Another thing that goes into self-care is avoiding things that are known to spoil my mood. Like âI wonât go to Poznan in winter because itâll be cold and rainy thereâ.
(Itâs not even as much about avoiding a specific thing that makes me feel bad, and more about âI want refused to go to Poznan because self-careâ, which in itself would make me feel good.)
Another another thing Iâve just realized is that I almost never take an outside view on myself. (As in âinside view vs outside viewâ.)
For example, the inside view tells me that I donât have many friends because I am doing things X Y Z wrong / just something is wrong with me / etc. the outside view tells me that itâs because I keep moving between countries all the time and naturally it makes it harder to have long-lasting relationships.
So another self-care thing could be âtaking the outside view more oftenâ.
Long time no post.
Iâve been sleepy a lot in the past week, and work hasnât been easy.
I like that Iâve noticed that and started adopting a more⌠left-wing approach? Smth like âI have neurodiversity / adhd / whatever, itâs also winter, work is going to be unevenâ. As opposed to âeveryone, including me, has to be competent and professional at all timesâ.
(It also helped that I went to a neurodiversity webinar at work recently.)
Another thing â âI know that itâs harder for me to do anything if I donât make a daily todo list in the notebookâ, so now I remember about it more often and make a daily todo list in the notebook.
Lowering my expectations from life a bit? âMight not have the best life, letâs just try to have an ok one.â
Not going to write here, but smth about parents
Still sleepy.
Still lowering / getting used to lower expectations from life. âJust live for a while and thatâs enoughâ. Might change when itâs summer again; would be nice to switch between different sets of expectations depending on which is better for the situation.
Went to the dentist, got a wisdom tooth removed. Definitely just something that I had to do anyway (it had a cavity), but also definitely self-care.
Still no smoking and (almost) no drinking. It doesnât feel like much, because I donât remember the days of feeling sick after smoking / having headaches after cocktails, but objectively itâs probably one of the biggest things on the list so far â especially if you count long-term as well.
Trying to get back to getting up early, itâs much nicer to start the day at 8am than at 10am or 11am.
Healthier attitude to work. âI will go out in the middle of the workday because I want to see the sun.â
Feeling somewhat burned out with routines and tasks. Stopped studying chess tactics in Anki because I wasnât enjoying them.
Also feeling sick of opening Reddit / news / Discord / YouTube all the time, which got much worse in the last few days. But⌠it will probably get better again later. I just forgot that things can get better on their own.
The tired phase continues.
Reflection: am I being gentle/compassionate towards myself regarding being in a tired phase?
Not exactly. I say that itâs a âphaseâ but I still donât fully believe it or feel like it will âdefinitelyâ end. So I feel disappointed with myself.
However, saying that itâs a phase is still kinder, even if I canât fully believe it.
Reflection: is there anything else I can do?
Started reading another anxiety book and it seems to be working better than whatever I was reading before. It happened somewhat accidentally â I had an anxiety-related tab open and a month later I randomly decided to âhandleâ the tab and downloaded the book.
Also, made a private channel (a while ago) where Iâm blogging about anxiety and my sister is reading it. A very low-effort social / ânot being alone with itâ thing.
More often buying sweets with the explicit goal of âtreat for myself / mood improvementâ.
Reflection/prompt: what else can I do for myself that doesnât require money, energy, or stepping out of the comfort zone?
The anxiety book is working and Iâm happy about it.
Ordered groceries, have low-effort food now (gazpacho!!!).
Was sick yesterday, told work âI wonât be working todayâ even though I have no idea how to get an official sick day [because reasons].
Noticed that smells annoy me a lot. Made a note in my couchsurfing profile that âif youâre a heavy smoker, I wonât be able to host youâ.
Shifting even more towards âfinding a therapist would be goodâ. Googled for a bit now but no obvious candidates yet. Maybe English | Dialog Therapy Centre. Idk.
Going to sleep better now that Iâm hosting a couchsurfer. Eating better, too. Generally feeling better so far.
Recognizing things like âI feel anxious when people tell me thanksâ and âgiven this, itâs normal to not want to tell people thanks because Iâm afraid to also make them anxiousâ â this is good for my self-view. Much better than blaming myself.
Having better attitude towards work would remove a lot of stress. Not being anxious about âIâm not working as professionally as Iâve been hired to workâ. Or âIâm not doing impactful thingsâ. Etc. This all is in the anxiety domain.
Constantly checking my appearance, too. Having tiny flashes of anxiety whenever I talk to anyone.
Removed some todos that I wasnât planning to do anyway and was using the todo app as a way of forcing myself.
Also continuing to explore âhaving anxietyâ. Wrote a coming-out post on Facebook describing my anxiety. Wrote a tiny post in an internal chat room at work as well.
I donât like that I only write here once a week. I donât do that much reflection and instead just feel like âok idk what to write hereâ. When I was doing the insomnia journal daily, it worked better, I think.
I think I did more good things for myself during the vacation. Made a huge pot of tiramisu w/ kids from school, bought a coloring shampoo, read, hung out in a new coffee shop. However, I still havenât done particularly much.
Letâs list some of the struggles.
Sleep deprivation. Figuring out what makes me sleepy and how to stop it. Iâm not doing that. I think in the past five days (work-less) Iâve been sleep deprived more than usual.
