Writing

Giving Myself a Pep Talk

September 7, 2025September 7, 2025 Kara Jorgensen2 Comments

I had a rough week. It was one of those weeks where nothing objectively terrible happened, but a bunch of small things conspired to absolutely wring the life out of you. I was exhausted from the semester starting again, I had a butt ton of papers to give feedback on, I had to go to the DMV to get my car inspected and have my partner get a new ID, my body decided to kick my butt in terms of fatigue and pain, and my partner’s mom ended up in the hospital for a moderately scary issue. Ultimately, mom-in-law is okay and on the mend, the papers got graded, and everything went well, but I barely got any writing done this past week.

On Thursday, I got home from work and thought I would finally be able to write now that everything had settled down, only to have the words bounce off my brain. I could feel myself ready to beat myself up over it, but instead, I stepped back and listened to an audiobook for a few hours before bed. Normally, I would try to just push through or punish myself by refusing to let myself read or decompress with anything fun because I didn’t “deserve” to have dessert if I didn’t eat my vegetables (aka writing). I’ve been trying to be better about recognizing when I’m mentally fried and need to do things to help me refill the well. Void staring as punishment does not help, and I’m glad that I trusted my body and allowed myself to decompress because, even though I didn’t write much on Friday, I was able to reread what I wrote the previous week to reacquainted myself with the text and edit a decent chunk of it.

Even if it was tiny, it was progress. Saturday was a bit better. I hit the point where I realized I needed to major edits on a scene and spent most of the day untangling that mess. Once again, it was a semi-low words day, but I still wrote and still worked on my book. Editing is time consuming and uses up a lot of brain power, which is why it’s sometimes hard to write afterwards. I resisted the urge to beat myself up again on Saturday because I did not hit my minimum goal or catch up. This was all made worse by this being the first week of September– first week, start strong, fresh start, blah blah blah. You get the mentality.

By Sunday, I had hit the realization that it’s just another week in the year. It is one week out of fifty-two, and falling short of your goals because you had a week from hell isn’t a going to ruin The Reanimator’s Fate or set me so far back I can never catch up. It’s fine. I’m fine. The book is fine. Ever since I realized I had to push back the release date for The Reanimator’s Fate, I have felt very guilty about it, even if my readers have been lovely about it. Releasing the book in early 2026 isn’t going to ruin anything or let down my readers who are eagerly waiting for the final book. No one is mad at me. No one hates me. The only one who is beating me up over it is me.

That’s really the crux of the matter: the only one punishing me for not being perfect is me. It’s still hard for me to grapple with the fact that giving 100% does not mean being at peak performance 24/7. I always feel like I should be writing 1k or more a day without fail, but that is unrealistic. 100% sometimes means just rereading what I wrote. Other days, it means just editing, and on bad days, 100% is refilling the well and watching Deadliest Catch while I passively think about what I want to write tomorrow.

My writing career is a marathon, not a sprint, so sustainability is key. Listening to my brain and body is a major part of that, and I’m trying to get better about not beating myself up when I need to take a short break to recharge. Sometimes, a month starts out rough, and that’s okay. A new week is a new week, no matter where in the month it falls. All that matters is that you start again and keep going.

Personal Life

Ambition v. Spoons

May 19, 2024May 16, 2024 Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

I hate making banana bread. And it isn’t because I hate bananas or banana bread or even baking. It’s because somehow, no matter what I do or how I plan the bananas and I are never ready at the same time.

This has been a theme throughout my life, especially as an adult as my inflammatory issues have taken a toll on my energy levels. If I have the energy, I don’t have the inspiration. If I have the inspiration, I don’t have the energy to work on my creative projects.

If you’ve heard of spoon theory, should sound familiar to you. In short, spoon theory is the idea that we all have a certain allotment of energy (spoons), and certain activities cost more spoons that others. The problem with being neurodivergent and chronically ill is that there is no such thing as a work-life balance. There isn’t a single activity that doesn’t cost me spoons, whether they’re physical or mental.

Spending time with people outside my partner, costs me even if I greatly enjoy our time together. Washing my hair will ultimately feel better, but it will cost me energy to do, which means I end up putting it off until I have to because I have work or I put it off so long that it starts to bother me from a sensory perspective.

