Hey all!
I just turned 28 (an hour ago), and itâs nice to use this opportunity. Letâs say that the 28th year is going to be The Year of Self-Care.
So, this is going to be a journal about self-care.
The previous two journals worked well â I learned about consistent waking-up time and partly fixed my insomnia w/ đ¸ Emilyâs insomnia journal, and got much better at creating new routines w/ đ¸ Emilyâs tasks journal. So I have trust in this journal as well.
happy birthday!! 
By the end of the week I mostly forgot that itâs a Year or Self Care. I wish it was more prominent in my mind.
Maybe a phone background will work for a while.
I bought fluffy socks. See above. I like them. If you have recommendations for the best ever fluffy or fuzzy socks / clothes in general (not itchy), send them my way.
Also bought more teas.
Went to visit someone in a different town, but just for one day so that I would still have another weekend day left & wouldnât break the Sunday routines.
Avoided engaging in a discussion that I knew would irritate me.
Used earphones to block distracting/annoying things (I rarely do this).
Using a food tracker as the first step towards âthree meals a dayâ. I donât have high hopes for it, because I also have screen time tracking and it hasnât helped with reducing screen time. But weâll see.
Using a mood tracker (Apple Health). I also donât see how it might help, but I like the actual process of recording the mood, so Iâll keep using it.
In two weeks Iâll start another âmonth without caffeineâ and weâll see if I can spot a difference in my mood.
Didnât, because it leads to headaches & sleepiness & low energy.
Had an appointment with a psychiatrist re/ ADHD, maybe heâll also recommend something re/ anxiety.
I donât want to use the forum gratitude journal, so I might use my diary as a gratitude journal. I wonât be creating a routine for now, though, to avoid routine overload.
âI feed bad, I will buy a [chocolate wafer] for myself.â A yogurt. Crepes.
PHONE BACKGROUND:
The phone background is vaguely working. I keep being anxious about things (like being stuck with a job that doesnât pay enough) and then remembering âthis is a Year of Self Care, not a Year of Finding a Better Jobâ. It calms me down.
GRATITUDE JOURNAL:
I donât think a gratitude journal is working, but also Iâm not doing it consistently. I very rarely feel an unambiguous feeling of âbeing gratefulâ. Maybe eventually Iâll start feeling it more.
MEDS:
Hoping that ADHD & anxiety meds would have a big impact on my mood / quality of life? The next appointment is tomorrow, weâll see what comes out of it.
NO STIMULANTS:
I started the âno stimulants for a monthâ experiment, so far it turns out that without caffeine Iâm sleepier and my bones ache. Also it happened twice that I played Civ 6 till 5-7am. Not sure if decreased willpower (?) is a symptom of giving up caffeine, or unrelated. I also feel vaguely⌠calm and empty-headed, but in a sad way. Idk. Anyway, Iâm sleepy right now so maybe I actually generally donât feel like that.
NO DRINKING:
Nowadays even small amounts of alcohol give me a headache, so I donât drink anymore. Nice.
SELF-CARE:
I occasionally spot âoh, my mood is going downâ and then do something nice for myself, like buying a snack or making tea. I also justify more things via self-care, like âI wonât be working at home, because I will be irritated⌠because self-care.â
GRATITUDE JOURNAL:
doing it very occasionally. Still not noticing any particular changes.
MEDS:
got Strattera, I think it has improved my internal state. Judging by the mood log (although itâs too early to tell), looks I donât feel bad as often as before.
NO STIMULANTS:
I feel ok without caffeine. Zero idea if it improved my sleep, b/c now Strattera made it worse again. I donât feel a need for caffeine now but I am looking forward to drinking coffee again. Not thinking about vaping at all is kinda neat though.
NO DRINKING:
still nice. Removed âtiny barsâ from my Tinder profile.
SELF-CARE:
occasionally doing things âbecause self-careâ, but maybe not really. However, Iâm bad at noticing changes in myself anyway.
I think the big things I can do for myself are âsleep betterâ, âget anxiety medsâ, and âtake things less seriously in general in lifeâ. The last one is going to be long-term.
GRATITUDE JOURNAL:
I only do it when Iâm writing these updates. No motivation.
MEDS:
I think Strattera is making life somewhat easier. Tasks get done with less resistance. I still want anti-anxiety meds though. Or anti-depressants. I donât know. Seems like perhaps often my mood is ok simply because Iâm pushing the upsetting things out of my mindâŚ?
NO STIMULANTS:
I still feel ok without caffeine/vaping. Perhaps after the month is over, I can have a thing like âcoffee only in social situationsâ. But Iâm not sure how much it contributes to a sense of a calmer life.
NO DRINKING:
yeah, still glad about it. This is not a âmaking life happierâ kind of thing, but definitely an âavoiding adverse effectsâ kind of thing.
BETTER SLEEP:
after the clock went back, I got an extra hour before work. So I get up at 7am now, a bit before the alarm, and have time for breakfast and Overwatch and not having to hurry. Going to sleep at 10.30â11am might be doable. At least itâs doable right now, but a friend is visiting so maybe thatâs why.
