A couple of weeks ago I was spiraling pretty hard. I had felt hopeless and like I was trapped. I had suicidal ideation. I almost felt the way that I did when I was in prison.
On top of that, I became really forgetful. I'd lose track of tasks that I meant to complete. I'd get distracted in the middle of tasks and forget to return to them. I felt like a scattered mess.
But, this week, I've finally started holding myself to a daily schedule. I'm only on my third day of it, but the first two went well. I kept busy and felt like I'd done something worthwhile at the end of the day. It's not a regular schedule (the things that I do every day like meditating, taking medication, tending to the animals), but I've been making it every night right after taking notes about the things I did that day. It's really just a to-do list with specifically scheduled times for each of the "do"s along with any appointments that I may have. I've given myself a little grace to deviate when things come up, but so far, so good.
It occurred to me while meditating that I've kind of always needed extra scaffolding to keep me on track. Working as a high school teacher, I had a pretty regimented built-in schedule. The periods followed a predictable sequence (most of the time), and I had clear deadlines for the things I needed to do. But, I learned early in my career that if there was anything extra that was expected of me, I could not be trusted to do it unless I put it into my calendar. Meetings, conferences, atypical paperwork deadlines. All these would fall by the wayside if I didn't set reminders. The faculty would help each other remember to some extend, which was also helpful, but a lot of the time I was the only teacher who needed to attend a conference or meeting.
It makes sense that I need some kind of scaffolding in my daily life now. I've always been good at taking care of the things that need to be done--especially if those things involved my responsibility to someone or something outside of myself. I've never really held myself responsible for taking care of my own needs besides rest, relaxation, and recreation. Doing things for myself that weren't pleasant has been a struggle for a long time. Finding the self-discipline to hold myself responsible hasn't been easy. But, I'm giving it my best right now.
Busy mind during meditation this morning (and that's ok! My meditation teacher showed me that I know so little about how meditation--at least this variety--actually works). Here are some other thoughts that passed through my 20 minute session.
- Thinking about how easy it is to hear the trains pass, even though I live some distance from the tracks. That turned into wondering what the straight line distance between my house and the tracks might be. That led to wondering how that compared to shortest driving distance from the tracks. That led to an estimate that the driving distance was probably only up to 10% longer than the straight line distance. That led to me wanting to calculate both and see if I'm right.
- Thinking about how I really need to find some volunteer opportunities, especially on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve/Christmas. This is my first holiday season (on the outside) without Celia or Granny, and I'm not looking forward to it.
- Thinking about how I'd like to be able to go into nursing homes with a guitar and play a few songs for the residents. I could start with a short setlist of popular music from the 40's, 50's, and 60's and then take requests for the next time. I think I'd find that really rewarding. It would get me out of the house and give me a project. It would get me making music regularly. It would make me feel like I was doing something to improve someone else's life. I should action this plan, but my hesitation to make phone calls that aren't strictly necessary is an obstacle.
- Thinking about moving my things from storage in Shreveport into storage in Natchitoches. That led to thinking about giving some of my hoard of objects away as Christmas gifts.
- Thinking about how I'm going to be working on my LinkedIn profile with help from my resume' coach, but how I'm going to have to put my charges on there because LinkedIn is considered a social media account. I'm pretty sure that this kind of compelled speech is unconstitutional, but when I tried to reach out to the ACLU about it, I found a page on the Louisiana Chapter's website that said they were not taking new cases as of December 2021. Went on to think about how maybe putting it there is OK. I think part of living a successful life as a PFR (Person Force to Register) is not trying to hide from it. But I'll talk to my resume' coach about that tomorrow.
- Thinking about how I'm increasingly sure that I have ADHD that I've never managed because I didn't realize it was there. There are lots of reasons that I may write about in more detail, but one that I noticed today is how I almost always find myself fiddling with something when my hands aren't occupied. Whenever I'm on a video call with my therapist or doctor or one of my coaches, I will pick up some object off my desk and play with it. I bought a Koosh Ball for the nostalgia a week or so again and it's been a good fidget toy--even though the dogs keep getting it and eating some of it's tendrils away. I also think that this tendency to fiddle with things is probably part of the reason why I'd been drawn to model-making, action figures, and ring making. It's weird when you realize things about yourself that are obvious but you'd never grabbed on to before.
- Thinking about how I wanted to make note of all these thoughts because otherwise they might get lost.
- Thinking about at least 2 or 3 other things that did, indeed, get lost. Maybe I'll find them again.