What people don’t seem to grasp with spoon theory and autism is that things cost you spoons that don’t always make sense to others or they cost a disproportionate amount. Going to the grocery store isn’t physically taxing for me, but the lights, the noise, trying not to get clipped in the parking lot, the people, remembering to get everything on my list (I need a list because I have gone totally blank at the store), acting “normal” at the checkout, etc. is a lot that most neurotypical people take for granted. For me, this mental stress converts into physical stress, so once I get home from the grocery store and unpack everything, I wind up in a heap of fatigue for a few hours decompressing. It’s the same thing with my job(s) and why I avoid going to conferences or conventions. Even if covid wasn’t a thing, they still suck the life out of me and require a multi-day recovery period. Part of the reason I diligently mask and try to reduce my chances of catching covid is because if I got long-covid/a post viral illness, I would have even less spoons to go around, and I can’t imagine limiting my life more.

I’ve tried to organize my life in such a way that I’m expending as few extra spoons as I possibly can, so I can still do my writing and creative stuff and not be an overstimulated misery to deal with. It sucks though because I don’t think most people who casually know me would think of me as disabled or even autistic, and people with invisible disabilities or neurodivergence will always be held to impossible standards. They might be attainable for a time, but they aren’t something most of us can manage long-term without burning ourselves out. There is no way for me to have a standard neurotypical work-life balance without losing something, whether it be hobbies, socializing, chores, or my actual job. Something will always be falling to the wayside, and in neurotypical society’s eyes, I will always be failing.

For people where most of these things are near effortless or the effort is only required in short bursts, they will probably never understand how much I struggle and how little of a safety net there is. There are many reasons I support Universal Basic Income (UBI), but one of the main reasons is for when people who are ND or disabled burn out or need time to recover from a flare, they won’t be left destitute or having to keep working at seemingly 100% while actively hurting themselves. We live in a society that is very much all or nothing. If you aren’t disabled enough, you get zero benefits/support. If you are able bodied enough, there is no safety net. The best way to support your neurodivergent or chronically ill friends is to help them out when they need it (after asking, of course) and pressuring your government and politicians to expand things that actually help our society and those who need that extra help or safety net. Being able bodied is a temporary state for most people. Shaping our society to support rather than penalize a state most of us will end up in will benefit everyone.

Personal Life

Maintaining My Sanity

July 23, 2023July 3, 2023 Kara Jorgensen2 Comments

I have recently learned a valuable lesson: you cannot mandate relaxation.

My tendency is to be a bit of a workaholic when it comes to grading, writing, etc. to the point that I burn myself out. I rarely get to the point of actual burnout, but I definitely end up giving myself a time out or not being able to work for a few days due to my brain just being fried.

Of course, because I’m a workaholic, I got annoyed at the fact that I sometimes required a few days off every now and again, so what did I do? I added mandated relaxation to my to-do list. If you’re face-palming at this, you aren’t wrong.

What does mandated relaxation look like? At first, I put on my weekly to-do list that I had to play video games. At the time, certain games were doing it for me and helping me relax. The first few weeks of this, allowing myself to play games did help. Having it on my to-do list eliminated the guilt associated with playing games while fried instead of doing something “productive.” The problem came when I started to feel better, and gaming went from relaxing to another thing on my list that I didn’t feel like doing. Soon, I switched it from gaming to doing crafts.

Once again, it worked at first, and then quickly became a chore. I sat there being like how do I phrase this to allow myself to relax or force myself to break without feeling bad?

It feels like a very obvious answer now, but I need to unpack my own productivity issues and allow myself to enjoy myself, rest, do relaxing things instead of void staring until I’m productive again. Fixating on productivity and what I can do or get done isn’t healthy, and it’s ultimately what’s holding me back from maintaining a more realistic healthy schedule. Sometimes I also like to forget that I have chronic conditions that make it so I’m not 100% on or at the same level all the time. I would never beat someone else up over having to take it easy when they don’t feel good, but with myself? I take no quarter and am very mean to myself.

Listening to my body isn’t easy, but I’m trying. I’m trying to pay attention to when it needs rest or to do something creative because creativity is as nurturing to me as food. When I say creative here, I mean something besides writing. I like to do art, crafts, puzzle games. Anything intellectually stimulating that isn’t my writing or grading. I tend to think I’m at peace with having chronic conditions since I’ve had them in some form for the vast majority of my life, but when the condition becomes more internal (versus being very outwardly obvious as it used to be), it’s harder to face the expectations people put on you when they assume you’re running at normal/full steam all the time. That’s the part I need to work on: advocating for myself with others while listening to my body and brain rather than punishing it for its needs.

Personal Life

When You Don’t Recognize Your Face

May 22, 2022May 21, 2022 Kara Jorgensen2 Comments

Today’s post is probably going to be a little on the odd side as this is, I think, a niche experience. I hope it’s a niche experience because it wasn’t a very pleasant one.

