How Do You Do?

Doing: it's what I'm not and haven't been for a long while. I used to, a lot, and I need to again. I've just got to get over this speed bump that looms like a twenty-foot granite wall. I just need a way over. Or around.

I have a sign saying "Action" on my bathroom mirror, per the instructions of my good friend Bob. Most mornings I am now getting at least pretend-dressed (yoga pants and a sweater) before I come downstairs. And some days I even put on regular shoes to help put me in the mindset of activity, per another good friend.

I'm still mostly inert.

I did go for a walk around the neighborhood with the housemates today. It took Griffin to push us into it. I used to be able to push myself. Hell, oftentimes a walk would simply sing its siren song and I'd feel compelled to follow, to walk along the verge or the walking path to a park or a school or simply around the neighborhood. When did I become so solidly still? How did I turn to stone?

I think it mostly started with a devastating depression in my mid-30s that just about cut me off at the knees. With help, I clambered out of that hole and began working my way up to full functioning. Then, in 2000, I was hit with a bad case of vertigo of unknown origin (also known as "idiopathic") that allowed me to work only 20 hours a week or so. (Insurance did not accept anything my rack of doctors said and declared me "not disabled" — stupid things.) While I did that work, I also attended a program in scientific illustration. That's all I was able to do (including my homework); the rest of the time I was stuck on the couch, exhausted from feeling like I was always in motion.

Again, I eventually got over the vertigo (after about 18 months). I had moved to the beach by the time it passed and I started walking on the beach most days. I found work and walked around the estuary at our work campus most days. I still walked on the beach. When I moved to Houston, I walked in the park. When I was on the road, I walked whenever I could.

Baby Steps, 1

Per a suggestion by Susanne, a regular reader and commenter on my blog, I am posting what steps I made on a daily basis for a little bit, to be interspersed with blogs of a heftier sort if and when necessary.

As I am also trying to think less and do more, I am going to try to focus on the action and the functional rather than the what and why. Sometimes I feel like a self-centered brat, always moaning and going on about my problems. But when I presented this perspective a some friends last night, one of them has already responded with a totally different perspective of me as one who is brave and committed to healing and willing to face and talk about my crap and stuff. She doesn't see me the same why I've been seeing me, not even close. That actually makes me feel better.

So, without further ado, I present yesterday's baby steps.

1. Took a short walk with Sabine. It was around the center circle of the neighborhood, so it wasn't that long but the way back required climbing a pretty good hill for about half the walk. It took 10+ minutes and we were both out of breath (oh so horribly out of shape!).
2. Assembled steel-cut oats for slow-cooking to be eaten this morning. (Unfortunately, Griffin didn't turn it on last night and I'm not sure how quickly they will cook on high this morning.)
3. Turned off computer by 9. Didn't start surfing or Pinterest in iPad. Used it for music and found that my good earbuds fit, which made me ecstatic. My good earbuds are Ultimate Ears, which I got 6 years ago, when I bought my MacBook and my iRiver Clix2 mp3 player. Both player and earbuds were most highly rated for sound quality and usability and they rock. Plugging my earbuds into the iPad after having downloaded all my music to it, then listening to the music and hear the full range of sounds, from subtle based to solid midtones and crystal clear high notes just blissed me out as I listened to the end of a playlist before bed.
4. Took a melatonin supplement and got into bed by midnight. Might have made the sleep window but reflux/acidic stomach interfered and I eventually took the 2nd pill. I'm feeling groggy this morning (but then, sleep was still broken and I got 5 1/2 hours of sleep total, but the potential is there). So I tried and will continue trying on that front.

So that's the scoop for yesterday. Tonight I am scheduled to attend a professional meeting (networking, dinner, presentation, more networking). I will NOT allow myself to skip out on it just because I "don't feel like it." Not this time. I am sick of being unemployed (or underemployed) and living in my friends' house in a bedroom. I need my own place. Now. And I need to get out on my own more.

