Tag Archives: mental health

Another Reminder That It’s Ok To Be Struggling (or We Might Be Isolated But Not Alone)

Posted on October 22, 2020 | Comments Off on Another Reminder That It’s Ok To Be Struggling (or We Might Be Isolated But Not Alone)

I’ve written a few posts about struggling during isolation. I think it’s such a common thing to be dealing with right now. Everyone is having difficulties in one sense or another. My friends with kids are trying to figure out how to make school make sense while they are home. I have a lot of friends who lost their jobs and are struggling to find new ones if they don’t think their jobs will be coming back. Anyone who lost a job that will be coming back is also struggling because of how low unemployment payments are (and there is still not a new plan signed that will supplement it). Some people have roommates or partners that they might not be getting along with.

And then there are people who live alone, as I do, who are dealing with extreme isolation. It’s still hard for me to be as isolated as I have been. Missing physical touch like hugs hasn’t been easier either. I think the longer I am without regular contact with others, the harder it’s been to deal with. And I think a big part of this struggle has been related to feeling like I’m losing a year of my life. This year is the year that very little progress will be made in my life. Some of my friends who are single and are my age have been talking about how we already feel like there is a clock with fertility and how tough it is to take away one of the last years they feel like they can have kids. I don’t feel that stress about kids as much as my friends do, but I understand the feeling completely.

And giving up a year of your life is harder when it doesn’t seem like everyone else is doing that. It feels at times that everyone else is out and living their lives while I stay home and do nothing. I know this isn’t true, but it’s tough to remember how many others are isolating like I am. I’ve described this feeling before as being on my own little planet and I think that still describes it. I’m out in the world staying in my house and things are continuing on without me being there. Again, I know this isn’t necessarily true, but it feels like it so much.

Part of being isolated is not realizing how many others are doing the same thing. On social media, people who are isolating are probably not posting about it as much as people who are going out and doing things. So you don’t hear their stories as much. But it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. The more I talk to my friends, the more I know what they are doing. And the more I post about struggling, the more people who come forward saying they feel the exact same way.

Being alone and isolated doesn’t allow you to see who else is doing the same. We may be alone in our homes, but we are not alone in our actions. And I’m trying to remember that more and more. And I’m trying to remind myself that I’m not isolated for no reason. I’m doing this to keep myself healthy. I’m doing this to keep others healthy. And I’m doing this to help make this end sooner. The sooner more people isolate and stay home, the slower the spread of this will be. And maybe it can be almost eliminated from the area. I don’t have high hopes about it being gone from the country until we have a national plan, but if it can at least be safer to be outside my house, that will be a big step forward.

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Default ThumbnailDoing A Health Check-In On Myself (or Seeing Where I’m Slipping) Default Thumbnail6 Months In (or I Want To Hope We Aren’t Doing This For 6 More Months) Default ThumbnailA Gallbladder Reminder (or Hopefully This Is A Random Event) Default ThumbnailStaying Isolated (or Doing My Part) Default ThumbnailAnother Isolated Therapy Session (or My Anxiety Is Normal) Default ThumbnailStruggling Sucks (or Thank Goodness It Was A Short Workout Week)

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More Weird Things About Isolation (or Just Trying To Be Aware)

Posted on September 24, 2020 | Comments Off on More Weird Things About Isolation (or Just Trying To Be Aware)

I’m learning a lot about myself the longer we are all isolating from each other. I never knew how much I needed physical touch until I didn’t have it. I never considered myself a very touchy-feely person, but the more I think about it the more that I am. I’m used to hugging friends, getting high fives in workouts, going on dates, and just being around other people. I think a lot of people who used to say they would love to be alone more often are realizing that alone time isn’t what they want if they don’t have the balance of being out with people.

I’m also learning a lot about my mental health and mental well-being. I’ve realized how being isolated makes a lot of things worse for me. It’s almost like the time before I was open about my eating disorder. When things are secretive, they can be worse or you can obsess about them more. I think when things are not secretive but you aren’t around other people and have to be aware, it’s almost the same thing. I’m not keeping things secretive about my life and my struggles, but it feels like that because I’m alone with everything and nobody is there to help keep me accountable. I don’t need someone to babysit me and monitor me, but knowing that I’m going out to eat with a friend helps me keep my food under control for the day because I want to enjoy that meal out. I don’t love scales, but I do try to weigh myself. But more often than the number on the scale, I use clothes to help keep me accountable. When you are wearing all stretchy clothes and workout stuff, you don’t notice when your clothes feel different.