If you’ve followed me for any length of time on social media, you may have seen me post about how my eczema used to be really bad until I started taking Dupixent in 2020, and it finally was brought under control. When most people think of eczema, they think of a crusty, red patch on someone’s arm or the back of their leg, but I had severe eczema. What qualifies as severe eczema? Treatment resistant, over a significant portion of your body, impairs quality of life, and flares last a long time. I had all of that.

As soon as I hit puberty around 11, the eczema patches that were on my arms and legs basically took over my entire body. I had angry, red skin that weeped over most of my body, and at the time, the doctors prescribed cream, which helped but wasn’t enough to bring down the internal inflammation. Steroid pills helped while I took them, but within days of stopping a course of steroids, the eczema came back worse. Nothing I did worked, no amount of avoiding triggers was enough. My body was raging from the inside out, and I was consumed by pain and fatigue.

It feels so dramatic to say that, but until I felt better, I didn’t realize how awful I felt at the time. My skin cracked and burned constantly. The inflammation made me exhausted (like having HORRIBLE allergies or a cold 24/7 for weeks or months on end). And my self-confidence plummeted because I looked and felt ugly. I didn’t bother to try to cover up the open wounds on my face because makeup made it more irritated. Between not having enough spoons to care and fighting a loosing battle with my skin, I gave up on giving a shit about how my face looked and stopped looking in the mirror beyond checking specific body parts (teeth, eyes, nose, etc.).

Even the clothing I wore required me to work around my eczema. I wasn’t hiding it so much as covering it in fabric that could act as a wick for sweat. In summer, I ended up wearing long-sleeve t-shirts or light hoodies and long pants because when the open wounds were exposed to the air or sweat on a hot day, they burned and got more inflamed. I was never someone who enjoyed showing skin, but what I wanted to wear and what I could wear didn’t always align. The open wounds also liked to bleed at random, so I ruined many a t-shirt that way.

When I started taking Dupixent back in 2020, I was hopeful but skeptical. My dermatologist was convinced it would help me, and I wasn’t opposed to trying an expensive medication if my insurance was willing to cover it since nothing else worked. Shockingly, it worked incredibly well. Within weeks of starting, there was marked improvement on several fronts. It turns out what I thought was a deviated septum making it hard to breathe was inflammation in my sinuses. The Dupixent calmed my whole body. My skin cleared up, my sinus passages deflated, and my asthma has all but cleared up. I no longer sound like Darth Vader when I breathe (thanks, family, for pointing that out repeatedly when I couldn’t control it). I had no idea how miserable I was since I had been suffering with such heavy inflammation for over 18 years, but now that it’s better, I can’t imagine going back to feeling that shitty. At this point, I’m paranoid about my insurance no longer covering my meds, but a post on the failings of the American healthcare system is for another day.

Now, here comes the weird dilemma: I didn’t know what my face really looked like.

I can hear some of you now. “Kara, you had a mirror, and no one swapped out your head when no one was looking.” Yes, but I have literally had eczema covering my whole face since I was 11 years old in 2002. I never really understood what my adult face looked like with clear skin and without heavy inflammation, which causes your face to look puffier than it is. My face shape has changed, my nose looks different, my skin (obviously) looks different, and now, when I stare at my face in the mirror, I have to remind myself to zoom out and see my face as a whole rather than parts. When I try to do a Tiktok or take a selfie, my brain still rebels at seeing my face. It’s simultaneously closer to the person I have in my head and incredibly jarring because I’m not used to seeing it like this. I’m not the person who is riddled with eczema and miserable. I still have inflammatory problems that like to pop up (stiff or achy joints, the occasional small eczema patch, IBS), but my quality of life is so much better that it’s painful to think of how many years I wasted feeling horrible. Not that, that could have been helped without access to Dupixent.

So, now, I’m thirty years old, and trying to figure out my face and get used to it. I’m happy that I have so many trans friends because I think they understand this feeling of suddenly not recognizing yourself but also being happy with the results. In their case, it’s hormones. In mine, it’s a lack of inflammation. I think it helps, too, that I’m nonbinary, and I don’t feel the need to cram my face into a feminine box because it certainly doesn’t fit. The other day, I made a goofy face, and my partner looked at me and was like, “You have a nice face. Your face looks very neutral, like not too girly or masculine.” Somehow, that made my day because, ultimately, I fall somewhere in the middle. Having my body cooperate with that feeling for once in its itchy, angry life still feels strange, but I’ll take the weird small victories.