I'm glad I accomplished what I did. I'm disappointed in that it was little. I got very little sleep the night before and didn't get ready very early. More like in the afternoon. Then there was little time to do things. Today I was up a little earlier but as mentioned before am quite groggy (on melatonin but insufficient sleep perhaps?) and my breakfast isn't ready so I'm a bit cranky. While I'm trying to avoid naps in order to be more ready to sleep, today I may make an exception just so I'll be bright-eyed and bush-tailed for the meeting tonight.

That's the news so far today. Thanks, Susanne. This is a great way to keep track and take note.

That's it for

Victim Thinking

One of my more persistent issues is that of victim thinking. When  that is the way I am thinking, I feel powerless and hopeless. For example, when I feel tired, I generally don't do anything, feeling "too tired to do anything" and like my only option is to give up and do nothing. Or when I am approaching a problem or a project in a certain way and it's not working for me, I feel like I have no other options. Victim thinking makes me feel like I have no choices.

My therapist can basically tell when I'm caught in victim thinking just by my body posture and my voice. (Yeah, not going to take up professional poker any time soon.) Then we talk about how there are other ways to approach a situation differently, that I do have choices and options other than what I feel stuck with. That's powerful, active thinking. It's definitely the kind of thinking that uses the cognitive therapy techniques I've been working on.

The problem is that I've engaged in victim thinking for such a long time that it tends to be my default way of thinking and I still too-easily forget my cognitive techniques. One reason why I still need a therapist: to help me remember to use these techniques and to detect when I am engaged in victim thinking.

I've been caught up in victim thinking for a while since I've been in Seattle. I've grown more and more tired and sleepy since arriving here, so I sleep and don't accomplish the things on my to-do list. I haven't started looking for work and I've been here for a month and a half! I've been feeling unwell off and on and my fibromyalgia has flared up. So I've been thinking things like "I'm too tired to start an online job search right now; I'll take a nap first" and "I don't feel well enough to take a walk" and "My body hurts; I'll unpack later." So I haven't unpacked or started job searches or taken many walks. Then I feel stuck and tired and overwhelmed and ashamed, which thoughts just tend to spiral in on themselves.

I do have moments of powerful thinking. I wrote about them in my last post. I know what to do, what I need to do, what I want to do. But I let my old pattern of victim thinking and non-activity rule me, thus I don't do these things. This is not how to create the life I want. This is not how to be happy and contented.

I need to continually remind myself to check in on my thinking and self-talk. To do this, I need to have an easy way to remind myself. Wearing a rubber band on my wrist has worked in the past; I don't even need to snap it to encourage behavior/thinking modification. Just wearing it works. But I'm not sure where the ones I had back in Houston are right now. Of course, if I unpacked a few things, I might find them. Or I could ask my housemates if they have any large, wide rubber bands (I like them to be a little bit loose). *grin*

Slow Maelstrom

That silence you've heard for the past week and a half was me resting, sleeping, and surfing on the interwebz. You might have heard some snoring, too, from the sleeping. My mind has kind of been like that empty, static-filled screen you see in the middle of the night on some TV channels.

So I'm here, in the Seattle area, and it's kind of weird. I still feel like I'm visiting, even though I oversaw the movers when they put all my stuff in a storage unit. Part of that is because I'm staying in someone's guest room, I'm sure, and some of it is because those times when I have been here over the last dozen years I have been visiting. I need to change my mental framework.

I'm very glad I'm here. I'm also kind of weirded out by it. Many thoughts and feelings have been swirling around inside of me: happiness, exhaustion, stress, anxiety, surrealism, expectations, trying to not have expectations, positivity, fear, and today I'm having some fibromyalgia pain, which I think is partly a delayed reaction from all the stress I was experiencing just getting ready to move. Everything has been swirling slowly, probably due to the exhaustion, for which I am grateful. I couldn't handle vertigo too right now!

The weather has been quite a bit cooler than I am used to. Colder, really — in the 50s during the day. We had a lot of rain and gray days my first week, but we've been having some simply glorious days recently, with brilliant blue skies, puffy white clouds, spring greens, flowers and flowering trees in all colors. These are the days that almost make you forget about the rain and the gray.

