Well, shit. That’s not good.
Between getting to bed late and being called for a work issue overnight, I’m running on less than four hours of shut-eye.
Let’s do this.
A Rude Awakening
Category Archives: health & fitness
A narrative of my journeys with diet, exercise, and various healthcare professionals
You Reap What You Sow
I just sat down to write a blog post, opened up WordPress, and found this stub of a post that I started back at the end of May:
“If you want different kinds of results, you need to plant different kinds of seeds.”
This is relevant in so many ways, both literally and figuratively.
I’ll just run with this one.
If I were writing this with paper and pencil instead of typing on my laptop, my eraser would have torn a hole in the paper by now.
I guess I’ll just start with the main fact I’m dancing around: I’ve gained 40 pounds in the past four years.
On one hand, the reasons why I gained the weight don’t really matter at this point. What matters is getting back down to a healthy weight. On the other hand, if I don’t pinpoint what happened, then how do I fix it?
Let me give some background, and peel this onion a bit.
Continue readingProgress Not Perfection
My laptop has been open to a nearly-blank WordPress screen for a good five minutes now, prompting me silently to “Add title.” Meanwhile, I’ve been staring out the window, elementary-school-style, letting my mind wander. Embracing the random associations without the judgmental undercurrent.
My therapist mentioned in our session last week that ADHD brains tend to be “nonlinear” when it comes to organization, and will have several processes or thoughts happening at once. I was reminded of a video* she’d shown me several months ago, where someone had narrated their inner monologue as they were puttering around their kitchen, complete with overlapping reminders and random thoughts and a constant earworm, and I had felt totally seen.
I feel fortunate that my therapist has a background in ADHD, with both her clients and her family. She picks up what I’m putting down and rearranges it from a different perspective. I suppose that’s what therapists do in general, but having someone who understands how my brain is processing — sometimes better than I do — is huge.
I think that’s one reason why I don’t blog or journal as much as I once did: I no longer feel the urgency to get stuff out of my head and into words to essentially psychoanalyze myself. (Or use CBT, or ACT, or whatever.) Instead, my tendency to write and document and plan gets channeled into my weekly planner spreads, where I do my damnedest to script the critical moves in advance.
My mental health is very much a work in progress… but at least I’m progressing.
* I intentionally didn’t to try to find the ADHD Simulator video until I was sure I was done writing, because I knew if I went down that rabbit-hole, this would never get this posted, and would go into my Drafts folder with all the other blog entries I’ve started and never finished. I found this video first, which is by the same woman but wasn’t the exact video I was thinking of. It’s worth including a link, though, because it captures the frustration I feel when I’m trying to backtrack through all the prerequisites of a single task.
A Solo Evening In
On one Friday each month, the karate dojo hosts a Parents’ Night Out. Sometimes it’s a video game night. Sometimes they plan a Pokemon trading party. Sometimes it’s a Ninja Ball tournament. But sometimes — like tonight — it’s a Nerf War, where kids bring their Nerf guns and the dojo supplies a massive amount of standard Nerf bullets.
Connor’s not always interested, especially as he’s now one of the older kids — but he’s always up for a Nerf War.
For the price of our usual “Fun Friday” pizza delivery, Connor gets to hang out at the dojo, shooting his Nerf gun and eating pizza, while I get two and a half hours of “me” time.
As drop-off time approaches, I always daydream about how much I’ll accomplish during those two hours alone. Maybe I’ll do some sewing, or declutter my storage spaces. Maybe I’ll do some weeding, or catch up on all the things I’ve been meaning to blog about. Maybe I’ll do an evening of digital detox — no phone, no laptop, no TV.
That never happens. None of it.
First, what happens is dinner. Sometimes I order out, or sometimes — like tonight — I scare up something simple for myself from the freezer or the pantry. My iPhone keeps me company while I eat, and continues to keep me company for a while after that.
Then the realization dawns on me: two hours is not as much time as it seems, especially at the end of the day, and even more so at the end of the week. If I’d planned a little more carefully, I could have knocked off a few tasks — as it is, though, it might be a better use of my time to sit in the sunroom and enjoy the sounds of spring. Feel the breeze. Watch the sunset. Calm my judgmental inner voice.
Yeah, that sounds good.
By then, the sunset has reached the cotton candy phase of blues and pinks, with a turquoise backdrop. It’s time to put my Mom hat back on and go pick up my Nerf warrior.
Stickers From Screenshots
I made stickers from the screenshots I took from the Finch self-care app. Now my buddy Yeet can adorn my upcycled notebooks, my planner, and my analog life in general, reminding me to Do All The Self-Care Things.
Thanks again to Dani Donovan (creator of The Anti-Planner and ADHD Comics) and her Finch, Taco, for introducing me to the Finch app! Separating my self-care tasks from my other tasks has been instrumental in helping self-care not get lost in the daily shuffle.