But the newer thing I’m learning about myself is how some things I thought I had under control can flare up again when I’m not living my normal life. I was diagnosed with mild OCD a long time ago. It’s never been that bad, but there were moments where it was almost impossible for me to move on until I did something “right”. Sometimes that right thing was checking my alarm clock until it felt like it was the perfect way to confirm it was going to go off in the morning. Sometimes it was having to move something in my house because I couldn’t focus on anything else until I did that. It never affected my life too much, but it was an inconvenience. I never did anything specific to treat my OCD, but it has faded away in the past few years and I can’t remember the last time it was triggered.

Or at least, I can’t remember the last thing before the pandemic. I don’t exactly know when my OCD started to come back because I wasn’t used to experiencing it for a long time. But recently, I’ve been noticing things that are clearly OCD moments. But they are things I have done for a little while, so I don’t know if I started doing them a month ago or 5 months ago. They aren’t anything too bad. Mainly making sure things are in a specific order in my house or that I do things in a certain routine. Nothing that is a big distraction from my life, but it is something I want to be aware of because I know it can get worse and I don’t want to get there.

I also know that my anxiety is worse now than it’s been in a long time, but that’s something that seems normal. If I wasn’t anxious, I would be avoiding reality. Even my therapist agrees that having a higher base level of anxiety isn’t something to worry about these days. I’m not treating it with medication because I want to work through it, but I know if it gets worse that I can start medications again. But I feel certain that the anxiety is more about the current situation in the world and not something more than that.

I’m hoping my OCD is also just because of the state of the world. But I am tracking things and taking notes in case I see it getting much worse or if it continues after things seem like they are more normal again. I’m not necessarily worried about myself, but I just want to be aware and alert so that I don’t ignore symptoms and signs if I see them.

Hopefully, things will continue to get better with the pandemic (finally it seems like the numbers here are going down) and soon I will be able to have some more things in my life that feel normal. And once I have those back, maybe my mental health will also go back to how it was before and these will just be minor blips in my life.

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Trying To Not Let My Stress Get To Me (or Continuing To Find Ways To Cope With Isolation)

Posted on August 14, 2020 | Comments Off on Trying To Not Let My Stress Get To Me (or Continuing To Find Ways To Cope With Isolation)

I feel like I keep repeating myself with how hard it is to be isolated. I’m 5 months into this and I’ve probably seen friends/family only 5 times since then. Even though I’m not the most social person, I need more social time than just once a month. I am trying to use this time to understand how my personal mix of being an introvert and extrovert works. But I’m done with that experiment in my mind and I’m ready to apply what I’ve learned.

I want to go out and do more, but I’m so terrified of getting sick. I’m stuck in this weird space of not wanting to put my life on hold but also not wanting to risk my life. I have had friends get sick and are still dealing with health issues months later. I have friends who have lost friends, family, and significant others. This is a serious virus and it should not be taken lightly. And for a while, I have been doing everything I can to never leave my house. I’m still rarely leaving my house, but I’m trying to get out at least once a week just to feel like I’m not trapped inside 24/7.

I’ve done a lot of things over the past 5 months to try to make this time as low-stress as possible. And I know that some of those things have worked because I believe I would be doing much worse now if I had done nothing. And I try to continue doing those things like having a regular schedule and trying to do some tasks every day. But I also know it’s not enough.

I’ve seen several articles about low-grade depression, especially after Michelle Obama said that she has been dealing with it during the pandemic. The more I read about it, the more I think so many of us are experiencing that right now. Low energy or motivation, sleep issues, fatigue, trouble focusing or concentrating, lack of enjoyment with things that used to bring joy. Those all sound very familiar to me. And along with low-grade depression, I know that can bring extra stress. You can be stressed about the symptoms. You can be stressed about how to make yourself feel better. You can be stressed about if you need to get more help or not.

I’m not letting myself stress about if I need more help or not. That is the one I have a clear idea of. But I have been stressed about my symptoms and how to make myself better. And it’s an evil cycle because I want to feel better and then it’s frustrating when something doesn’t work and I have to keep trying to figure out new ideas. But that’s the cycle I’m stuck in for now. I need to find ways to be happy and bring joy into my life right now. When something doesn’t work, it brings me down. Fortunately, it’s not always testing things that don’t work and I have found a few things that have helped. But I know now that I will keep having to find new things the longer this goes on. What brought me joy in March and April might not be doing it for me anymore. This is a continuous thing I have to work on and that’s exactly what I have been doing. Hopefully, soon I’ll figure out the next thing so I can bring my stress down a bit again.