I remember when I first moved to Houston: one of the habits I had to wean myself off from was always taking or wearing a jacket or at least an overshirt with me when I left the apartment. Well, I changed that habit and got very comfortable going outside in just a tank, shorts, and sandals. Now I'm in the position of having to reverse the process! I'm underestimating how much I need to wear to be warm enough, usually by a thin layer (think an undershirt or camisole). And I don't always bring a rain jacket when it looks like rain (which is often). I need more weather-appropriate shoes and probably another jacket or vest or two. My BFF says I can borrow his sweaters until I can buy more of my own, which is nice. I really need an income so I can buy these weather-appropriate clothing items. I'm just hoping that I can make enough of my Houston wardrobe work here in Seattle enough of the time so I don't have to buy an entirely new wardrobe, which is more or less what I did in Houston.

Paying Attention

So I wrote in my last post about how I was doing a set of exercises Every Day, even when I didn't feel like it. And basically, that is true. Until today.

Today wasn't the same as the "I don't feel like it" mornings. I woke up achey and sore and very, very fatigued. I argued with myself about whether or not it was the fibromyalgia and should I give myself a break or not. I finally decided it was probably the fibro and gave myself the day off from everything. 

I rested. I read. I napped, which I have not been doing every day anymore. And I don't hurt now except for a small headache (possibly from reading a long novel on my iPhone). I don't feel fatigued. I feel better. So I can look forward to the exercises tomorrow. Already some places on my body are more toned and stronger. Of course, to get rid of my belly, I'm going to have to eat better and get some more cardio, both of which are things I'm going to be doing in the near future.

I don't look at today's exercise break as a fail. I look at it as just what my body told me it needed. I can't forget that I have physical limitations, even mild ones, or I will think I'm failing every time I take care of those physical needs. Listening to my body is a behavior that is just as essential to my well-being as listening to my self-talk is, so I look at doing so, and not beating myself up about it, as a win.

Paying attention to myself and my needs is what I'm going to therapy and reading books to learn. It seems to be working.  :)

Hope for Happy

I have struggled with depression and anxiety off and on for most of my life and have spent some very long periods sunk into the Abyss of Darkness that comes from being extremely depressed or anxious. But I have always continued to take my meds or see my therapist. I have always tried whatever I could to get out of the Abyss and to a better place. Why would I even try if I just kept falling back in? Because, except for a few extremely dark times in my life, I have always had hope that one day I would be happy and wouldn't even have an Abyss to fall into.

By happy, I don't mean always cheerful and everything's fine and nothing's wrong. Life is up and down: my life proves that in so many ways. I mean happy in an overall, general sense, knowing that I will be alright and that everything will work out and the bad times will pass again as they always do. Knowing that in my gut and my heart, not just my head. Right now, the only thing I know that well is that the good times pass; I need to know that the bad times pass, too.

I have moments where I know that, because change happens and all things change, both good times and bad times come and go and that I can find a kind of serenity that will allow me to ride them both out with equanimity, not holding onto the good times to make them last longer or trying to avoid the bad ones altogether. I've even had a few moments in my life where I felt that kind of serenity, briefly, but definitely.

There are things that will help me get there again and for longer and longer times. One of them, which I rarely practice, is meditation. Meditation truly does bring about a change in how I feel. The other things are continuing to do my work with my therapy and to practice being happy and serene.

Bad Habit: Sleeping the Day Away

Bad habits are like kudzu or English ivy: easy to start and extremely difficult to get rid of. When having a flare up of the depression or anxiety, bad habits multiply for me like fruit flies on rotten fruit.

One of my current bad habits is that of taking a nap to circumvent part of the day. Sometimes I just see hours stretched out before me and nothing I feel I want to do with them and they look difficult to endure, so I take one of my hours-long naps and wallah! Afternoon is gone. (And I've allowed my emotions ("I don't feel like it") to manage me rather than the other way around.)

