Figure It Out

A blog about the search for integrity, DIY psychology, and customizing my own life

Author: emmelupond

  • Mindfulness Meditation: the Thin End of the Wedge

    emmelupond

    I’ve already described how, during 2019 and 2020, I had started to break down what I’d always thought of merely as intense anxiety, and define what was really a cluster of debilitating symptoms that added up to feeling unbearable tension. In another post, I described a few, perhaps odd and shaky, but effective early steps… Read more

  • Another Symptom and a Little More Early Recovery

    emmelupond

    In a previous post, I outlined a list of some “symptoms” that I started to be able to identify, out of the fog of anxiety and confusion that’s plagued me for most of my life. Spinning In Circles One other symptom that I began to notice (these symptoms didn’t just start recently, but I just… Read more

  • The “Pre-Recovery” Phase: You Have to Slow Down Before You Can Turn Around

    emmelupond

    You can be so sick for so long that you have no idea how far down you’ve really fallen. That’s partly what happened to me. I didn’t realize how bad I really was. Being unwell is a terrible vicious cycle. All your energy goes into bearing the burden, and it’s easy to lose sight of… Read more

  • “I’m Really Very Ill”: Some Symptoms of Misery

    emmelupond

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    A big part of getting better, mentally and emotionally, isn’t just admitting that something is wrong. It’s REALIZING that something is wrong. REALLY wrong. Anxiety–Acute in Intensity, Chronic in Duration The main thing that I first noticed—and when I say first, I mean I’ve been feeling it for years and somehow failed to manage to… Read more

  • Full of Poison: Family Dynamics and the Realization That I’m Not Broken For No Reason

    emmelupond

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    In 2019/2020, I was bearing up under the burden of lifelong struggles that had never been resolved, but only endured. And this two-year period was a watershed of insights, which I started writing down to make sense of them. I started figuring out tactics and strategies for finally trying to remove some of the burden,… Read more

  • How Long Can You Try to Get Better Without Succeeding?

    emmelupond

    I’d had a lot of ups and downs during a long and brutal period of anxiety, stress, and depression, but I’d never stopped working on trying to get better and happier. I am a self-improvement junkie, in some senses. It’s just what I do. I’m in love with ideas and thinking and figuring things out.… Read more

  • A Long Effort to Alleviate Peronal Misery

    emmelupond

    I’ve been working on my self improvement since…forever, maybe. I don’t think I’ve ever not been working on a project to make over my life. Actually, I’ve gotten really good at starting over in life. It’s kinda what I do. My career has had more iterations than I can count. But now, I needed to… Read more

  • The Search for Integrity and Happiness: the Why and the What

    emmelupond

    This blog will be a journal to attempt to solve some big problems for myself. I reached a point where I just can’t – no, I don’t want to – go on like this anymore. I’ll start by tracing how I reached a turning point. 2019 was a difficult year. It started with an incredibly… Read more