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Another Isolated Therapy Session (or My Anxiety Is Normal)

Posted on August 7, 2020 | Comments Off on Another Isolated Therapy Session (or My Anxiety Is Normal)

Yesterday, I had my regular appointment with my therapist. Like my appointments often are, it was another virtual appointment. I’m always grateful that I can have my appointments over the phone or video chat because it saves me the drive (and the cost for parking). And nowadays, it’s pretty much a requirement to have virtual appointments to be safe. I have other doctor appointments that I need to do soon that cannot be virtual, so having one where I feel safe at home is really nice.

The main point of these appointments is to confirm my medication is ok and to make sure I’m doing alright. At my last appointment, we added a new medication but I stopped taking that already. It was something I started right when the pandemic started and my anxiety was getting really bad. I even started to notice some of my OCD tendencies were coming back. I don’t know if the medication was the only reason why I had those, but it was a variable that I could easily take out. My OCD seems to have gone back to where it was before, but my anxiety is still higher than normal. But in these times, I think being a little extra anxious is normal.

And after I confirmed with my therapist that my medication is still a good dosage and that I’m doing ok, I did mention that I’m a little anxious but I also understand that it’s normal. There was a post I’ve seen on social media a few times that says something like “I feel like I hallucinated the pandemic. I’m staying home, scared of getting sick, and taking precautions. And other people are just out there living their lives like normal.” And that’s really how I feel. Combining that idea and the idea that I’m alone on my own little planet with nobody around me is the best way to explain what isolation has felt like for me. I know that I’m doing the right thing and making small sacrifices will pay off in the long run, but it’s not easy when I’m in the middle of it.

But just like before, my therapist completely understood how I am feeling and reassured me that this is normal. I know that there are options for medications that I could take to make these feelings go away, but I’m really not feeling like trying medications right now. The last medication was stopped because I couldn’t be sure what was causing the side effects. I feel like trying something new would do the same. Maybe I would feel better, but I also won’t know when I could come off the medication because the world isn’t making me anxious and not the medication. I know right now I can work through these feelings. If anything changes, I can reach out and get help. But for now, I know that I’m not to the point where I need more help to be ok. I have been in that place before and am able to recognize if I get there again.

Just like so many of my recent appointments with my therapist, this was an easy one and it confirmed that I’m doing the right things for myself right now. I know that my eating disorder is a bit harder to deal with right now and I’m really working hard at that, but I also am going a bit easy on myself because I am going through something that none of us have ever experienced in our lifetimes. I can’t expect to have normal reactions in an abnormal situation.

I hope that by the time I have my next appointment, things will be starting to get better in the world. I will still be grateful to have a virtual appointment, but I would love it if I could feel like I have a bit more control and power over what I can do each day. I want to get back to the routine that I had been working on and helped to keep me on track. I have no clue if that will be possible by my next appointment. I keep hoping that something will change in this country so we can get the pandemic more under control and that will be a huge step forward. But for now, I just have to keep doing what I know will be keeping me safe, and working through the feelings being isolated brings up.

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Doing A Health Check-In On Myself (or Seeing Where I’m Slipping)

Posted on July 30, 2020 | Comments Off on Doing A Health Check-In On Myself (or Seeing Where I’m Slipping)

I think it’s a pretty common thing right not to be struggling. We are going through a pandemic and life is so uncertain. People are scared of getting sick or being a carrier and getting someone they love sick. They are lonely at home or if they live with others unable to take time for themselves. Our routines are completely different and it’s hard to figure out a sense of normalcy. Almost everyone I know (at least in the US where the pandemic is still hitting us hard) is struggling with food or weight. I don’t know anyone who says they are doing just as great as they were before.

Struggling sucks. Even when you know that you aren’t alone in the struggle, it doesn’t necessarily make you feel better. And I know that I’m struggling right now. There’s no question about it. I’ve written about different struggles I’ve been having and I think that having an outlet to write about it has helped. But it hasn’t made it go away.

I want to say that I am ok and nobody should worry about me. I’m safe, I’m healthy, and I’m going to be ok. I am not worried about myself or if I’ll be ok because I know I will be. I just sometimes struggle randomly or my brain doesn’t want to remember that this time is temporary and eventually it will be done.

