It's My Birthday....Again.

I kind of don't like my birthday. I can't remember a time when I found my birthday to be very exciting. Maybe because I don't like to celebrate myself. Or don't feel worthy of being celebrated. But I am actually excited for my next birthday.  In 365 days I will be the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. That's just fun. 

This time last year, I was on a camping/hiking trip with my favorite adventure friend. It was a good time. I even wrote some blog posts about it, but didn't publish them because I was going to add pictures first and then I forgot. This time last year I was in the best health I've been in most of my life. My physical, mental, emotional, spiritual health were all working together. 

Then I had to stop going to the gym because I had an injury that was probably related to my birthday trip. My trainer stopped working at that gym and I couldn't afford to continue paying her anyway. And from there everything sort of slowly declined. My old friend Insomnia re-entered. Then when I finally got to a point where I felt like I was barely functioning at the bare minimum, I had this wonderful thought, "maybe this isn't some kind of personal moral failure, maybe I should visit a doctor."

And it turns out, that there are things going on in my body that need medical attention. So I've been working with my health care team and I'm getting more sleep now. I also visited a neuropsychologist for testing and I've been officially diagnosed with generalized anxiety. It's interesting because I'm usually labeled with depression, and because my anxiety doesn't look like the anxiety in the people around me. I don't know how to describe it or even recognize it in myself. 

The full report is very harsh. Or it feels that way. Maybe just because he wrote down in black and white some things that I know to be true but, until I read them, I didn't realize how deeply I'd hidden those things from myself. His recommendation was to continue working with my therapist and my Celebrate Recovery program to "deep dive" into my past traumas.

In the last year I've completed my third CR Step Study using a set of guides called The Journey Begins. This year I'm embarking on another Step Study, this time using The Journey Continues. Along with attending CR large and small group times each week for almost 5 years now (sometimes more consistently than other times), I've seen healing in my mental and emotional health in amazing ways I didn't know were possible. After reading the neuropsychologist's report, I realized that it's just a snapshot of my mental and emotional health, an accurate description of my woundedness. It isn't a permanent condition.

The first step of the recovery process involves facing the things I've been denying. So now I have a head start on what I need to face. A nice little report in black and white and very clinical. I'm grateful for that.

And I have hope. I believe that the struggles I've had in the last several months serve a purpose that will lead me into the next chapter of my healing journey. This chapter has been unexpectedly difficult with few rewards. And it feels like it's almost over. Last week I actually started having sparks of motivation to do things. No things in particular, just a sense that I would like to do them.

I'm not excited about my birthday. But I am excited to find out what another year of healing will look like. The last year of not being the Answer. Happy Birthday to me.

10 Year Challenge

I can't do the 10 year challenge because there really aren't very many pictures of me. But one thing I do have pictures of is yarn.

So ten years ago I had this idea that I would make a Tetris blanket for Tim for his birthday in November. And then after I had already begun the project, my friend challenged me to include more details than I had originally intended. And my 280 square project turned into an 896 square project. It may have been ok if I hadn't chosen the yarn and hook and size of the squares based on the first idea. Or if I'd been willing to fully redo all the work I'd already completed. It took 16 months. I had to take the screen out of a second floor window to get a picture of the whole thing. It's so obnoxious.

Ten years later, do I still have a weakness for accepting challenges that I should not accept? 

<insert a completely innocent face>

Resolution?

At the end of 2018, I guess I was feeling a little overwhelmed by the number of WIPs (work-in-progress) I had. So I took a picture, which didn't even include all of them. Between then and now I've tracked 32 projects that for various reasons weren't finished within the time frame I meant to finish them. It turns out 14 of them were started in 2018. I guess I was very ambitious that year. I also had two WIPs that were started pre-2018.

In the last three years, I've finished some of those WIPs along with who knows how many other projects that I started and finished in a more timely manner. And I've added more projects to the outstanding-WIP list.

I began 2022 with 19 WIPs. I still have the two pre-2018 projects, 7 of the ones I began in 2018, 2 from 2019, 2 from 2020 and 6 projects that I started in 2021 and didn't finish.

Of course, I did manage to finish one of them already. It was a Christmas present for one of my kids that was late, so I was motivated to get it done.

