sappho

I'm sorry your sleep is so awful. That shit will break you down over time, and then everything just gets harder.

Alcohol is really helping you in several material ways, so in your position, I'd prioritize finding replacement strategies over anything else. Here are some suggestions I have from my own experience:

1. Prazosin for nightmares. Got this from a psychiatrist, it's low risk (a repurposed blood pressure drug rather than a typical psych med), maybe helps with effects of alcohol use as well?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7572699/

2. Hemp for sleep. I like to dry herb vape mine. Maybe at minimum this reduces how much alcohol you need.

3. Specifically this herbal tea which has multiple sedating plants in it:

https://www.republicoftea.com/chamomile-lemon-herbal-tea/p/v00675/

4. This one is very much YMMV, but have you tried playing around while in sleep paralysis in order to reduce your fear of it? This is extremely difficult at the beginning because it will physically feel like (and you will literally believe) you are about to die. But when you're in sleep paralysis, allow yourself to feel the complete all-consuming terror without reacting and struggling away from it. If you feel your heart going a million miles a minute, it isn't actually, it's an illusion. (I usually do not have the feeling of breathlessness, crushing, or suffocation, but I'd wager those are illusory as well, because actual inability to breathe would wake you up fully.) Then, as the fear recedes, and it will eventually - stay with me here - peel yourself out of your body. Or roll out of your body, or pop up out of it. Now the sleep paralysis is over and you are having a cool dream, congrats. Because of this method, I actually look forward to sleep paralysis. But again, YMMV, not all sleep paralysis is experienced the same way.

edit: Forgot one thing. When you peel out, you may feel very intense vibrations. These are also okay and cannot hurt you, so simply observe like you do the other fearful sensations (much much easier said than done)

The difference between mids and the high THC stuff you see nowadays is largely the absence of secondary cannabinoids like CBD. It is legal in most states to purchase hemp online, which is literally just weed with only cannabinoids other than THC. If you mix hemp and regular weed, you create a mid experience that you can titrate to your liking. Personally (as someone else prone to nightmares and sleep paralysis) I find a 10:1 hemp:weed ratio to be great for sleep.

My brain is like that too. "Soft resets" is a good way to put it, it's like all my thoughts just drop and I have to wait 15 seconds for everything to unscramble before I can start thinking again. Please be gentle with yourself - I wish I was at the beginning. If you ever end up developing the variety of long covid I have (ME/CFS) you can actually make yourself much worse by pushing through fatigue, as the exertion causes more of your cells to shift into a damaged state. And it's hard to notice at first because you will just feel generically tired/flu-ish/physically sore like 24-72 hours after pushing yourself.

I physically can't fucking leave because I started renting a third floor apartment when I was still able to move pretty well with long covid, and now I'm way worse and there's no elevator lol. Those stairs will wipe me out for days so yeah, I haven't left in maybe a year or two now. Maintaining the ability to walk to the toilet is higher on my priority list

Well, first of all, every morning my cat comes and sits on my chest and she's very very soft. And there have been a few times in my life where I've gotten to feel this transcendent, infinite love that is greater than anything else I've ever felt. So I feel inside for the love in my own heart, or I look at my cat, or I look at kind people still trying - and then I can imagine that thing I felt before, the big love under everything, is real and true and still there. I don't really understand yet how it is possible, given the suffering, but I imagine it anyway.

I'm very sensitive to cross contamination (celiac disease) so I have to be very selective about my supplement brands. I use Pure Encapsulations, Thorne, Xymogen. And for magnesium specifically you might be interested in Xymogen's Optimag Neuro - it's what I take for RLS and sleep - it's got magnesium l-threonate, malate, and glycinate so you can see more easily if any forms work well for you.

I get short of breath and feel like I'm going to faint after walking around too. For me it's because I developed a circulatory disorder after getting COVID. The blood slowly pools in my lower body instead of being properly circulated back to my heart and upper body, thus causing shortness of breath (not enough oxygen) and lightheadedness (not enough blood to brain). The disorder is called POTS, it's quite common to develop or worsen post-COVID, and on average it takes years to get a diagnosis because most doctors are not familiar, so I am compelled to mention it to you just in case it is helpful. You can screen yourself quite easily at home with something called the NASA lean test.

Why can't anyone make a decent monster collecting/battling game

Ooblets is a fantastic indie game with the exact opposite vibes of this one

Why do you dislike talking on the phone? For me it's because I use more cognitive energy trying to understand speech due to auditory processing issues. It also really stresses me out to be expected to spontaneously socialize at the moment my phone erupts with an alarm. I like video calls better because reading lips helps me understand speech, and I prefer pre-scheduled calls near the end of the day so there's a generally consistent expectation of how long the call will last. I also make sure I have stuff nearby to fidget with because it helps me ground/regulate while socializing.

If I can suggest a resource for one of these problems - COVID - for people like me who can't take on the risk of (re)infection/are already too disabled by COVID to do anything in person. Basically try joining a mask bloc or similar from the directory here, the people there should understand better than most your need for protection from plague https://linktr.ee/COVIDAdvocacy

Also DIY fit test your mask if you haven't:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRCZ8Qnf0Z0

https://mathburritos.org/fit-test-kit-v1/

And bring a HEPA air purifier if you're going to someone else's home.

If you don't have access to nasal sprays or aren't comfortable with the quality of the evidence, you can also do a saline rinse after potential exposures to mechanically remove virions from your nasal passages.