Rev. Andy 🐺 🌿 @andy@mentalhealth.social

My #introduction toot!

I'm Andy and I'm the admin of mentalhealth.social.

My interests are covered in my profile. On #mentalhealth I've briefly known the Black Dog in the past and work hard to keep him on a leash. My wife lives with #BPD bundled with #anxiety and #depression (though has a grip on all of them) and her illnesses are one of the things that drive me to be so passionate about #MH support and care. Which is why I set up this Masto instance; a safe place to socialise and chat. 👍

This week I've started using a rotavator on the #garden. I really should post some before (neglected for years, thanks #MentalHealth) and after pictures at some point. I've been prepping the soil for 20m2 of raised beds. It feels good to get my hands dirty again. We have other spaces planned.

Contrary to what certain people around here might think, I grew up in a gardening family. That and a couple of years of undergrad Plant Science and I'm not the world's worst gardener.

I was going to say this makes me unreasonably angry, but thinking about it, I think the anger is perfectly fucking reasonable.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/12/idaho-wolves-environment-animals-policy

Happy Beltane! Today I shall be celebrating the Sabbat by patching some servers and then smashing a concrete coal bunker to smithereens with a sledgehammer. Hail Eris!

I ache. But six hours in the garden today on top of what we've been doing all week and we have an almost clear back garden. Second skip lifted, third skip dropped on the drive. Everything feels manageable for the first time in ages. #MentalHealth is great, physical health isn't bad for a tubby middle-aged nerd, and I'm actually enjoying life. And to top it all off, got my #3 at tte barber's at 8am this morning, first cut since July '20.

Tomorrow I'm going to chisel a coal bunker into pieces. 😁

We've made more impact on working on our fixer upper and it's Jumanji-like garden in the last few weeks than in years. Jo spent most of the day tearing up brambles and weeds and I knocked some stuff down and chucked it in the skip after work. Eldest followed up with a couple of hours of clearing undergrowth.

(a) I'd forgotten how good this sort of thing is for mental health and (b) I can see things taking shape now. Feels good.

#gardening #diy

Just been invited for my second jab tomorrow morning. Short notice, so I wonder if they're getting through the remains of a batch of Pfizer. No matter though, not going to turn it down! Scratch the DIY on Saturday. 😂

I've hit a wall in writing. Every time I try to add punk to Georgian/Regency/Victorian England, even working hard to come up with a hard science alternative timeline to the Industrial Revolution, I end up with something too close to steampunk. And I can't stand steampunk.

So I'm going back to what I know. Hard sci fi, the physics of intra-Solar System space travel, cyberpunk, transhumanity. But trying to keep my ideas on social class disparity in place. Warming up by rewatching Elysium. 😎

Frambled the shit outta my eggs this morning, I feel so cool. 😂

Didn't get to celebrate Eostre yesterday as Jo was at work, so taking a mindful day today. A bit of a walk and dropping some fresh bread that is baking in the oven at the moment, around to my parents (leaving it at the door, naturally!)

Listening to Levellers and getting fucking angry at the world. I'm really sorry the generations before mine fucked shit up and I have the most profound respect for the generations that follow mine for doing something about it. In my naivete I honestly thought the new century would usher in a new age of peace, love and understanding. Sorry folks. My bad. ☮️ ❤️

Clothes look SO much better on FemV (yeah, I started a second, casual playthrough if Cyberpunk 2077). It's really ticking all my Barbie boxes. 😂

Well, sayonara Night City. 92 hours later I've finished my first playthrough on the XSX. It was gorgeous, beautifully written and an outstanding realisation of a city and characters I've loved for 33 years. It meant a lot to me. It has its bugs and the way in which CDPR management handled its premature launch is horrendous (not to mention other aspects of the company culture, best left to a separate toot), but it was a powerful storytelling experience. I'm looking forward to my next visit. 😎

I grew up listening to Fish-era Marillion, and it's angry and brilliant; but I'm re-listening to "Brave" for the first time in years at the moment (the Steven Wilson remaster) and I have to say it's a fucking outstanding piece of music.

All Pfizered up. 😎

When you can't sleep, you're up at 4am, your NextCloud server is fucked and you realise you accidentally downgraded the VM to 512MB of RAM. 🙄

Enjoyed today's sobriety app pledge motivational. 🙏❤️

I guess I don't have a point. My therapist would be happy though, I slipped into an emotional place when that music came on and that's a good thing for a guy that used to spend far too much time as a hyper-vigilant guardian of his pack.

If anything, don't neglect your physical self when you're working on your emotional/mental self. The two are inextricably linked, from what you shove into your mouth to how you hold and move your body. Move your mind and body in unison.

And try yoga.

🙏❤️

3/3

The weird feeling I get when I listen to this song now is wholly pleasant. It's calming and it takes me inside myself and into a good place. Not at all upsetting (and to be honest, when I was crying my eyes out at it, walking in the dark, I couldn't explain WHY I was crying).

People forget the connection between the mind and the body, whether it's diet (the brain-gut connection) or our experiences. Our nervous systems have memory and unprocessed trauma can sit in there for years. Decades. 2/n