So I'm down to 18 past projects. Yesterday, someone asked me how long I've been crocheting and I had to think about it. Then I realized that in December 2022, it will be 20 years since I learned to crochet. That led to thinking about how one should celebrate 20 years of crocheting. I thought about neat things I'd like to make myself. Some of them are already on my WIP list. And then I realized that the biggest gift I could give myself to celebrate this milestone is to finish all these projects.

It seems impossible right now. It feels like that Julie & Julia movie where she decides to make all the recipes in a cookbook in a year. And I have less than a year at this point. At the same time it feels possible. Is that because it's the beginning of a new year and everything feels a little possible right now? Maybe I just have too much optimism. But I'm willing to attempt it.

Let's see how far this can go.

The shortest day

Today started out strong. I was able to get out of bed close to when I wanted to. I was able to do many parts of my morning routine that I haven't been able to do lately. I got out the door within 5 minutes of when I had intended to get out the door.

 I have a tradition of hiking the Konza on the winter solstice. A few weeks ago, before this episode, I had decided that this year I would hike the 6 mile loop. So a couple times recently I've made a point to go out there and hike the middle loop so it wouldn't be so out of the blue to do the long one.

This is the face I made when I read a text from my friend asking if I wanted to hike later in the day. Oops. Sorry friend. Already well into the back loop when I read that.

I had estimated 3 hours for this hike and it took about 2 hours 20 minutes. I wasn't rushing but I also didn't stop to enjoy the scenery as much as I might have if I were hiking with a friend.

It was nice to accomplish a goal. I may have even felt a tiny bit of pride. But the muted kind. 

it's the lighting, the lighting is very fishy

It was a good day.

Struggle Bus

So three entire days in a row I made time to sit down and think about how I was feeling and then write about it. And then followed that with three days I didn't. I've been fighting with myself about whether doing certain tasks makes me feel better or if feeling better leads to doing those tasks. Not even just writing. I have a whole stack of tasks I usually enjoy doing on a daily basis and I haven't been doing them. I kind of hate not doing the things that I associate with wellness regardless of the cause and effect situation.

Day 2. I had a decent hike at Konza that day.

I was late to the gym this morning. And then when I got home, it took so much longer than I wanted it to for me to get out the door again. I hate it.

A part of me wonders if this is my real life and the part where I'm not dissociated is the episode.

Day 3: a restful day, if I'm being nice to me

Ok, I don't really think that my dissociation is my "real" life and the times when I feel more functional are the episodes. That's just the despair. I really think that it's kind of a side effect of how much healing I have enjoyed. See, the better I feel when I'm not dissociated, the worse it is to be dissociated. I used to slip in and out of it with very little awareness. Now I know what it's like to live more connected to myself and the world around me. It's intolerable to be disconnected again.

Day 4: I managed some parts of my usual schedule and also managed to take a nap.

I did make it to the gym today. And I fed my family. We worked together on some care tasks. I managed to find 4 matching shirts in the right sizes. For our Christmas pjs. We have a tradition and I bought the pants a few weeks ago. I hope the shirts are the right colors, I didn't look at the pants before I went to the store. *sigh* This is me trying to stick to the positive side. I got some good things done. They just weren't necessarily the things I wanted to do or the speed in which I wanted to do them.

Day 4

I'm struggling.

this week's gym update

It's really better if I write my weekly gym update on Wednesday before the leg day results are fully in. But that wasn't in the schedule yesterday. So now it's hurt-y whiny day. I didn't really want to talk about the fact I can't sit comfortably, or stand comfortably, or go up and down any stairs, or even lay in my hammock comfortably. I wanted to talk about lat pulldowns.

I really like doing them. I don't know why. It might be because there's something about lat pulldowns that reminds me of just about every dance or ice skating themed movie I've ever seen. There will almost always be a line about lifting their arms that just doesn't make sense to me. But now I feel like I get it. So I've got a bit of a head start on my future dance career that I wasn't planning to pursue.

Every year I have some kind of mental health episode around the holidays. This year it came early, before Thanksgiving. It makes it harder to "hear" what my body is telling me. So I'm glad that I have a trainer because when I'm at the gym I definitely need someone to supervise me and remind me to take breaks between sets and monitor how much weight I'm trying to lift and otherwise help me to not hurt myself.