SOCIAL LIFE:
went hanging out with someone from Tinder and it was fun. Iâm worried that I will give up on Tinder / visiting couchsurfers / etc because organizing anything social feels hard. Idk.
SELF-CARE:
still occasionally doing things âbecause self-careâ. Bought sweets because I was feeling meh. Went home from work because I forgot a pain-relieving spray â this is a concrete example of the concept of âself-careâ changing the actual behavior; I wouldnât have returned otherwise.
minor things:
are there books that blame us for having ADD? how horrible
I had a conversation about gratitude the other day. The conclusion was that it is really hard to feel gratitude for the status quo because as humans we just naturally get adapted to things.
For example, you might realize that you should be grateful for being healthy, but until you lay in bed with fever for a couple of days it doesnât sink in on an emotional level. Or I remember having a knot at a particular part of my body that shall not be further specified, and waiting for the test results over the weekend was one of the most stressful experiences ever. I felt genuine gratitude when the results came back negative the following Monday.
To fight the adaption to the status quo, we can purposefully bring ourselves into uncomfortable situations. Some ideas that may be more or less challenging depending on the type of person you are:
I donât know if any of that is helpful, but maybe the message is that you donât have to feel bad that gratitude journaling doesnât do anything for you. I feel like it never worked for me either, and it makes sense from an evolutionary perspective that it doesnât.
I meant âas opposed to the prevailing consensus that [adhd behaviors] are bad for you and for people around youâ. Like, I donât encounter an explicitly sympathetic POV anywhere except adhd books.
Nah, I donât feel bad. I didnât have any expectations from it anyway.
I still suspect, though, that it might be one of those things that donât seem to have any effect at first but eventually âtake offâ.
Yeah, thereâs some research showing that in some situations, like if you try to force it, or do it every day, gratitude journals can backfire!
I cannot imagine a more toxic and harmful attitude than âyou should be grateful!â Barf! No thanks.
With those kind of thought processes, a person is guaranteed to be miserable and never feel grateful!
But itâs not hard to tune into appreciation of what you have, if you purge yourself of the toxic viewpoint that gratitude is like eating your veggies!
can you explain? what kinds of negative views or messages do you get elsewhere?
Iâd rather not (at least right now). I donât think itâs a bad line of inquiry, Iâm just not feeling like going there.
Fair enough. I have a lot of self-judgment for it that I donât even realize so it really helps to see your comment - Iâm trying to be more aware of this.
I will clarify a bit about ADHD and âexplicit understandingâ vs ânot blamingâ.
In normal life, I encounter several reactions to ADHD related issues:
Screw-ups are silently ignored. This is the biggest category. People generally donât tell me âhey, youâre bad for not replying to my emailsâ or âwhat took you so long with [this task]â to my face.
Screw-ups are pointed out kindly, like âdonât you see this is bad for you?â. Eg. I had someone tell me that constantly keeping messengers open & getting distracted might prevent me from being productive or achieving my goals. But I felt like the underlying current was âyou should try to stopâ.
Screw-ups are pointed out neutrally, like âthis is what the consequences are going to beâ. This doesnât even have to be directed at me. In fact, it might even be generated by me. I know that I hold as truth things like âquick replies are much much better than slow repliesâ, or âthe consequences of replying slowly is that people would talk to you lessâ, etc. I donât know where those thoughts came from. I said âprevailing consensusâ in my previous post, but honestly I donât know if itâs a consensus, or just something I came up with and saw vaguely confirmed somehow/somewhere/by someone.
Screw-ups are actually treated as personal failures. âYou forgot about X, Iâm disappointed/angry/etcâ. Iâm lucky to not have to deal with this often, I think.
Now, in contrast, here is a quote from âDriven to Distractionâ (a book about ADHD):
In some ways [ADD without hyperactivity] is a charming symptom. The mind meanders like a brook, winding through the contours of the land, bending here, falling there, quietly making its way, in its own time, to some larger river of thought.
But in other ways it is anything but charming. It can be downright disabling not to be able to rely on your own mind to remember things, to prompt you to get to places on time, to keep you involved in a conversation when you want to be, or focused on a page you really do want to read, or concentrated on a project you need to complete.
Like⌠it doesnât persuade me to try harder either for my sake or othersâ sake; doesnât want anything from me. It just makes me seen. âYour brain is missing a basic ability that othersâ brains haveâ. Stated like this, explicit kindness or forgiveness is just unnecessary. I donât feel the need to be forgiven any more than (stealing an example from the book again) a nearsighted person needs to be forgiven for needing glasses.
No idea if I explained it clearly, but Iâve been writing this for half an hour already so Iâll stop for now.
GRATITUDE JOURNAL:
I keep finding more things to be grateful about. Itâs pretty neat. I still think it might have long-term effect, so Iâm not going to officially give up.