But even though I’m ok, that doesn’t mean I’m ok every day. I don’t believe that I have depression, but I know I have symptoms of being depressed. I am not enjoying some of the things that I know make me happy. There have been days that I wished I could just sleep away the day and thought maybe somehow the next day would be more interesting (even though my days don’t have much variety). I deal with loneliness a lot. The lack of physical contact or touch with others is a big struggle. I crave some of my normal life back and that’s just not possible.

I am working on being more social with friends and family in ways that I can be safely social. But even when I’ve had weeks where I was talking to someone on the phone or had a Zoom hang out almost every day, I still feel lonely. Being alone in my house isn’t easy. If I lived somewhere bigger, I might have asked a friend if they wanted to stay with me during this time so we didn’t have to be alone. But that’s not exactly an option for me right now. And I don’t know if seeing a friend from a distance is going to be enough for me. I know it helps because it has given me a boost when I have done it. But I also wonder if I won’t get the same boost now as I did before because I’m struggling more.

And I know my physical health is struggling too. This time is exceptionally hard for anyone with an eating disorder. I know I’ve gained weight in the past few months. Some of it is possibly stress-related, but I also know that I haven’t been eating the way that I should and my workouts aren’t as hard as they normally are. So it would make sense that I would gain weight. But I hate it. I feel really uncomfortable in my body right now. I want to get my weight back to where it was. I would prefer to work on losing weight again, but just to get back to where I was in March would be so nice. I’m trying to do the right things to get myself back on track, but then I slip up. This feels so much harder than any other time with my eating disorder and I wish I could figure out what I need to do to start getting back to the old me.

I remember seeing something on social media about how we shouldn’t be comparing ourselves now to ourselves before the pandemic started. We aren’t the same people that we were before. We are dealing with things that we never have had to go through. We are trying to live our lives through a pandemic and it’s a mix of normal life and everything being crazy. Struggling right now is normal. And it’s also normal to reach out for help. I have reached out to my therapist to make sure that I shouldn’t be worried about how I’m struggling. And I’ve been told that I’m doing ok, but if I feel like I need some help then we can discuss medication. I don’t want to go that route yet (just because of how often I deal with side effects), but I’m glad it is an option I can explore if I feel like I need it.

Hopefully writing this all down is going to help me feel a bit better about things. I can tell that it does feel like a bit of the weight holding me down has been lifted. I don’t know if this post will help me find a way back to the old me or a way to get back on track, but right now all I want to get to is to feel like I’m not struggling as much. It’s a small goal, but it would make me feel so much better.

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I Guess This Makes Me Feel A Bit Better (or A Physical Explanation For My Emotional Symptoms)

Posted on June 24, 2020 | Comments Off on I Guess This Makes Me Feel A Bit Better (or A Physical Explanation For My Emotional Symptoms)

The past week, I’ve been struggling more than normal. I haven’t been sleeping well. I have been feeling off. I had some body aches and pains that I couldn’t explain. And I just had a general feeling of uneasiness. I assumed that this was due to isolation and my mental health. I know a lot of people are dealing with a bit of depression right now and it made sense to me that I might be dealing with the same. I would almost be worried if I didn’t have a bit of depression right now. I don’t want the current state of the world to be normal to me.

So I had been trying to do things to make me feel better. I’ve been especially focusing on my sleep because I know when I’m tired it makes everything harder for me. I just couldn’t seem to sleep well even if I was going to bed early. I was tossing and turning a lot, and some of that was due to hip pain. I also couldn’t reach deep sleep and when I did I had some really weird dreams that made me wake up feeling very unsettled. Again, I assumed this was all due to the circumstances with the world and didn’t think too much about it.

And then, I ended up getting my period almost 2 weeks early. Sorry if this is TMI, but I write about this plenty. I write about how much pain and nausea I deal with and how much it affects my life. And usually, I deal with a lot of symptoms for 5-7 days before my period starts and I am pretty miserable. For some reason, because I wasn’t dealing with nausea, I didn’t even consider that everything I was dealing with could be this. Also, since I’m usually pretty regular I never would think that I would get my period 2 weeks early.

There are so many reasons why this happened. I am guessing a lot of it is stress and nothing more than that. I know there can be medical reasons for this, but that’s usually when you have irregularity happening more consistently and this was just random for me. Or at least I hope it’s random. I track things so I will know if it’s happening a lot before my next doctor’s appointment.

