"How would I feel? How SHOULD I feel?"

originally created October 25, 2022 ✦ republished February 9, 2025

(Originally posted on Instagram. This retroactive post is adapted from the Instagram post.)

I've just learned—or been reminded?—that some thoughts are junk, and that the way to handle intrusive thoughts is to not interact with them at all even though they're there, as if you're not interested, and then get back to what you were doing before. It checks out with what I experienced when I had panic attacks or similar thoughts last year.

Which makes it feel weird. How did I respond to things in the past? Should I be relying on or thinking so much about the way I handled things in the past? What's the mentality, what's the response, that is the most optimal for the current situation? Am I overthinking things? Am I judging my actions too much? Am I saying "I" too much? I want to remember what was the balanced way, the spiritual and thoughtful way, that I used to hold before, but (and this is probably going to sound corny) it feels like now I'm grasping tight to absolutely nothing.

I can wonder all day, every day, about what could have caused this specific state of mind right in this moment, or wish I could remember all those understandings instead of just shallowly repeating them to myself; but that's useless, I don't know why, I just know that it is. And so instead, I just drew this. This is another feelings-based one that I drew just on-the-fly, letting my hand go where it felt reflected the state of my mind, choosing colors and tools roughly. I feel like a lot of my drawings lately have just been about "mental state" this and "thoughts and emotions" that, and I'd wish that the part of my mind that draws other things could be unlocked somehow, if that's even how it works, but complaining about that is useless too.

I'm probably just going to reread the Bhagvad-Gita translation I have until it makes sense somehow.

Also I have so much missing schoolwork from when I was sick, and also from just procrastinating, that it's almost ridiculous, and the quarter ends mid-next-week, pray for meh 🙏🏼😭📿