Today I’m Not Building. I’m Staying Online.

Standing on the Ledge — Chapter 2 (Continued)

Some days my goal isn’t progress. It isn’t winning. It’s staying online—fed, hydrated, and inside my own skin—without slipping into a spiral.

Today I woke up already tired. Not sleepy—tired. The kind that sits behind your eyes and turns simple things into a staircase. I stood in the kitchen and stared at the kettle like it was a negotiation. Not because I didn’t know what to do. Because my brain felt like it was buffering.

This is the part that looks like laziness from the outside and feels like static from the inside. Under stress, the body doesn’t only do fight or flight; it can also do freeze—going still, immobilized, like the system hits pause because escalation feels dangerous. That’s not a personality flaw. It’s a threat response. ¹

So today I’m not “pushing through.” I’m managing load. I’m treating myself like an electrical grid under strain: reduce demand, stabilize, then add one small thing at a time. Water first. Food second. Then the smallest possible version of “forward.”

And yes, there’s a temptation to stay home and call it “grounding.” The house becomes a fort—quiet, predictable, controlled. But I can’t live in the fort forever. Bills don’t get paid by hiding. Work doesn’t get found by staying still. If I stay in here too long, it stops being safety and becomes a slow-motion trap.

I know how that trap works. “I’ll do it later.” Later becomes tomorrow. Tomorrow becomes next week. Then the shame shows up and starts chewing from the inside. That’s how the floor drops out: not one dramatic collapse, but a hundred avoided little things.

So I’m shrinking the mission until it fits in my hands. Ten minutes counts. One task counts. One application counts. One envelope opened instead of avoided counts. Not because it fixes everything—but because it keeps me from creating new damage I’ll have to carry.

This isn’t just me trying to self-motivate. Psychology has a blunt, practical frame for it: if you can’t think your way into motion, sometimes you move your way into clearer thinking. Behavioral Activation is built around doing small, realistic actions to re-enter life, and research reviews have found BA can improve well-being and reduce depressive symptoms. ²

And I’m starting at the bottom because that’s where I actually am. When the basics are unstable, everything else becomes noise. Maslow’s original work puts physiological needs and safety needs at the foundation—food, water, shelter, stability—before the mind can reliably reach for higher goals. ³

There’s also the bigger lens that keeps me from turning this into “what’s wrong with me.” Mills called it the sociological imagination—how personal troubles are often tangled up with public conditions. A collapse isn’t only internal; it’s structural. Roles disappear. Routines break. Identity gets ripped off like a name tag. The body pays the price for what the system did. ⁴

Durkheim gives a name to the disorientation in that gap: anomie—instability when the old norms stop guiding you and the new ones haven’t formed yet. That’s what days like this are: the old script is gone, and I’m rebuilding a minimal script so I don’t drift into chaos. ⁵

And Covey gives me something I can actually steer with: focus on what I can influence today instead of spiraling over what I can’t. That doesn’t mean pretending things are fine. It means choosing one next action inside my control, then doing it. ⁶

I’ve written about this terrain before—about shutdown as triage, and about setbacks as part of the rhythm of rebuilding. I’m not contradicting those posts today. I’m living inside them. This is what it looks like when “rebuild” isn’t a grand project, but a handful of boards laid down so you don’t fall through the floor. ^{7, 8}

So if today looks small, it’s because it is. Today I’m not building a new life. I’m staying online long enough to reach tomorrow without adding new wreckage.

One line I am keeping:
One boundary I am setting:
One step for tomorrow:

Godspeed.

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Sources

1. Cleveland Clinic. “What Happens During Fight-or-Flight Response? (Freeze response).” https://health.clevelandclinic.org/what-happens-to-your-body-during-the-fight-or-flight-response
2. Mazzucchelli, T. G., Kane, R. T. “Behavioral activation interventions for well-being: A meta-analysis.” (2010) (PMC full text). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2882847/
3. Maslow, A. H. “A Theory of Human Motivation.” (1943) (Psychological Classics). https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm
4. Mills, C. Wright. “The Promise,” The Sociological Imagination (1959) (Chapter 1 PDF). https://bpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/sitesmiddlebury.edu/dist/5/2398/files/2013/02/The-Promise.pdf
5. Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Anomie.” (Updated Nov. 11, 2025). https://www.britannica.com/topic/anomie
6. FranklinCovey. “Habit 1: Be Proactive.” https://www.franklincovey.com/courses/the-7-habits/habit-1/
7. Standing on the Ledge. “The Freeze Response: Triage in Tough Times.” https://standingontheledge.com/tag/love/
8. Standing on the Ledge. “Embracing Setbacks: A Path to Intentional Change.” https://standingontheledge.com/tag/healing/