I once heard Stefan Molyneux say, in response to what causes so-called "generalized anxiety disorder", that from his experiences it's usually rooted in "someone else who is taking advantage of you." I filed that away, and didn't think much of it at the time.
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, when I did some "pruning" among my personal relations... after a couple of difficult days wherein I wrestled with, and successfully un-did, some strong conflict-avoidance childhood programming, I noticed my sleep gradually improving, and my anxiety levels dropping off to virtually zero.
Today, it hit me: my chronic insomnia of eight years is gone; I've had nine straight days of excellent-- which I rate in my log as either an "A" or a "B"-- sleep, to the point where I go to bed, fall asleep with a sense of well-being, and stay asleep through the entire night. That kind of streak has, quite literally, never happened in all of my many years of logging my sleeping patterns. Not even close in fact! I'm just about at the point where I may even start weaning myself off of the trazodone.
Chalk that up as something else which Molyneux got right!
In other news, I finally beat "Valkyria Chronicles 4". Final time was 58 hours and 48 minutes-- which is a mind-numbing amount of time for any video game, much less one in that genre.
Like pretty much every modern game, half of this one was clearly designed to artificially pad the length: I enjoyed the story overall, but the absurd amount of silly plot twists really had me laughing by the end. Even the ending credits kept interspersing video into them, I wondered if it'd ever end! Overall, easily half of the chapters could have been left on the cutting room floor, and it would have been a more air-tight experience for it.
Once H and I wrap up "Pokemon", I think the Switch is going to join my PlayStation 4 Pro in the box in the basement, so I can get back to my real passions: classic DOS games, the Atari ST, the Game Gear, and a sustained string of Saturn "repro" purchases, which people are even now selling in the original hard cases, with re-printed manuals!
I'd originally packed the PS4 away as a temporary, couple-of-weeks measure, just to clear desk space in my room for a project-- now it's been down there for like eight months, and I don't even remotely miss it. The Switch will probably follow the same path: it'll go into the Roach Motel-- downstairs, and never back up again! Modern gaming is another long-overdue pruning from my personal life.