I'm so sorry you had one of those days. I too occasionally suffer through them, and they're sapping. Also, this is one of those semi-annoying {{hugs}} comments.

In happier news, your writing has often made me very happy. Thank you.

Like there's no horizon. Yeah, like being trapped in a maze. Limitations and trap doors everywhere. Very frustrating.
Thankfully our imagination can take us out of that maze.

You know how you do something that you really dislike yourself for, stemming from a character flaw, and you feel a kind of despair, because it's something you've done before and you can't seem to learn anything from past mistakes?

Yes. I'm going through that right now with grad school applications. I feel like #6, the guy in my icon.

*hugs*

Very familiar with that feeling, unfortunately. I have no advice, as usual, just semi-erotic tickling. ::fills your happiness cupboard with porn and chocolate::

PS It's the Van Helsing that did this. Bad CGI effects are like poison, I tell you.

*hugs you tight*

::petpetpet:: I promise to let you know the moment I find such a cupboard. As it is, would chocolate and schmoop help? And look! Funny icon!

I can't read when I'm tired. I thought at first you said "little monsters of happiness" and I rather liked the sound of that. Little monsters going around leaping out at people from under the bed and happying them. Instead of Boo! they'd say Joy!

also I send hugs. *hugs*

I love "little monsters of happiness." It's kind of Where the Wild Things Are. *g*

*hugs*

And then I came home and watched Van Helsing.

My sympathies. Although the ending, wherein the girl dies from being smushed by the giant werewolf penis is worth the price of admission.

I hope you have a better day today. (hugs)

I'm so sorry you had a bad day. Everybody backslides sometimes; you just have to pick yourself up, and keep on going. I only know you from your journal, but I just wanted to tell you how much I admire you for exercising and losing all of that weight. You made some serious life changes there.

Here is a link that has been helpful to me, courtesy of Herself:

http://www.bloodletters.com/hackyourself.shtml

*hugs*

"you do something that you really dislike yourself for, stemming from a character flaw, and you feel a kind of despair, because it's something you've done before and you can't seem to learn anything from past mistakes?"

I do not believe that anything you are likely to have done will have had as big and bad a negative effect as you think. If you told us what you did that was so bad, I'm sure we could all come up with loads of worse things we've done, which might make you feel better....?
Or hate everyone....

i have that closet. it's j/d pr0n. i can't even TELL you what i found myself thinking about in the miserable meetings i had today. i mean, really inappropriate, really unhelpful lack of focus. but i was so desperate for a happy thought.

maybe i don't need a closet so much as a happy thought.

When I was first realized, as a teen, how many neuroses and issues I had, I assumed that as I grew up, graduated college, and had a decent relationship and a decent job, I would no longer suffer insecurity, bad habits, and depression. Having those things would prove I was a normal, well adjusted adult, "done" like Buffy's cookies. Then I did all those things, and life was (objectively) going well for me but I still ran headlong into a brickwall of massive depression, no sense of direction, and unhealthy habits. And this was with an advanced degree, a great relationship, and well, the job thing was on and off, but you get the idea. So at 27, I was forced to the realization that I wasn't fixed even though I'd done everything I was supposed to.

Now I'm 34, and the last few years I've finally gotten it through my head that we're all gonna struggle with the same damn shit that makes up our bad selves throughout our entire lives. There is no way to completely put such demons to rest, to be "done" with them forever. Most of us can't get rid of our demons; it's all a matter of coming up with an attack strategy for how to live with them. We must always be vigilant. I totally don't mean this to sound hopeless; this realization is what allowed me to FINALLY start accepting and loving myself more. Look around you. EVERYBODY struggles with their own badness, and badness is all relative. Hell, I think Mother Theresa was a scary control-freak religious psycho (not a saint) but that's just me.

Anyway, if you broke down and got drunk, fuck it, today's the day you need to concentrate on. If it was some other thing you've vowed a million times you wouldn't do again, fuck it, concentrate on not doing it today. Learn to "own" the moments where you make progress in this fight, not just the mistakes. (That's one I struggle with constantly; why do I self-identify every bad action or mistake or misjudgement I've ever done, but any positive accomplishment, no matter how big, only sticks to my psyche for a day or two? I dunno.) Life is just a continuous process of 1 step forward, 2 steps back. You're not alone.

Hugs,

Tracy