Spoon Theory, CBT, motivation, pleasure, finding self in the larger world

It’s hard to change patterns. Especially when they challenge your core beliefs or values. Or when you aren’t sure what the outcome will be. Or when you are just too fucking introverted and introspective to not overthink it.

I’ve been getting feedback from bosses at work that they know I am more capable than I am demonstrating. I haven’t necessarily known what to do with that. There are reasons I pull back, and then other times I share too much and people give me a look like “damn, you’re too much.”

If I can’t sort through my thoughts first, people usually end up more confused… too many ideas and feelings at once, and they often ask, what they are supposed to do with the heap I leave on their door step. At an annual performancereview on Monday I got mostly 3 out of 4s. I suggested I am reluctant to step up more for two reasons: A) I don’t really want to care-take my coworkers –an experience I felt like I was starting to do the previous few weeks, because most of them are younger and I see their shit too clearly when I ask. B) I am worried about stepping on the toes of the folks who are technically supposed to be doing the work that I am feeling called to step up in. For instance my newer coworker who is managing the Mental Health Workers. I want them to be like new clinicians, but really they are just like post undergrad first job type workers who don’t know the ins and outs of mental health. If they are curious, I could teach classes… but the impression I get is that they are only half in. Too busy, too overwhelmed, and would rather spend their time socializing -post undergrad, but still in adolescence, you remember that, right? That thing where you lose your community from college and are desperate for a new one… half of them have multiple jobs and it feels like a lot to ask.

So it puts me in an odd position where I don’t want to do the thing that is natural and exciting to me, the thing I have always done, sticking my nose in other people’s business… and I am not exactly sure what else to do… because it still needs to be done and the fact that it isn’t done raises my anxiety through the roof some days.

But is it just my core shit playing out? Yeah… if things are going less than perfect, it’s my fault. If someone is hurting or dramatic, it’s my job. If there is a system that needs problem solving, I’ll jump in… but ask me to do more paperwork? Fuck you.


This week has been odd for me. Folks are reaching out and asking to hang out. Folks I haven’t seen for months or years. I have not felt motivated to be social at all. There are only a few people I genuinely want to see. In general, I feel very much like I did a few years ago, like my friendships aren’t getting me anywhere. Like my reliance on my parents as walking buddies, isn’t getting me anywhere. Like my life time of caretaking is gonna keep me from getting what I actually want. It is all very nice to see folks, but they don’t excite me, and don’t necessarily challenge me in the ways I want to be challenged. I am stuck. That’s what I am saying. I want to have a girlfriend, a family, a community, and none of it feels within reach.

This morning another 30 something single dude I know posted something on facebook basically saying ‘if it weren’t for obligations to others, I am not sure I’d still be here most days.’ And I felt that. It’s like low grade functional depression. I can muster the energy for work, but beyond that I usually wonder what the fucking point is. Grub, TV/games, work, sleep, porn, writing, the occasional walk, the occasional chat… nothing different day after day, and the only thing with any meaning is the work. The writing and the walks support my growth, but for what?

And of course, I know that I should be exercising more and eating healthy, and meditating, and likely medicating, and that all of these things might improve my energy and motivation, but then what? More energy to sit around?

Most nights this week I have taken a nap, ate too much junk food, stayed up too late overthinking and fantasizing, and then slept in slightly later than I should have. Didn’t have much reason to get to work at my normal time because it wouldn’t matter. Maybe its summer. Maybe its ‘moral distress’ as an article I read today put it. Maybe it’s the impact of Covid, but I was here before the pandemic… and that brings me to that beginning thing.

Gonna head into therapy again soon. I know what I “need to” work on, but am I actually ready for change? Not really. All the action oriented things that might improve my situation has never really changed these core beliefs about myself and the world. All of the thinking and talking hasn’t either. Not sure what I am expecting really. Maybe I don’t need to know. Maybe that’s a big part of my issue, feeling like I should know everything all the time.

When I was bored and under performing in the past I would add more, but then just get burnt out. Investing in friends, and organizations and work, didn’t necessarily change anything for me, even though I might have had more going on. I have been proud of my contributions, but nothing lasts forever including the pride you place in accomplishments, including the ecstatic feelings, including the heart shattering.

I think that’s the thing I am struggling with socially. Its like, well sitting at home is a 4 out of 10 on the fun scale, and hanging with a friend is a 4.25-4.5, but dealing with logistics and all that? Probably not worth it.

Spoon theory? Too many spoons spent, not enough things replacing spoons these days.

When people ask me what would be the replacement, I can’t really say. I am not sure it exists anymore. I miss being loved and loving someone. I don’t want that with my friends and family. Not really. I mean, there are friends who I’d assume it would be more like a 6 or 7 out of 10 to hang with them… worth my time, but I don’t see them often because they live far away and it would be a special occasion. If they lived here and I got into a pattern of taking care of them, rapid diminishment of spoons, as has happened with some of the folks I like here.

My trip to Boston at times was really giving, and then other times it felt like a total drag.

Each night when I am fantasizing my book, it feels giving, exciting, connecting, but then I try to sit and type and nothing comes. It feels depleting.

We watched the movie “Five feet apart” today and though all the staff remarked that it was super cheesy, I was crying my eyes out. Some of that is past relationships coming up. But part of it was that they just jammed the entirety of life into 2 hours… a love affair, fear, guilt, shame, core issues. It was predictable and hard to watch at times, but it was lovely. The framing of the narrative allowed for it, people without time are desperate to pack it all in, each moment matters more… plus they are teens… But maybe I was a little jealous for my own person to live for?



Victoria sent me excerpts from this post by Adrienne Marie Brown http://adriennemareebrown.net/2021/08/19/the-darwin-variant-and-or-love-of-the-fittest/

Some of it is so relatable, and some is something to strive for?

“I have sought to offer and experience all kinds of love throughout my life. I have learned that I can love people who will still choose to leave me, to risk their lives, and I will feel grief. I have been learning that there is the big collective massive love I feel for all that lives, and then the tangible offer of love as an energy, resource and commitment which I can only give to those with whom I am in a mutual, consensual and aligned relationship.”

“And, as is my practice, when I can see where that edge of growth is, I seek it in myself. Where in my own life do I still persist in actions that presuppose my importance and supremacy, rather than accept my small role in our collective existence?”


Later in the post she talks about also centering pleasure in the discourse (author/editor of pleasure activism, a book I could never get more than a few pages into), but I was thinking that as she talks about centering and celebrating what feels good, that is one of the big troubles I struggle to share with folks. The things that give me good feelings, don’t necessarily give others the same. So how to create a relationship or community when the language of pleasure/fun/excitement isn’t mutual?



Anywho… I am getting sick of writing. Probably go veg out and take a nap.