And now, I’m dealing with the pain and nausea that I usually have. That’s really annoying because I just got over nausea about a week and a half ago. I thought I would have more freedom from it. I’m used to having more time without it. But I can’t do much now except try to take care of myself with my usual remedies and medications. It’s not as bad as it has been before, so that is a good sign. Of course, it could get worse as this week goes on. But I’m going to be grateful that it’s not bad now and I didn’t have the week of nausea before this that I was expecting.

As frustrating as it is to have my period be 2 weeks early, in some ways, it’s also a relief. I never thought all these issues I was dealing with could be related to my period since I wasn’t expecting it. But now that I know my cycle was thrown off, almost everything makes sense. The weird pains I was experiencing can almost all be explained by this (except my hip pain, but that might be a weather thing). Moodiness and fatigue make sense. The issues sleeping make more sense, even though that’s not something I normally have it’s something I occasionally have. The general feeling of uneasiness makes perfect sense now. And while I can’t feel certain that everything I’ve been experiencing will end when my period does, I do have a bit of hope that it will. I don’t have to worry as much that this is just how I’m mentally doing because these issues did come on suddenly. I hope they will go away just as suddenly.

I know that if I googled irregular cycles that there can be a lot of reasons to worry (especially when you consider my age). But since this is a one-off thing for now, I’m not going to think too much about it. Hopefully, things regulate in my body for the next cycle. And if they don’t, then I can discuss it with my doctor when I go in for my next appointment. But for now, I’m just grateful that I have a better idea about why I have been feeling so off for the past few days.

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Friends Are The Best Mood Booster (or The Difference A Day Makes)

Posted on June 19, 2020 | Comments Off on Friends Are The Best Mood Booster (or The Difference A Day Makes)

My post yesterday was definitely a bit of a downer. As I said, I usually have good days but I have had some bad days too. I heard something on a podcast about how most people are experiencing some signs of depression these days, and I don’t doubt it. I think a lot of my exhaustion is related to dealing with a bit of depression. It’s not bad enough that I am worried about my health or safety and my therapist has said that she doesn’t think I need to be on medication for it as this is not my usual mindset. But it’s something to be aware of.

And part of being aware of it is working on coming out of the funk. Usually, that’s more in my control because I have options of what I can do. But now, I really don’t have the opportunity to go out and feel better. And I can’t really go out to see my friends.

But just because I can’t go out to see my friends, I can still be social with my friends. It’s just in a different way. I have been doing Zoom hangouts, but those can be overwhelming and there is such a thing as Zoom Fatigue (which is the idea of having so much anxiety because you don’t know if someone is watching you or not). So I’ve been trying to have more phone calls (without a video element) with my friends.

When I was growing up, I spent a lot of time on the phone with friends. We did have internet and AOL messenger was a big deal, but I spent way more time on the phone than I did online. I had my own phone line during high school, so I was able to be on the phone without kicking other people in my family off the phone (or off the internet since AOL went through the phone line). I’m sure I did some phone calls in college too, but I know I was doing a lot more texting then. And now, I rarely make phone calls. I call family, but I text a lot more often. And there are lots of friends that I almost never call but wouldn’t think twice about texting.

But texting isn’t enough for me right now, so I’ve been doing a lot more phone time. Even if I’m talking to a friend and just venting and ranting to them, it really helps. Of course, I am happy to do the same for any of my friends and I have been the sounding board for many of them. We all need to be heard these days and I’m so glad I can be there for my friends when they need it and that they are there for me.

I’ve had a lot of phone calls recently with my friends. Some of them are not totally social calls, but we still get some friendly chatting in while doing work too. I’ve been busy getting things organized with the livestreams I have been doing for my slate lately, and my co-creator is my friend Amir. So when we have to be on the phone together dozens of times a day (or for a long hour or two calls), even though we are working for a lot of it, we do get silly too. I’ve had a few other work and union-related calls that turn into silliness, which helps to break up my day.

And even though these are technically just texting or messaging, having regular Netflix Parties with friends helps too. I think it’s the idea of having a communal experience with others. I know that those friends in the party with me are watching the same thing at the same time as I am. We do message about things about the movie or tv show we are watching (like when something crazy happens or when we love an outfit), but a lot of what we talk about in Netflix Party has nothing to do with what we are watching. We talk about stuff happening in our lives and if someone is struggling we are there to support them. It’s crazy how much support I get out of the group because technically I’ve never met any of the friends who are in it with me. We are all just in a Facebook group together. We have created a bond in that group and the smaller group that does the Netflix Party has an even stronger bond. I know if I needed something that I could reach out to any of them and they would be there for me.