In other news: I've decided to capitalize on my hair being way too short for my preferences and learn some new skills, namely, how to make the most of the natural wave and see if I can't get some actual curl with minimal efforts.

In other, other news: It took me a very long time to find an advent calendar for myself. I had too many ideas and really I wonder if sometimes I can't decide what I want because of the dissociation. I finally picked one with stitch markers and it arrived in the mail today. I decided to just start at the top and open one per day. I guess I'm not really counting down to Christmas at this point. I wonder what I'm counting? Which Cherie will I be in 25 days?

Yup.

 Yesterday the writing and focusing on a few tasks I needed to do somehow resulted in being able to feel some emotions. And I learned that being dissociated changes my relationship with food.

Just a little over a year ago I was very sick for two weeks and as I recovered, my body started telling me "good job" when I had eaten enough food. It was a new sensation for me. Apparently there is a difference between sated and full. One of those is a positive experience and the other isn't.

So anyway. For most of the last year I've successfully eaten slightly less food than before I was sick because my body was talking to me and I could hear it and had the ability to respond accordingly. I've been able to make small changes here and there to improve my relationship with food.

Most recently, I've been eating small meals 6 times a day. It's kind of awesome when my body tells me "good job" 6 times a day.

Enter this episode of dissociation.

If my body is talking, I'm not hearing it. I'm losing track of time and not noticing that it's time to eat and then when I studiously make sure I eat enough food at the right times, I still don't feel sated. So then I start wanting to eat even though I know I'm not hungry. And then there are impacts on my digestive system.

But I'm not hungry. Or I don't think I am. I think it's just that I'm not getting that hit of happy chemicals in my brain that I'm supposed to get when I complete a task. I don't know what else to do to get that in association with a meal.

I did go to bed last night feeling. I was going to type feeling better, more connected, but just feeling also makes sense.

Anyway, I think today was better than yesterday but pretty early in it, I watched a video that my sister shared with me. It was funny but I didn't laugh. Worse, the funny part was an unexpected outburst that made other people in the video jump and laugh and almost fall out of their seat. I barely blinked.

Still dissociated.

Daily Updates on Whether or Not I'm Dissociated

I've been watching too much TikTok.

I never wanted to be on TikTok because I know it's a good way to lose a lot of time and I don't need any help with that. I can do it on my own.

But my sister has been using it in a way that she hopes will be a healing experience, so then I had to make an account so I could attempt to cheer her on in that endeavor. And I was OK at first, but then the dissociation and losing hours and hours of time.

I guess I'm trying to wrap my mind around the cause and effect part so that I can figure out how much to punish myself. Did I dissociate because I was misusing TikTok, or did I misuse TikTok because I'm dissociated? I'm learning to stop that.

Some of my favorite TikTok-ers will have a kind of eclectic blend of topics but certain consistent points. Like they end with some kind of message of compassion, or they'll have some key phrases that come up in almost all of their videos. 

Anyway. It led me to wonder, if there was one thing about me that I need to get out of bed and tell the world every day...what is that?

There's a Facebook Page called Daily Updates on Whether or Not it's Christmas. Someone gets online 364 days a year to remind us that it is not Christmas today. It is very funny to me (and a lot of other people apparently). So that's probably why the phrase that occurred to me starts with "Daily Updates on Whether or Not" and the rest filled itself in.

It's not funny at all. In fact, as I heal my traumas and improve my health in general, my dissociation is more and more uncomfortable. But it is a goal to be able to wake up nearly every morning of the year and say to myself, to the people love, to the world "I am not dissociated today."

But that day is not today.

Success

And today's the day that we tried walking lunges again and my left leg is a bit reluctant but I can do them. We also increased weights on some things.

This is my proud face.

Of course, now I realize there are all kinds of gym-ly things that I could have been recording and I haven't been. Oh well.

I did get the fabric for my new underwears washed. Maybe today I'll get a chance to cut out the pieces.

Inside My Head

Some weeks ago, I saw or read or heard about someone having a set of toy figures of the characters from the movie Inside Out. Like an adult person. I don't remember where I found this or what their purpose was, but it occurred to me that this might be a tool that would be helpful to me in my quest to remain connected to my emotions. To help me identify and feel each feeling. So I took to the internet and found myself some toys to play with.