Regular meals. Iâm not even trying. I just remember âoh I should find something to eatâ every once in a while. Maybe this once-in-a-while is improving, but I donât have the energy right now to even start tracking it properly, and âmaybe itâs a bit better nowâ doesnât feel good enough.
Life improvements. No plan, just occasional small things. Eg. finding a therapist would be helpful but nah.
On the other hand, some big things (like eventually finding a book about anxiety that seems to be working for me) do come out of a general âincreased focus on self-careâ, which in turn is maintained by things like this thread.
However, I still want to have a better purpose for the thread, just because right now itâs unsatisfying.
I suppose we can split three more-well-defined groups out of âself-careâ, and do updates on those groups.
I wonât be doing anything about it right now because Iâm sleepy.
I set up one sec for distracting sites today and hopefully Iâll be spending less time on distracting sites, which in turn will give me more sleep hours.
Nothing in particular is going on, just learning to tolerate the feeling of anxiety.
I still feel anxious a lot â sort of a persistent state in background â but I started doing two things:
I started marking meals in the daily notebook and it makes it easier to figure out that âoh I havenât had three meals yet Iâll go eat somethingâ. Eg. right now Iâm en route to a burger place.
Sleep is probably getting better thanks to app-blocking. Iâm not watching YouTube or solving nonograms at night anymore rn.
No change in anxiety, I think. I am feeling less stressed about work because everythingâs gone to shit (layoffs, etc). Which makes me stop caring.
First time ever I was given march 8 flowers and surprisingly I was happier about them than I thought I would!
Coworking at work is good. Iâve been working for ~10mo already and I finally feel like work is becoming more social
I mentioned that eating more often might be getting fixed thanks to the dailies. Hereâs an example, though in Russian. Stars = self-care, red numbers in square brackets = meals.
Thank god for having sections.
I think Iâve been eating at least three times a day for the last week.
This is good, but it turns out it doesnât exactly fix malnourishment, because some meals are either too small or spaced too far apart.
Especially when I donât have work / am not in office.
Ok. This remains unresolved, although maybe slightly improved.
Todo: buy ikea meatballs? I like meatballs.
The 8am alarm is back, which I suppose is good. Some YouTube-in-bed is also back, but not much. Sadly I donât remember what my sleep was like beyond the last two days, and in the last two days it was meh.
As we can see, I donât have the energy right now to actually write anything constructive here. Just want to write anything.
âTolerating anxietyâ could also be applied to âtolerating insomniaâ.
No change.
I assumed there were no anxiety medications apart from benzos, but then I read up on Zoloft and people on Reddit report very good effects. Wikipedia says Zoloft has higher effect sizes than exposure therapy, but regresses when you stop taking it (unlike exposure therapy). At any rate, my psychiatrist isnât helping me find therapy so itâs not like itâs a choice between Zoloft and therapy. I want a different psychiatrist.
Took a day off (it was yesterday). I donât feel like itâs a vacation, more like a long weekend. I suppose I should take three days off again. Yes, it eats into my day off budget, but this is a year of self-care and not a year of âgo travel somewhere which you donât have the money to do anywayâ
Perhaps âADHD flare-upsâ are a thing. Not âroutines broke and sleep broke etcâ, but just a flare-up that I can try to mitigate to the extent that itâs mitigable at all (which might not be much).
Still mostly ok but some days Iâm hungry
Came up with the idea of exposure therapy for sleep (because going to sleep is uncomfortable), tried it today, fell asleep.
A friend came to visit and Iâve been asking more questions to her on purpose
Idk Monday will be a documentation day I hope it will be good for me
So mostly Iâm eating three times a day, but sometimes not (if I donât have energy or smth happens to the routines). Ok.
Sleep is better.
I noticed that a lot of things I previously categorized as âblood boilingâ were also anxiety, so now itâs easier to tolerate them as well. Ok.
Took another mini-vacation.
Idk. No specific attempts to improve the situation for now
Havenât had insomnia recently.
Hugging the BlĂĽhaj is nice.
More awareness now of âeh fuck it I want to sleep and sleep feels good so thatâs what Iâll do, whateverâ.
I came up with the idea of creating tiny group chats (for me + the other person) with subtopics, and this made writing to people much easier. Because in my mind group chats arenât scary.
Also generally idk Iâm happy with my progress re/ anxiety for now
Switching to coffee instead of caffeine tabs has been good for me
Going to events with people has been good for me
Smoked with a friend recently but then asked her not to let me smoke w/ her in the future (because I donât want to be smoking)
Switching to âkeeping a task backlog + doing tasks in orderâ lets me get things done that I wouldnât have done otherwise and wouldâve kept feeling bad about. Thatâs nice
Writing in the gratitude journal sometimes
Have colorful pens and stickers at work
Got a perfume and it is nice to have also
Started cooking at home more due to running out of money temporarily. Itâs good because it made me try things I didnât cook before.
Resumed recording how many times I eat per day. Itâs still âthree, but barelyâ; however, when I donât record, I think itâs less than three. So thatâs also good.
More aware of âoh, I should have some proteinâ.
Overall idk still vaguely malnourished Iâd say
Sleep has gotten worse with Ritalin.
I think I recognize anxiety better. I also started purposefully avoiding things that cause anxiety/spirals, like âgoing to the movies aloneâ. Better at abandoning social events that make me feel not-so-good. Better at telling people âsorry, I changed my mind, Iâll go homeâ.