I’ve also had some phone call dates recently. While those don’t help me as much as calls with my friends all the time because sometimes the guys I’m talking to aren’t the best, it’s something. And I’m not staying on bad calls or on calls with guys I don’t see myself dating just to be on the phone. If I’m spending time on the phone with someone, it’s because I want to talk to them. And I do hope that in the future those calls turn into real dates (socially distanced or not). But I am aware that some people are just looking to talk to someone and it might not go the way I would hope it would go. But when I’ve been messaging with guys before when I could go out on dates, I would have the same issue. So finding people who have no intentions beyond virtual hangouts isn’t a new issue.

It’s not always easy to plan or schedule calls for when I’m in a bad mood. And I can’t exactly plan when those bad moods will happen so I can’t figure things out ahead of time. And when I’m in a funk, I don’t always reach out to others. I know that I need to, but it’s not easy. I am lucky that I have people in my life that reach out to me just to check-in, so that is good. And if I try to have a somewhat regular schedule of when I talk to people, hopefully that helps to keep my mood a bit better and more even. And there is a chance that by the time I figure out how to do all this that things will be normal again and I won’t need to worry about it as much. But it’s always good to have a plan in your life when you aren’t doing so great.

Even though I really don’t have many plans for the weekend, I am looking forward to it and seeing what I am able to get done. I don’t have any crazy projects that I’m working on, but I’m sure I’ll find something to do and I’ll hopefully be a bit busy. And I know I have a Netflix Party on Saturday and that is always a highlight of my weekend.

I hope that all of you are doing ok. This is not an easy time for anyone. I know it’s not easy to reach out if you are struggling, but if you can please do so. People are more than willing to help and listen. And just having a friend there for you can make such a difference.

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Default ThumbnailIt Can Be Tough To Get Help (or Trying To Be A Good Friend To My Friends) Default ThumbnailSo Many Virtual Movie Nights (or Thank Goodness For Technology) Default ThumbnailStill Figuring Out Dating During COVID (or Phone Calls, Video Chats, And Social Distances Meetups) Default ThumbnailMaking Friends As An Adult (or Am I Weird?) Default ThumbnailHow I Spent My Actual Birthday (or Friends, Friends, and More Friends) Default ThumbnailFriends Helping Friends (or Not Being Afraid To Ask For Support)

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Hope And Health (or I Don’t Have The Motivation To Do A Bigger Challenge)

Posted on June 3, 2020 | Comments Off on Hope And Health (or I Don’t Have The Motivation To Do A Bigger Challenge)

When I was struggling to figure out monthly challenges in the past few years, I had no idea how tough it would be to plan them when I’m isolated at home. Even though many of my challenges don’t involve me leaving my house to do them, my motivation while isolated is nowhere near it normally is. I don’t feel the push to do a ton every day. Some of this is due to physical exhaustion and some of this is mental exhaustion. This isn’t an easy time for any of us, but I’m trying my best. I am working on being gentler and kinder with myself because it’s so easy to compare myself now to myself before. But we are living in a different time and that’s not a fair comparison.

Because of those factors, my monthly challenges lately haven’t been very intense. They have mainly been about taking care of myself. Last month, I challenged myself to stay hopeful. And for the most part, I think I did an ok job with that. I paid attention to the news to see how things were progressing with testing and cases in LA. The news was sounding better. Things were starting to be able to reopen. Even if I wasn’t going to go to places, I was hopeful that them being reopened was a good sign. And I was staying hopeful that we were through the worst of this wave (I still fear another wave in the fall, but that’s another issue).

But then at the end of the month, it became harder to be hopeful. Not because of the pandemic but because of police brutality. I was saddened to see those stories happen, but I tried to stay hopeful in amplifying the voices that needed to be heard and working on being a better ally. I wasn’t quite as hopeful as I was before, but I also became more aware of the racism and discrimination out there that I might have been blind to before. I found hope in seeing people taking action and learning how to take action myself. I am hopeful that one day, we will find a way to have systematic change with law enforcement and how people are treated. I am not hopeful that it will happen soon. It will take a lot of work and we cannot let up.

This month, my challenge is related a bit to wanting to be hopeful. I want to work on my health. This is about both my mental and physical health. For my physical health, I need to find ways to work out harder and I need to eat better. Those aren’t easy, but they can be done. And they are things that I have been working on for a long time.