The set comes with 6 figures. Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust, Sadness and Bing Bong.

I enjoy Bing Bong as a character, but something about his presence in my set of emotional support toys, just frustrated me. He's not an emotion. He doesn't match. I don't want him. So I bought the set anyway and I began carrying them in my bag, but I left Bing Bong sitting on the dining room table. I guess I hoped that one of the kids would take him and lose him somewhere.

I always struggle with the holiday season. But the depression and/or dissociation doesn't usually hit me until mid-December or even sometimes into January. This year it hit before Thanksgiving. And I wasn't ready. So I started winding myself up about whether or not I bring these episodes onto myself.

I think it's because the first thing I notice is that I'm not doing all my daily routines. The routines that I think are healthy things that I want to do, that I need to do. The things that I know I feel better when I do them. 

Am I dissociating because I'm not taking very good care of myself? Or am I not taking good care of myself because I can't?

It feels like it hasn't been that long since the last time I was trying to make sense of what dissociation means for me and whether it's the right word to describe me and how much is it a thing that I do vs a thing that is done to me. I know that I have people in my life that I can ask for help. I mentally listed them out and realized that last time I did ask them.

But what did they tell me?

I think they gave me wishy washy answers. I don't remember anyone giving me a solid yes or no. Just maybes. One of them has a habit of asking me questions like "Why is that important to you?" I don't think he asked it about this topic, but here we are.

Why is it so important for me to know if I do this to myself or if it is something that is happening to me? What difference does that make?

I always want things to be under my control so that I can pretend that I have the power to singlehandedly change them. But mostly I just want to know how much I deserve to be punished.

What if Bing Bong is my dissociation?

I probably wouldn't ask him how he got here. I would just try to deal with the fact that he's here.

I might ask him why he's here. And he would probably say that he's just trying to keep me safe in the only way he knows how. And since my brain built itself a Bing Bong to protect me beginning at a very young age, he doesn't know what a grown up me needs.

I guess that's ok since grown up me still doesn't always know what little me needed. I should probably ask Bing Bong. I bet he knows.

Shapeshifting.

Gym Update: So listen, I don't actually step on a scale very often or take any measurements...unless I'm preparing to sew something for me to wear and I want to make sure I cut the fabric right.

Furthermore, I have some experience with doing all the "right" things, eating all the "right" things and getting very little or no results. So I gave up on weight loss goals a long time ago.

But something has been going on. Like shapeshifting. My first reaction has been suspicion. It's getting to the point though, that I might actually have to take my sewing skills to my wardrobe and start downsizing.

another recent Konza hike, but it was slow because I wasn't alone.

The above is how I wrote it for Facebook. The rest of the story is that I started out between two clothing sizes. I tend to buy the larger of the two though because I don't like tight things. Most of my cold weather wardrobe is leggings and tunic length shirts. So it was easy enough to start replacing the leggings to the smaller of those two sizes. I don't mind shirts being baggy, some of them are really more comfortable that way anyway. The more urgent problem is my underwear. This is a kind of dumb story. I sew my own underwear. I got patterns from Stitch Upon a Time. The first pair I ever made were the most comfortable underwear I'd ever worn. But then over time I've learned how to modify the patterns to fit me best and now that first pair is my least comfortable pair. So I started noticing my waistbands falling and I wondered if they were wearing out. But no. I'm shapeshifting. It's not as easy to replace my underwear. I could go to the store, but I know that's going to be disappointing and uncomfortable. That's not really a good way to celebrate all this hard work. So I tried to find someone who sells underwear they've made from the same patterns, but I couldn't find any I liked enough to overlook the fact that they wouldn't have my custom modifications. So I've bought some fabric. Not that I actually have any time to sew up a pile of new underwear but it will be less time consuming than trying to take in the old ones. I'm so full of optimism about my time availability.

A Funny but also Serious

Did I stay up too late last night, oversleep this morning, skip breakfast, go to the gym hungry and then hit the Mickey D's drive-thru?

No.

Breakfast was almost over, I got that curbside.

