Almost cried on the phone with a coworker yesterday. Like he heard my voice breaking and me holding it together. We are under a crunch right now but it’s not That Bad. Afterward, shared my realization with him that a personal issue is affecting me and thanked him for patience and support.
The “personal issue” is all the fear, uncertainty, difficulty, and stress of starting to deal with, dare I say it? Infertility due to PCOS. There is a good chance it’s solvable but it’s confronting The Medical Establishment and with delayed test results I have not talked to my doctor again yet so I have no path forward.
Weight/diet/med deets
So all I’m working with right now is “lose weight” (again ) which I am willing to try but not willing to wait around for. Also watching my food/macro intake definitely affects my mood, I think from a biological place. So there is that. (However, and this may be coincidence, tweaking my diet with more protein, fish, and nuts seems to have calmed down my painful bacne, so maybe it helps my hormones? )
Anyway the real “wtf brain?” moment here is I keep trying to rationalize how I’m OK, but after yesterday’s incident I recognize I’m not entirely and also that it’s OK and I’m a human and I come with feelings.
Then I went to research if I want to use Kaiser MH benefits or Better Help and had ALL kinds of login issues so that was greeeat. kicks things I have to call them today to get unlocked/reset.
Can we also add “if you do not want suggestions, please specify”? Either that or “default to support only, but add it you’re open to suggestions”. I feel like support versus solving can get gnarly sometimes, but especially when it’s brain stuff.
And, following. Are used to get a lot of benefit from working through translating my physical signs into emotions by discussing with my husband. I’m pretty bad at directly identifying what’s going on with me, and he’s kind of my anger translator if you get what I mean. But ever since (finally… and the “big I diagnosis” is one I’m facing down again now, frack) having a child, there’s less time for that. And it’s really affected my internal balance I think.
I only made it halfway through the body keeps the score. And it was absolutely illuminating, but also just a lot.
Me: gives advice to mom friends to wear in ear headphone during whiny times of the day to avoid getting triggered
Also me: doesn’t fucking do that and gets triggered. Possibly misguided guilt? (Like dissociating and not replying to her bids ever is better?? Also I have zero judgement for when other people and see it as a GOOD parenting move so why do I judge MYSELF for it?)
Especially the planning/prioritizing and task completion stuff. (Memory isn’t good either but I’m working around that okay)
Also, anyone else have seasonal depression that strikes in the SPRING? It’s never made sense to me but has been a pattern as long as I can remember for myself. Like paradoxical SAD or something.
lower expectations. I know some people like, plan every minute and stick to it and this pleases them, but I need buffer time and flexibility. Only plan what needs planned and combat perfectionism. You have a toddler! You may not complete tasks. If there isn’t a safety issue (eg fire) it’s fine!
write it down. Whether it’s a todo list on my journal or a meal plan for a backpacking trip, if I really want to understand something happening in time I need to lay out out visually. Also something something accountability maybe? I’ve shared before that I’m doing a “have done” journal, vs I find that helps with completion because I want to write in that I Did Thing!
I don’t get SADD-like in spring, but I do get mad wanderlust, but school and work have always been more hectic and stressful (maybe bc fewer holidays?) so I put spend it mad frustrated I can’t hike/travel/etc.
Me: Advises everyone to get at least one 4 hour stretch of sleep every night. Gives several ideas on how to achieve it.
Also me: “Nah I’m too tired I’ll just skip all my sleep prep and fall asleep”. Has no more than 2.5 hour stretches.
… Guess who is finally following her own advice tonight…
For me, that’s always a symptom, not the Thing Itself. So when it’s bad I know I need to address what’s underlying it, and I just try to avoid a shame spiral about it.
I read other people’s mild and not so mild embarrassing stories (Twitter, AskReddit) to drive home to myself how common this is. Sometimes it’s even the same thing I did. Everyone has a deeply embarrassing experience. Then I ask, how have I grown since then that I would not do this embarrassing thing again? Speaking out loud to myself if necessary.
To help your therapy, I was once convinced to share a horribly racist joke told to me by my (foreign) cousin. I was already resistant to it, so I knew it was not something that needed retold. But both due to subsequent mortification, and greater understanding of systemic racism in the last 5 years, I would absolutely not do this again.
When I have things like that pop up I don’t let myself open up to allow the FEELINGS about it to fully reenact themselves - usually I’ll literally talk to myself like I’m talking to someone else, and instead of starting to go down the path of feeling and thinking about the incident I’ll interrupt myself and say something like “Oh hey it’s cool, I know that was really painful back then but everyone has moved on and it’s not a big deal anymore and hey you’re also really awesome today”
or something like that. But even more rambling and non-linear
I know for my brain, it works better to stop the emotions from un-useful memories being expressed fully, because once I allow that it’s much harder not to tell myself stories (i.e. think about or “remember” which is literally telling yourself new stories because of how memories work) about the situation and RE-coding that memory as an even more un-useful one.
If I already feel the feelings I do the same thing, but it usually takes a lot more self talk to get myself out of it.
That probably doesn’t make any sense and ignore my terrible sentence structure
but there ya go
Me: my allergies and anxiety are linked. Allergens are high enough my whole face has been reacting for over a week. Discuss this with my husband a couple times in the last week.
I know we have discussed this at length previously and elsewhere, but I just continue to be amazed how my brain can be extremely “mehhhh” and dragging its proverbial feet on a task and working on the task makes me want to puke… And then once I get into it the flow state kicks in and it’s great.
Like can I please get this focus minus the guilt and stress of doing it last minute? What the eff, brain.
So I finished the task. We got Healthy Fish Delivery ™ and then instead of napping at 8:45pm, I did 2 types of yoga for an hour combined and then did the dishes with slightly shaky knees. Why do I post this here? Because I currently feel Adulting Pride x3000, but I already know that tomorrow I will wake up quite resentful that I don’t get credit for the Things done today and that All The Things need done again…next pressing work project, workout, dinner. Rinse, repeat.
)
We got Healthy Fish Delivery ™ and then instead of napping at 8:45pm, I did 2 types of yoga for an hour combined and then did the dishes with slightly shaky knees. Why do I post this here? Because I currently feel Adulting Pride x3000, but I already know that tomorrow I will wake up quite resentful that I don’t get credit for the Things done today and that All The Things need done again…next pressing work project, workout, dinner. Rinse, repeat. 