But more importantly, I want to work on my mental health.

I am overwhelmed with everything going on in the world and it would be so easy to retreat and hide. But the more I learn about racism the more I know that I cannot use my mental health as an excuse to avoid hearing these stories. I need to find a purpose and actionable things to do whenever I hear stories of police brutality or racism. I need to find a way to not let these affect my mental health because I need to be a source of amplification of voices who may not have the same privilege that I do. I need to find a way to turn this activism into a positive thing for me and not an upsetting thing. This is a huge shift in my mindset, but I know it will be for the better. If these situations don’t make me run and hide but instead make me feel like I can help and seek ways to do so, I will be a better ally for so many people. I will likely be able to handle other stress in my life as well, but that is not my focus. My main focus is to turn the feeling of being overwhelmed or sad into the push to get to action.

I have already been working on this idea. Yesterday was Blackout Tuesday where we were not supposed to post on social media. Originally, I thought that meant we were supposed to stay off of social media and I was planning on doing that. It would be an easy way to avoid and hide from things. But my friends corrected me and said it was not about being silent but about sharing and amplifying the voices that should be heard right now. And that’s what I did. I found posts from leaders in the Black Lives Matter community and shared them. I took time to educate myself, find reading and watching lists, and followed new accounts that I know would continue to share information. I didn’t hide and avoid things because that would have been easier. I took in the information, which wasn’t always easy, and made sure to share it. And I feel like I felt better doing that than I would have if I didn’t.

Hopefully, I will be able to continue to strengthen and repair my body and mind this month. My mind is the priority to me because I know that being able to be focused and taking action is more time-sensitive. I know that it is needed now. And I am hoping that doing that will lead to other positive changes with my mindset and how I react to things that might be negative or upsetting. I want to be a voice of change and not a silent supporter.

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Default ThumbnailMonthly Challenge Update Time (or One More For 2017) Default ThumbnailStill Trying To Get Back To Normal (or Isolation Monthly Challenges Really Are Not Easy) Default ThumbnailMileage And Motivation (or Another New Challenge) Default ThumbnailDoing A Health Check-In On Myself (or Seeing Where I’m Slipping) Default ThumbnailRunning For Cancer (or Health Supporting Health) Default ThumbnailMental Health Month (or Better Late Than Never)

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Back To Back Doctor Days (or At Least This Was A Virtual Appointment)

Posted on May 19, 2020 | Comments Off on Back To Back Doctor Days (or At Least This Was A Virtual Appointment)

Last week, I was at urgent care on Monday. I hadn’t planned on being at the hospital for any doctor’s appointments any time soon, so that was something that broke up my routine a bit. But the next day, I had a scheduled appointment. This time, it was another appointment with my therapist. But it had already been planned to be a virtual one, so I knew I would be able to stay home for it.

When I scheduled the appointment, I was still working my normal hours. So I had a lot of free time before my appointment. Also, this appointment was originally about the new medication that I was put on, but I had already stopped that medication (after emailing with my therapist). So I had a lot of time to think about what we would discuss.

I was still in a lot of pain and discomfort from the cellulitis, but I knew that wasn’t something I necessarily had to discuss in my appointment. But it still made me laugh a bit when my therapist opened our appointment by asking how I was doing. My only response was that was a loaded question. I explained that mentally I was doing the best that could be expected and if I was not stressed or worried that maybe that would be concerning. Fortunately, she understood exactly what I meant. Her main concern was that I wasn’t having any symptoms that were concerning me or that I was doing significantly worse than before.

We did discuss the medication I was briefly on and I explained that the reaction I was having could have something to do with the state of the world, but I wasn’t sure. And I wasn’t willing to risk trying it because the symptoms were concerning (I was having some panic attacks and I felt my OCD getting worse). And I think she agreed with me that it would be very difficult to know if a new medication is helping me. And if I tried something new and it did help, maybe it only helped because of how crazy everything is and in normal circumstances, it wouldn’t be helping. It’s weird to feel like I’m putting things on hold, but that’s the best case right now. I want to try some other medications to see if they help, but I don’t feel ok doing it right now.

I’m glad that my therapist understood how I felt and didn’t think I needed to worry about trying anything new right now. She agrees that my focus should just be on being ok and feeling safe with how things are. And when things start to normalize a bit, then I can start working on seeing if another medication can benefit me or not. I have another virtual appointment in a few months, and maybe by then, we will be in a new phase of reopening. I’m guessing the appointment will stay virtual, which is fine with me because I do prefer those. But it would be nice to get to a point where I can start working on bettering myself and not just getting through this.