MEDS:
Iâve become calmer with Strattera, more self-accepting, less high-strung. I think. Also neat. I donât know why Iâve been at 18mg for the last month when people usually start with 40mg and quickly get to 80mg, but unfortunately there are still no appointment slots so I canât discuss this with my psychiatrist. Ok. Later.
NO STIMULANTS:
Decided to just not smoke or vape at all. Itâs going to be fine. Also, drank some coffee today after a month without caffeine, and almost instantly felt anxious. I will keep this in mind.
BETTER SLEEP:
Met someone and now sleep will be worse for a while. Itâs alright / worth it. It does go against the goal of self-care, but ok.
NOT BEING HUNGRY:
It already happened a few times that I explicitly bought food / made food / etc âso that I wouldnât be hungryâ. I usually donât think about the future, so itâs a welcome change and I look forward to⌠explicitly managing my mood?.. more often. A few months ago I made a memo that âI have no idea what to do when I feel bad or how to stop myself from feeling badâ, but it looks like now I have at least one actionable idea, so thatâs good.
minor things:
The caffeine experiment is over. According to the mood journal, my mood didnât change when I went from 400-600mg/day to zero. But at the same time I still know that itâs very easy for me to not notice basically anything about myself; regardless of whether I feel good or bad, I perceive it as âyeah, this is fineâ. I donât feel happier without caffeine, but I think I feel calmer, and I want to feel calmer even if it doesnât translate into happiness.
I definitely feel better when I have rich interactions with people, though. Working together / collaborating on something, playing board games, watching a movie and often pausing to discuss, walking, traveling, running somewhere, cuddling, anything. For now I wonât think about how to actually accomplish this, but Iâll just leave it as a note.
Iâd like to not fall into spirals when I watch YouTube for many hours several days in a row. Idk how not to do that.
GRATITUDE JOURNAL:
When you constantly fail to reach a goal, you need a different goal. I donât want to do a gratitude journal every day, but once a week â I already more or less end up doing that when writing these updates. So Iâve just set a weekly reminder.
MEDS:
Iâm constantly sleepy. I donât know if Strattera is to blame. Iâll have another appointment soon and will see if I can get the dose increased / if I can get anti-anxiety meds.
ANXIETY:
I think I have a slightly better attitude towards anxiety now. âI have anxietyâ has been helpful. âAnxiety is just a thing that happens to meâ is new, and might also turn out to be helpful.
NO STIMULANTS:
Still not smoking, still not vaping; I already noticed that coffee causes anxiety, but it was much more effective to notice that coffee also acts as a laxative. So, mostly drinking decaf now.
BETTER SLEEP:
Sleep is still bad for the same reason as before. Also, I know that naps are bad for me, but I still take naps when Iâm sleepy during the day. Itâs cold in Warsaw now and I donât have âgo outâ as a particularly convenient alternative to napping anymore. Thereâs not much to do outside, either. One thing Iâm glad about is that I now believe that being sleepy at 11pm is normal, and that going to bed in the evening is entirely possible for me â while previously I thought that I would never be content with going to sleep earlier than 1am.
minor things:
Itâs nice that Anki makes me have at least one chore that I can do on my phone and that doesnât feel destructive like YouTube / news.
Itâs getting easier for me to prioritize self-care in favor of work. âIâll wash my hair now because Iâm annoyed, even though itâs working hoursâ.
Looking back â I think Iâve gotten better at self-care in the past months.
I remember how drinking/smoking/caffeine affects me, and itâs much easier to not go in circles thinking âI feel bad, should I smoke or notâ.
Going to sleep early, and waking up, have become easier. Things like âI feel bad so Iâll go and eat somethingâ have become easier as well. I no longer reliably run out of money. Iâve stopped blaming myself as often for ignoring scary tasks. I think Iâve started taking things less seriously in general.
Telling people no (eg. couchsurfers), or running away from people when Iâm feeling bad, became easier too. Iâve accepted that my mood can change for no reason, and itâs nice.
I skipped the previous weekly update because I skipped everything that week. Donât remember why exactly anymore. This week Iâm slowly getting my routines back.
I think getting a therapist would be good for me, because there are changes in [things I care about, etc] that happened kinda by themselves over the years, and itâs possible a therapist can help me get [other good changes] faster. For example â I would be less anxious if I didnât feel like I canât solve anything all the time. Anxiety might be less built-in than ADHD, for me.
Did a tiny portion of a CBT anxiety workbook.
Didnât go to a christmas party at work, because I had a fever.
Got a haircut and coloring! (and paid way too much but I like it).
Got more magnesium.
Bought an Instax Mini to take physical photos of chats that give me anxiety (so that thereâs a reward for replying). Another example of âspending money to help myselfâ.
Idk what to say. I think Iâve gotten better at tracking when I could use some self-care, and then actually doing it.
The next step is probably treating my limitations / mood swings / etc more kindly â like I would want myself to treat other people, or like I would want other people to treat each other. For example, âitâs tough to enjoy life when you have no energy in winter and feel sleepy right after workingâ, instead of âgoing to sleep is the wrong thing to do and you/I shouldnât do it or else life will be badâ.
