It's funny thinking about the term switching gears specifically, because it's something that I realized in the past that I had an exceptionally difficult time doing. When I was doing one thing, it was very hard for me to move on to something else. But in the past, it was really just an issue of focus - not anxiety. Anxiety has basically forced me to learn how to deal with it, which is pretty easy at this point since there's an immediate physical stress response that crops up when I need to take a step back.

Disassociation is something that I never really dealt with because, by and large, I never really viewed anything that I went through as traumatic. It was annoying, for sure, and I often sought refuge in isolation, but I recall many times people expressing sympathy for me going through being caught in the middle of a bitter feud between my parents and my response was just a shrug. It wasn't something that affected me, so why should I care? The only things that really did affect me were the things I hadn't figured out yet, i.e. the seeds of anxiety, and had yet to become a serious problem.

And you are definitely on the mark about my feelings on being alone. It's hard to understand that extremely introverted people have social needs, too. And just because I prefer to spend my time doing stuff by myself doesn't mean that I don't want social support. This was a pretty hard lesson for me to learn, and an even harder one to actually accept.

I feel I can also relate to how this would result in a person becoming overgiving to others, harboring that deep seed of hope that you will eventually get that same support back in kind. I am grateful that, despite having incredibly sub-par parents, to have been largely raised and taught the ways of life by a wonderful man. You strike me as the sort of person who has probably seen Avatar: The Last Airbender before; my grandfather is for all intents and purposes Uncle Iroh. I learned from him that if I see the opportunity to do the right thing, I do it for no other reason than it's the right thing to do. I shouldn't expect anything in return or even gratitude. It's a very altruistic outlook, but it kind of doubles down on that feeling that nobody else is really going to ever help me as much as I need it.

I *thankfully* do not experience difficulty falling or staying asleep, due mostly to the fact that I do rotating shiftwork for a living. 7 12-hour days followed by a week off, then 7 12-hour night shifts followed by another week off and repeat. I'm perpetually tired, but usually not due to not being able to sleep when I try. I did look into TRE and my immediate takeaway was that it reminded me of the "comfort rocking" a lot of people with autism or severe trauma often do (I presume you know what I'm talking about). I have found a similar release with a rowing machine that my girlfriend bought and never uses: the repetetive motion is soothing and the resistance of the machine is just enough to release energy without being overly strenuous.

I think you and I are both of that right type of personality where a conversation just keeps growing because one of us will type up a few things and we just naturally want to respond to absolutely everything to leave no point unaddressed. And then on top of that I'm like, "hell, I've been talking about myself this whole time! Tell me how your week has been going, too." So put us together and it just turns into a great wall of text. Not that I'm complaining - I think I mentioned earlier that a lot of things have come up here that have been points that I took directly back to my therapist.

The writing I do about games just tends to be analyzing them from a design standpoint: what makes them fun, what makes them work, what can be improved upon. The most recent thing I wrote is probably a pretty good example: Abuse My Nipples Dot Biz

(Yes, that really is my domain name. abusemynipples.com was already taken)

At this juncture, I have 4 shrines and about 700 pieces of golden poop left to find. I'd like to at least take care of that first one... not so sure about the second >.>

Anyway, thank you as always for taking the time to talk with me and help me through my problems. I hope your week has been going well, and that your daughter (?) is enjoying Tears of the Kingdom <3