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Default ThumbnailSome More Virtual Therapy (or Trying Another Medication) Default ThumbnailAnother Isolated Therapy Session (or My Anxiety Is Normal) Default ThumbnailAnother Virtual Doctor Appointment (or Planning Some Next Steps) Default ThumbnailFollowing My Doctor’s Instructions (or Days Off From Vyvanse) Default ThumbnailHaving A Lot Of Repeat Days (or More Organizing and More Virtual Hangouts) Default ThumbnailA Super Easy Therapy Appointment (or Just Doing A Check-In)

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Another Quick Therapy Appointment (or Video Appointments Make Things Easy)

Posted on September 12, 2019 | Comments Off on Another Quick Therapy Appointment (or Video Appointments Make Things Easy)

When I had my last therapy appointment, I was put on a new medication that would hopefully help me with recovering from my eating disorder. The plan was that I would try the medication for 6 weeks with increasing the dose each week and then I would have an appointment with my therapist to discuss how things were going and see if the dosage was correct.

But things didn’t turn out that way. I tried the medication for about a month before the side effects just became too much for me to handle. I really was hoping I could keep going, but it was affecting my life too much and the benefits weren’t worth it. I emailed my therapist to let her know I wanted to stop the medication and we worked out a plan for me to ease off of it. I’ve been lucky and the side effects I was experiencing went away very quickly. I haven’t been dealing with vertigo or numbness for a while now. And I don’t know if my period is going to be affected again this cycle, but at least it should be normal again soon.

Even though I stopped the medication already, I kept my appointment with my therapist. I figured that it would be good to keep it in case she wanted to talk to me more about stopping the medication and see if I was ok. And since it was a video appointment, it was easy to keep it and not have to worry about if the appointment wouldn’t be worth my time. I figured it would end up being a fast check-in and I was doing work at home while I was waiting for my therapist to get online.

And as expected, it was a quick check-in. She wanted to confirm that I was off the medication and that I was doing better. I think she was relieved that most of the side effects went away almost immediately. Unfortunately, the medication is very strong and a lot of people have reactions like I did. But it was worth trying it to see if it would help. We had no way to know how I would react until I tried, and now we do. And it did make me feel a bit better to find out that so many people have side effects. Even though I don’t feel like a failure for having them, I still felt better knowing that it was so common and not one of my medical weirdo moments.

Going over the medication was the main reason for the appointment, and we didn’t have much to discuss since I was off of it. She did want to check in with me to make sure that I’m doing ok emotionally and with everything else, and I was honest that I’ve been exhausted and dealing with a lot lately. But nothing that seems unmanageable or that I needed extra help with. It’s mainly something for me to be aware of and make sure that I take care of myself. I think my therapist was understanding with everything going on in my life and she was ok with me having a few extra things to deal with as long as I was handling them.

The last thing we went over was how I’m doing on Vyvanse. I know that she typically doesn’t prescribe it to patients and she’s following the protocol that my last therapist had. But I appreciate that she understands why I’m on it and wants to make sure that we don’t have to adjust anything. She did mention that we could increase my dosage, but I don’t want to do that right now. I feel like it’s a good amount for me and I do feel it helps. And I don’t want to increase until I feel like I do need more to get the help that I’m used to.

And that was pretty much it for my therapy check-in. We did set up my next appointment for 6 months from now and it will be another video appointment. Because my appointments are mainly medication check-ins, I don’t have to go as often as I used to. And every 6 months is pretty standard now for making sure I’m still doing ok and I don’t need anything to change. And of course, if something changes in my life and I need to go in sooner, I know I can make another appointment and go in person. But for now, I continue to be grateful for video appointments because they are so easy for me to do. And considering this appointment ended up only being about 5 minutes, it was nice to not have to drive 30 minutes there and back to do it.

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Default ThumbnailAnother Isolated Therapy Session (or My Anxiety Is Normal) Default ThumbnailIn Person Therapy (or Changing Some Things Up) Default ThumbnailA Super Easy Therapy Appointment (or Just Doing A Check-In) Default ThumbnailAn Easy Therapist Check-In (or Virtual Appointments Make Things Easier) Default ThumbnailAnother Therapy Check In (or Someone Sees Progress) Default ThumbnailLast Dentist Appointment For A While (or Not Really A Quick Appointment)

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