Also gone are the opportunities to work on my novel, to clean something, to draw, to read, to look for a good basic starter yoga routine, to exercise, and to do any number of other useful things, or things I enjoy doing or want to do.

While I am making progress and I am learning to manage my emotions, or at least learning to learn how to do so, I am still in difficult territory, surrounded by alligators and fish with sharp teeth and gigantic mosquitoes and roaches (I'm being metaphorical here, although it looks literal, given that I'm in Houston). I still have habits to beat into submission and mental routines to reroute. I can't just give in to bad habits, especially the one that makes me unconscious for 3 or 4 hours at a time.

In cognitive-behavioral therapy, we substitute rational language and thinking for that which is broken. For example, irrational and broken thinking and self-talk might be "I shouldn't be unemployed. I hate it! It's horrible! What am I going to do?" And then it just ramps up from there. Rational substitutions could be "I don't like be unemployed. I want to work. It's uncomfortable and I feel afraid. I'm going to go look for work now."

Absolutely Exhausted

'Absolutely Exhausted' is a phrase used by my mother since I can remember. Of course, I picked up this phrase from hearing it all my life. Most of the time, it's simply an example of hyperbole or poetic license, but there are occasions when it was ... or is ... a completely concrete description of my condition.

For example, there was the time I went to Knott's Berry Farm with my youth group when I was 15. My best friend, two boys we barely knew, and I spent the day and evening wandering around the theme park, riding on roller coasters and eating whenever we felt tired. The next day, not only could I barely move, I couldn't stand. I was absolutely exhausted. And my feet hurt.

When I was in my mid-20s, my doctor informally diagnosed me with fibromyalgia. At the time, few doctors had even heard of the condition, much less gave it legitimacy. But fibro (as my friends and I call it) gives concreteness to 'absolute exhaustion.' In fact, when the fibro is flaring up it makes me feel a lot like a block of concrete. Tired concrete.

Know what else causes 'absolute exhaustion'? Depression. Grief.  Eating poorly (too many simple carbs). Too little exercise. Poor sleep: too little, too much, not staying asleep, and so on. Basically, I have an absolute exhaustion trifecta, or quadrafecta, or whatever. And I am absolutely exhausted. And I have a plane to catch.

Okay, so I don't have to catch the plane for another 59 hours (is that all?!), but considering that I am almost welded to the couch I'm so tired and immobile, 59 hours — including time for sleeping eating commuting working errands laundry dishes packing reading email and picking up my new iPhone on Thursday — isn't much more than a blink. A slow blink. And slow is all I can do right now.

Fibro and fatigue have been teaching me about essentials over the years, and I am getting better at pushing aside the little errands and activities and things that are nonessential for travel (I almost don't overpack anymore!). But I still have a helluva lot of essentials to handle before Thursday night. And I am Exhausted — Absolutely.

How about you? Is 'absolute exhaustion' a poetic notion or a concrete adjective in your life? Do you have any family sayings that are truer now than they once were?

NaNoWriMo, Day 2: Even Worse!

Unfortunately, today was a very long day. I was busy with one of my jobs most of the day, then led a meeting for that one. I didn't get to my other job at all and as of 9 pm I haven't written for NaNo. Not sure yet if I will. Because after a very long meeting, I drove down the road a ways and discovered I had a completely flat tire. And I wasn't in a very good neighborhood. Thank heavens for cell phones!

Luckily, I have roadside service with my insurance coverage. So after about 45 minutes parked at a gas station, a nice man came and changed my tire. Ah!

But now I'm exhausted and my eyes are all squinty (I was on the computer all day, in a much more intense way than when I'm on it just messing around). I'm tired. I'm wired. I'm not sure if I can manage to write creatively.

But if I can, I'll report it tomorrow.

TTFN!

Word count for the day: 0.

All Whacked Out

Not in the right place. My bad. Let's just say I had an annoying day full of too much caffeine and too little sleep. I fell asleep over my laptop and woke with a mind and body that just didn't want to function or work together.