Achievements of the Day, Day One

I think I said this yesterday, but Dr. Mind is on vacation and I won't see him for 10 days to 2 weeks, depending on if someone cancels for the 10 days. Since I've been doing twice weekly visits the last few weeks and struggling, this is challenging. Usually if I'm not doing well before he leaves for a vacation we work towards getting to a level point that I can handle. Unfortunately this time it didn't work that way because I didn't really fall apart too much until last weekend and there wasn't time to get me stabilized. We did get off the hard topic, but just wound up with an even harder one: I still have limits and I have to start recognizing and respecting them.

Anyway, one of the things that came up Thursday was that I stayed home sick (and exhausted) and my stomachache finally went away when I talked to him for a bit and relaxed, then returned Friday morning when I knew I had to work. So we talked about how I need to just talk, whether it be to my cats, to a tape recorder, to myself in the car, to God, or just writing. He doesn't know I have this blog, although he does know that I do a lot of writing and only feel safe with writing where I can password things. This stems from having my diary read as a teenager and I no longer trust anyone to not invade my privacy. So I promised that if nothing else I would write a lot. I think I promised to write at least 4-5 times per week. Which I was doing until things started to get so stressful and my average posts have declined accordingly, which is backwards if I'm using this blog as a coping tool.

I realized that as I'm trying to learn to pay more attention to my body (ie, what hurts, when, and how much; it turns out that I don't like that because I'm realizing that first my ankle aches a lot and second if I pay attention I'm getting headaches daily after reading a lot, and since my meds mess with my vision I need to get to the eye doctor), I also need to pay attention to what I am doing that is good. So my goal is to try to find something every day that is an achievement, some tiny way I'm overcoming what feels so overwhelming right now and then when he comes back I'll actually have a positive list to give him along with all the stress.

So, here is the first day's achievements:

-I vacuumed. That doesn't sound like much but it is the first time I have used my own vacuum in about 8 years. I haven't been able to stand the noise. I did use my mother's once because she was coming back from vacation and the pet sitter had been a slob and I knew my mother would freak and was trying to help prevent some of it. But really, I haven't been able to stand a vacuum in over 25% of my life. I've had to have help for all that time.

-I shaved someone. That seems small and like part of my job. And it is. But thanks to a childhood experience that Dr. Mind finally gave me some information to help me understand that I may not have had enough understanding to realize that when I remember being attacked with shaving cream it may have been something else, I finally decided that it was time to try to touch something I've avoided for years. This man is dying and needed a shave and so I did it, bare-handed. The only other times I've touched the stuff has been with a layer or two of gloves on. He was so pleased; he is medically not showing drastic decline but talking like someone at the end and his heart barely works so I think he'll slip away by Monday. But one of his comments was "I'll look so good at the end now". Which made touching the stuff totally worth it.

And since I started at 4 AM and just finally got home at 8:45, I think I'm going to find some food and meds and get some rest. I just put in one very intense day and tomorrow I am grounded. I am allowed to sew and do laundry and make a pot of the soup of the moment (carrot orange ginger soup; this will be my 3rd batch. Taste aversions are so strange, and I did finally find proof that Emsam (the patch) does cause this in a very tiny percent of people and since my hospital doesn't use it much no wonder nobody had heard of it; it just hasn't come up because they've not had enough people on it) and read and play online and that is it.Oh, and I am allowed to work on the email for my boss that is going to explain that either I need my contract to decrease the stress or I need to move to another one after this one is up in about 6 weeks. And next weekend I'm on the same restriction for the whole weekend. That was another agreement with Dr. Mind. I have not rested nearly enough. The day I planned to rest on vacation I wound up going to see him for help dealing with the whole "broke my ankle and was too afraid to speak up" trauma.

So, more tomorrow. You all get to be my therapists this week. Let's see how you measure up to Dr. Mind. After all, if you're good enough you could save me a lot of money.......:)