Hey there
So, it's December of the Terrible Year.
We've settled in living with Mum, and that part of things is going well. We're doing 95% of the cooking and quite a bit of the in-and-out cleaning, and that's giving Mum the freedom just to focus on her work and her genealogy stuff. We're splitting the costs of the shopping, and giving Mum $100 a week outright that contributes to household bills and goes to paying off the loan she gave us for the car.
Health-wise, physically, I'm doing well. I'm getting to the gym most days. I've added some strength training on top of my walking, and for the walking, I've been averaging 8km in about 73 minutes. I weigh about 72kg right now, which is more than my goal weight of 65kg, but it's not getting worse, which I think is down to the fact that I've been trying my best to eat well and limit myself to a single treat a day. Not always successfully, but I'm not doing badly.
Mental-health-wise, things aren't as good. My anxiety is bad. My mood is vacillating between miserable and blank a lot of the time. I'm doing everything right - diet, taking my medication, exercising, talking myself down and through things, breathing, breathing, breathing, sleeping regular hours. But I still feel like crap, and living through that is really difficult. The anxiety is the worst - it's so debilitating and pervasive. I've stopped the caffeine again but the anxiety persists.
I'm knitting, trying to get through our stash and resupply our market stock. Today I haven't done any, though, because it's felt too difficult. I've been getting into Bones, which I'd never seen at all before, and I'm enjoying season one Temperance and Zach as such autistic characters, but today I'm back listening to Leverage commentaries because even watching cooking shows on Foxtel was getting too stressful. The white noise of commentaries I've heard before is a known quantity. I knit a bunch of things for other people, but right now I'm knitting a tank top for myself from a green verigate bamboo tape yarn. It's looking good but it's got three seperate charted sections, and I'm too vague to follow it properly right now.
I'm reading a lot of books. I'm on book two of the Deverry books, and very much enjoying stepping back into Kerr's universe. I'm reading through all the Poirots, purely because I never have before, and I'm up to Cards on the Table, the first of the bunch with Ariadne Oliver. I'm also partway through The Heart of a Woman by Maya Angelou - the fourth of her autobiographical series - and I'm on to Anne's House of Dreams in my L.M. Montgomery reread. I've got so much fan fiction open to read that I just haven't touched because I keep navigating back to published books.
Speaking of published books, I got a bunch the other month that should see me through to mid next year. I got the Agent of Hel trilogy by Jacqueline Carey, The Immortal Empire trilogy by Kate Locke, White Jenna by Jane Yolen, Tortall and Other Lands and Mastiff by Tamora Pierce, The Good The Bad and The Uncanny, Just Another Judgement Day and The Bride Wore Black Leather by Simon R Green, Passion Play by Sean Stewart, Omens by Kelley Armstrong, Children of the Night and Jinx High by Mercedes Lackey, Amazing! Fantastic! Incredible! by Stan Lee, and She-Hulk Vol 1 by Pulido and Soule. All came used from Betterworld or from Basement Books in Sydney which deals in remainders.
The tomatoes we planted are starting to fruit. Watering daily is a pain, though, It's just so dry right now.
I want to get more done round the house - the craft room, which is still disorganised crates, or the verandah, which is half storage, a lot of which is trash - but it's hot, and I'm finding it hard to get off the couch, so I keep not doing anything. Fortunately, Mum's been keeping up with the lawn and some other yard stuff, because if it was up to me, it'd be completely overgrown.
It's hard to feel like I do, knowing I'm actually doing a lot better at keeping up with things than I was before we moved in here, but only seeing everything I'm not getting done. I know it's distorted - I'm not unaware of the effect of my brain on reality - but it doesn't make the experience of it any easier, knowing it's not accurate.
This entry was originally posted at http://iamshadow.dreamwidth.org/429597.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
We've settled in living with Mum, and that part of things is going well. We're doing 95% of the cooking and quite a bit of the in-and-out cleaning, and that's giving Mum the freedom just to focus on her work and her genealogy stuff. We're splitting the costs of the shopping, and giving Mum $100 a week outright that contributes to household bills and goes to paying off the loan she gave us for the car.
Health-wise, physically, I'm doing well. I'm getting to the gym most days. I've added some strength training on top of my walking, and for the walking, I've been averaging 8km in about 73 minutes. I weigh about 72kg right now, which is more than my goal weight of 65kg, but it's not getting worse, which I think is down to the fact that I've been trying my best to eat well and limit myself to a single treat a day. Not always successfully, but I'm not doing badly.
Mental-health-wise, things aren't as good. My anxiety is bad. My mood is vacillating between miserable and blank a lot of the time. I'm doing everything right - diet, taking my medication, exercising, talking myself down and through things, breathing, breathing, breathing, sleeping regular hours. But I still feel like crap, and living through that is really difficult. The anxiety is the worst - it's so debilitating and pervasive. I've stopped the caffeine again but the anxiety persists.
I'm knitting, trying to get through our stash and resupply our market stock. Today I haven't done any, though, because it's felt too difficult. I've been getting into Bones, which I'd never seen at all before, and I'm enjoying season one Temperance and Zach as such autistic characters, but today I'm back listening to Leverage commentaries because even watching cooking shows on Foxtel was getting too stressful. The white noise of commentaries I've heard before is a known quantity. I knit a bunch of things for other people, but right now I'm knitting a tank top for myself from a green verigate bamboo tape yarn. It's looking good but it's got three seperate charted sections, and I'm too vague to follow it properly right now.
I'm reading a lot of books. I'm on book two of the Deverry books, and very much enjoying stepping back into Kerr's universe. I'm reading through all the Poirots, purely because I never have before, and I'm up to Cards on the Table, the first of the bunch with Ariadne Oliver. I'm also partway through The Heart of a Woman by Maya Angelou - the fourth of her autobiographical series - and I'm on to Anne's House of Dreams in my L.M. Montgomery reread. I've got so much fan fiction open to read that I just haven't touched because I keep navigating back to published books.
Speaking of published books, I got a bunch the other month that should see me through to mid next year. I got the Agent of Hel trilogy by Jacqueline Carey, The Immortal Empire trilogy by Kate Locke, White Jenna by Jane Yolen, Tortall and Other Lands and Mastiff by Tamora Pierce, The Good The Bad and The Uncanny, Just Another Judgement Day and The Bride Wore Black Leather by Simon R Green, Passion Play by Sean Stewart, Omens by Kelley Armstrong, Children of the Night and Jinx High by Mercedes Lackey, Amazing! Fantastic! Incredible! by Stan Lee, and She-Hulk Vol 1 by Pulido and Soule. All came used from Betterworld or from Basement Books in Sydney which deals in remainders.
The tomatoes we planted are starting to fruit. Watering daily is a pain, though, It's just so dry right now.
I want to get more done round the house - the craft room, which is still disorganised crates, or the verandah, which is half storage, a lot of which is trash - but it's hot, and I'm finding it hard to get off the couch, so I keep not doing anything. Fortunately, Mum's been keeping up with the lawn and some other yard stuff, because if it was up to me, it'd be completely overgrown.
It's hard to feel like I do, knowing I'm actually doing a lot better at keeping up with things than I was before we moved in here, but only seeing everything I'm not getting done. I know it's distorted - I'm not unaware of the effect of my brain on reality - but it doesn't make the experience of it any easier, knowing it's not accurate.
This entry was originally posted at http://iamshadow.dreamwidth.org/429597.html. Please comment there using OpenID.