structured day to day).
Sidebar - are people aware that Hobonichi was founded by the creator of Mother/Earthbound? That’s why they have Mother covers and designs every year.
A weird thing I did a few months ago when my dad was dying, I busted out samplers made for music (like the koala app for phones) to dictate short notes to myself as I was - again - walking during my commute. When my mind felt like it was constantly unable to really focus or be present, it helped me get through my days.
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Interesting thoughts here on journaling. I’ve also been trying to wrap my head around consistent journaling this winter, and it was going well for about a month and a half but fell off some lately. It also feels like I’ve been in a crisis/depressive state for so long that I don’t even know how to make much sense of where things really are internally.
But the method I got to get myself into journaling was to make it feel more like a game/creative project. I created an excel document with different sheets per month, and then journal by basically writing a thought or cell until there’s a natural pause, and then go down to the next cell.
It’s a good way to literally organize my thoughts and feel like I’m not just making an endless wall of text.
When I got the idea to do this, it was also tied to a more convoluted idea of later using journal entries as part of a conceptual art / game project. I think that gave me some extra motivation to participate at first, but it makes it easier to avoid it when I’m in a bad headspace, like dismissing my overwrought creative idea and throwing the baby out with the bathwater by just not journaling at all.
I think it’s been helpful. I have what feels like an endless backlog of processing to do. And I feel like I put a lot of effort into processing. I definitely feel the critique of it being difficult to journal on a computer when I’m already using a computer a lot for work.
One cool thing I’m looking forward to is that I’m starting with a neurodivergent / neurodivergent-friendly therapist on Friday. I’ve felt a strong need to be in therapy for the past several years but have had a string of therapists over the years who can kind of help navigate me through one particular thing while also not being all that helpful overall. But I was really optimistic after our consultation.
I am definitely finding myself at a low point. Some big, positive life changes are around the corner. It’s hard to say whether that will break the spell of my mood or if it will keep following me into the supposedly better times.
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I’m glad you’re starting out restarting therapy with somebody who understands neurodiversity. I start in my early 20 and went through my 30s with only trauma model therapists and my autism went unnoticed and undiagnosed. I worked through a lot because a ton of my S is rooted in trauma but a lot of it was recalcitrant to those modalities and my therapists and I could not figure out why. It turned out that I was masking so hard and got so long that it went unnoticed by both of us. One I had that diagnosis and treatment started centering around that and I started understanding the framework used to conceptualize autism in mental health, so much weight and anxiety I had been carrying around started to slough off. I hope you have a comparable experience.
Also for those that may privately scoff at the idea that my autism could go unnoticed or that I had bad therapists, I mask far less these days. I let myself be autistic. Even if it’s cringe.
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update: I’m finally permanently away from the streets of LA and I shall no longer be suffering from constant distractions and paranoia yay
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My journaling habit has been going strong this past week!!
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Heck yeah congrats! I’ve heard habit forming takes 2 months so you’re well on your way!
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