Here’s a fun life update for my friends and family that read the site. I’ll hide it all behind the jump lest I clutter up all my useful chatter. :) Warning: Fairly intense and not about game art outsourcing.

Well, Dungeon Runners shipped a couple months ago and that’s going extremely well so far. And, in another interesting bit of symmetry, my latest relationship went down the drain in an even more horrible and spectacular way than the last one. Eight-hour-long screaming fights every night get old after awhile, especially when you didn’t actually do anything to start them, and aren’t ever the one doing the screaming.

Not to mention about ten other intense, stressful, fucked up, dramatic and (surprisingly) UNRELATED personal life events that hit me at the exact same time.

While I was dealing with that and the latest total relationship failure, I started getting into the whole workaholic thing again and spending insane amounts of time either at work, or working from home. Whatever semblance I had of a social life withered up and died and I started spending absolutely absurd amounts of time at work. Got back into the cycle of abusing my body with massive amounts of coffee and energy drinks, then going home and drinking beer until I stop shaking, calm down and fall asleep. Every day. On switch, off switch.

Well, I really went overboard with the caffeine and energy drinks because I started having massive anxiety attacks. Head pounding, heart thumping, hands shaking, can’t focus, the world is ending, I swear I’m going to have a heart attack level anxiety attacks. I’ve never had those before, or anything even resembling one, and it took me a little too long to realize that it was the energy drinks that were doing it. Whoops!

At one point they were affecting me so badly I’d try and go to bed, then have a massive anxiety attack for 2 to 4 hours at a time, somehow fall asleep, then have horrible nightmares all night long and wake up exhausted, every day, for about a month straight. I felt like the walking dead. I got to the point where I absolutely hated sleep, never wanted to go to sleep, and would fight it tooth and nail until I would pass out from sheer exhaustion. Then I’d have horrible nightmares all night (almost invariably lucid dreams where I’m being murdered in a variety of extremely painful ways), then wake up more tired than when I went to bed.

Somehow, through all this, I managed to keep my wits about me while I was at work and continue to function on a pretty high level. But the insane amounts of stress were definitely a huge factor in why I felt so awful all the time.

Finally all that crap got to the point where I realized, man, this lifestyle is no longer working for me. Let’s tear it all down and start over! Here’s what I’ve done so far:

• Going to therapy (something I swore I would never do)
• Meeting with a financial advisor
• Drinking half a gallon of water per day
• Regularly go to bed early
• Regularly get up early
• Stopped drinking energy drinks (mostly, I’m still weaning)
• Drinking less caffeine in general
• Only drinking beer on the weekend, and less of it
• Eating five small healthy meals a day (including breakfast, which I never do) instead of two or three large ones
• Eating only healthy food, food I make myself if I can
• Getting into work at a reasonable hour
• Working more reasonable hours with a higher level of focus
• Exercising again
• Set a weight loss goal
• No longer working from home
• Finding more things to do at home besides work
• Spending more time writing (hi!)
• Reading a LOT more than I have been
• Hiking state parks every weekend
• More photography
• Being more social
• Abstaining from anything resembling a relationship for a full year

As you can see, not really a whole hell of a lot. ;) So far my health has improved, I feel more energetic, I get more done every day, and I feel like a much better and more balanced person now. It’s been like night and day. I just had to get to the point where I decided “This isn’t working” and completely destroyed my lifestyle, so I can build it up again.

I’ve often asked myself… how the hell am I able to face all this awful shit, get totally broken down, then just start over anew, and keep getting better? So I thought about it, and this is what I’ve come up with.

I feel like over the last few years I’ve built myself up a lot as a person. I’ve tried and tested new ideas and discarded the ones that didn’t work. Over time I was able to build an extremely solid foundation for a functional human being. I’ve tested it thoroughly and I’m satisfied with it, and I’ve built up a healthy amount of self-confidence in it. I feel it’s my strongest asset, and the one thing I can never really lose.

As I learn and grow, I build new structures on top of that foundation. New beliefs and habits. If those structures survive over time as they’re tested, they get tighter, sturdier, and then they eventually become a part of that foundation. I grow.

Unfortunately, I make mistakes sometimes, and build up weak structures that impair my foundation’s ability to do its job, and only weigh it down. Being a workaholic is one. Drinking too much is another. Eating too much is yet another. There’s an endless number of ways to fuck up. :) It’s a cycle. Eventually, I realize that there’s only one thing I can do about it… break down those structures with a goddamn wrecking ball and start over.

That’s the beautiful part of thinking of myself this way: If I get to a point where I’m not happy with myself or where I am, I can change it. I can excise whatever it is that’s causing me distress and start over from that basic foundation.

That’s key: I have something to revert back to. I’m never reduced to nothing. I have perfect confidence, at all times, that I can rebuild again and not make the same mistakes. Some people call that hitting bottom. Or having a breakdown. Some may simply brand it as failure.

I see it as… life. Birth and death. New beginnings! And I’m starting over again. :) So far, so good!