Food is morally neutral. There's plenty of time left in today for vegetables and now that I'm not hangry I'm more likely to follow through on eating some.

8 Years Ago

 I had posted on Facebook what these kids were up to while I was working on laundry. Feels like a lifetime ago.

Victory But Not in a Funny Way

This is the day I tend to give social media my gym report. There is nothing to report. I'm still going and seeing steady progress. I guess that's not nothing, it's just not something I can think of funny remark to make about. At least not today. Maybe next week.

Well, that's what I posted on Facebook, the rest of the story is I gave my testimony last night and I'm wiped out. I tried to take a cute picture to go with the post but that wasn't working either, so I gave up and went with the non-update update.

here's a not very good photo, but at least I'm cozy and restful

The Dangers of Crochet

 There has been a bit of a hitch in my upper body workouts due to a bit of a.....crochet ...injury...in my shoulder. But I'm rocking the leg days. Today we increased sets and my trainer is very impressed with my lunges, I almost don't even need to hold onto anything for balance.

Three Weeks Later

When the cat's away, the mice go hike up that big hill at Konza.

an older picture of part of that hill

But strangely enough, this time I have more endurance and I can breathe better and move faster than three weeks ago.

And this might be crazy, but I think I might run up that hill someday.

Top Secret

This is top secret so don't tell anyone, but, I may or may not possibly sort of might be a little bit enjoying going to the gym.

But just in case I might be insane, I also went to visit my favorite creek spot.

I wanted a picture with my feet in the water, but also was digging the fall foliage...I'm a weirdo

Also. In early September I apparently overbooked myself for this week. At the time it was so far away that I knew I'd have plenty of time to be well prepared. But then other things came up and I didn't get as prepared as I wanted to. Over a few days I've given a Sunday school lesson and a CR lesson and went to a class at MCC to tell them about CR. Plus had my last session with my now-ex therapist. So that's...a lot.

Noodle Arms

Here's my gym update (which I think I've decided to do weekly). This is mildly edited talk-to-text because my arms are currently limp noodles. My trainer switched it up on me and did legs Monday. It barely even hurt. But now that she knows that, I've got to look out for the next leg day cuz she's coming to get me.

Also. I had started to hold some stress/tension in my shoulders again and today's arm workout definitely helped to loosen that up. I'm learning the weirdest things I didn't know I needed to know.

A not very good photo of how Milo reacts when I practice singing.

Identity Crisis

 (Wrote this for sharing to Facebook)

Some parts of me are still objecting to Monday's core workout. I was unable to publicly whine about it due to the social media outage and the fact that when everything came back on, I really felt the appropriate moment had passed.

Today was legs again, and to my absolute horror, I found myself saying to my trainer on the first station "I think this weight might actually be a little too light". And I knew I was right when I stepped off the machine and the following words came out of my mouth unbidden:

Oh yeah, that's the jelly!

As if some part of my brain thinks it knows exactly what my legs should feel like after that kind of work. I really don't know where I get my vocabulary words though, I'm reasonably certain I've never said those words out loud in that order ever before in my life.

Who even am I?

A bat I recently saw in the middle of the day in an unexpected place.

Konza Gym Day

 So I got up, went about my morning routine and came downstairs in my gym clothes only to find a text from my trainer. She was unable to keep our appointment. Well I wasn't about to go into the gym by myself and try to figure out what I should do in there. But I didn't want to waste this outfit either. So I decided I'd hit up that big hill at Konza. That's a good workout.

Furthermore, I wanted to participate in my friend's daily art prompts so I took Lark and a crow with me. Fairy pictures means lots of squatting. Extra workout. V athletic.

The best of not very good options.

I took it pretty slow and took lots of breaks because that big hill is a challenge for people in better physical condition than me and I didn't have any reason to rush. Still, by the time I was almost at the top, there were parts of me that were not happy with my decision. And not really in a sore from a good workout kind of way. I exacerbated an old injury.

Proof of victory.

I did consider staying at the top of the hill and waiting for someone to come rescue me, but it's not the most accessible place to get a ride back. So I did my best to slowly saunter around the rest of the trail back to the parking lot. Between the pictures and the taking my time, I spent 2 hours on that hike.

Good thing it's Friday so I have a couple days to recover before my next torture session.