Tag Archives: journal

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Scheduling grief

I didn’t think to share this on my own, one of my wonderful friends suggested it.

I was reading a book in a waiting room and got triggered and was about to break down crying.

I took a deep breath and asked myself if I could wait until a better time. I thought through the day and figured out a time when I’d have more privacy and promised myself I would come back to this and allow myself to properly grieve and that I would do it today and not forget about it or stuff it down trying to ignore it. It was just a temporary pause for a better time.

And it worked, I was calm the rest of the day and when I sat down outside the library before my next appointment when I had about 20 minutes to spare, I asked myself what had triggered that moment originally. I remembered and was right back in it but this time I just curled over my knees and cried and let it out. I think I only cried for 5 or 10 minutes so I even had time to recover afterwards before walking to my appointment.

I’m sure this trick won’t always work, and it requires you trusting yourself (or your systems – like to do lists or alarms).

And when I say I ask myself, it’s more like I ask my inner parts. Something like “Hey gang, can we hold onto this until later today? I promise I won’t forget and just stuff it down.” That’ll be fore another post on IFS – Internal Family Systems.

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Using the Restroom

Bio break, relieving yourself, whatever you want to call it.

Is it bad to hold your pee? – Heba Shaheed – YouTube TLDR: It can be.

Instead of asking if someone needs to use the bathroom, try asking if they can try to empty their bladders (hint – your kidneys are always working, so the answer will always be that there was at least something in their bladder, even if they weren’t feeling the urge to go).

Good explanations of why you should empty your bladder now instead of later? This bathroom is much nicer than the one at <location> or we’ll be traveling and stopping to find one later will be hard or might make you miss out on part of <activities>.

After using the toilet, make sure to wash your hands!

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Hydration

Figure out if your sense of thirst works (part of interoception). If you can go hours without getting thirsty, it might not be working so well.

If your “thirsty don’t work” then building in a hydration habit is important to avoid dehydration.

Ted Ed: What would happen if you didn’t drink water? – Mia Nacamulli – YouTube

Habits: https://youtu.be/PZ7lDrwYdZc 
Effective practice: https://youtu.be/f2O6mQkFiiw

Water | Bunny’s Info-Dump (sweetpeastudio.biz)

Water Calculator: Water Intake Calculator – How much water should you drink per day? (gigacalculator.com)

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Post Covid Update

I haven’t updated in a while, mostly because I’ve been focusing on taking care of myself and accepting help.

I’ve been doing EMDR and it’s been helping me reframe my memories. At first I was doing it to recover from the trauma of being hospitalized for bipolar disorder. We’ve started working on my childhood trauma since then. This morning I was thinking about how Penelope said that the biggest impact for kids was when their moms got more support. This has been true for us because I’m able to be more regulated and present for my child, which I’ve written about before is their primary need.

One of the things that has come out of my bipolar diagnosis is being forced to focus on taking better care of myself and asking for or accepting help. I’ve been learning that ignoring my needs, such as disassociating from my pain, is one of my maladaptive strategies I’ve brought from my childhood.

One of the first stories I reframed with EMDR was about my elementary school worms.

The school I went to had one of those red dirt tracks out in the field. Whenever it rain the track would be covered in worms. During PE if it wasn’t raining, we would be told to run the track. It took me forever because I was avoiding stepping on the worms. Eventually I’d get in trouble for being squeamish. I was the only one reacting that way, so I was the wimpy freak. Re-examining it I realized that I was the only one sensitive and caring enough to want to avoid killing the worms by stepping on them. And instead of my kindness being honored it was dismissed.

I didn’t find out about the trait of high sensitivity until my late 20s or early 30s, so while I was able to do some reframing on my own, I didn’t realize how many formative memories I had with negative interpretations. And it was only recently working with my chiropractor that I realized how disassociated I was from my body and its pain signals.

I wouldn’t say I feel lucky to have bipolar, but I do feel lucky to have such a large caring network of friends and family to support me while I rewire my brain.

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Misophonia

I was looking at upgrading my 23andMe, but then I saw they mislabeled Misophonia. So I sent them a letter instead:

Misophonia was incorrectly labeled: (hatred of the sound of chewing) on https://you.23andme.com/chip-upgrade/
While that is the most well-known and common form, Misophonia is actually specific sound sensitivity. Having two family members who suffer from it and NOT the chewing form, it was disappointing to see 23andMe spreading misinformation.

Misophonia – Wikipedia

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Power over Pain

I’m recovering from the hour drive to and from the Stanford Pain Clinic but I am hopeful as they have Physical Therapists, Occupational Therapists and options for trigger point injections and emergency pain meds. I’m hopeful that after the PT/OT evaluations they’ll be able to refer me to someone more local that can help with the Muldowney Protocol.

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Parenting “rules”

With my child, in addition to discussing and agreeing on schedules & plans, we discuss rewards for success and consequences if he doesn’t hold up his end of a commitment (decision).

It’s so much easier to get my child to comply with their own plans if I can say: You wanted me to remind you that <child’s choice>.

If they still respond in an upsetting way, we’ve also agreed and written down consequences for unkind/rude/aggressive behavior.

That way I don’t have to make any parenting decisions on the fly and I can always check our family agreements if needed.

If a new situation comes up then my only job is to stay calm, observe and document so that we can problem solve together once everyone is calm.

One of our agreements is that either we discuss the problem and come up with a solution together or the person who is willing to discuss can decide on a solution on their own.

Either participate in decisions relating to you or they will be made for you.

There are so many decisions humans have to make that we build a web of trust so that we can outsource or automate all but the most urgent decisions.

The role of a parent is to teach a child how to make decisions or trust the decisions of others.

The first thing a human has to learn is to maintain the physical health of the body so that the brain can function optimally.

Much of that can be outsourced or automated as good habits.

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Here’s how stupid I can be

I was on the phone and this is what I wrote:

$1500*

On**

$281****

$proof of medical expenses*****

Lease agreement 958

1410******

-958

-500 something *******

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The above was what I wrote while on the phone in Google Docs Monday afternoon, adding my notes Tuesday morning.

*I already forgot what this was

** And this

***This is where I said “That’s a negative number. Does he get the full amount with that?” The answer was “Yes” and I started laughing and crying at the same time in relief that I didn’t have to get any proof of medical expenses (raise your hand if you HATE PAPERWORK) and then thanking the person profusely.

****Current maximum monthly benefit for a single adult as of writing this

*****The number I thought I needed to figure out to maximize benefits and minimize paperwork

****** Current SSDI as of writing this

******* Utilities default exemption

Nope, don’t care enough to make this a nice clean click through, this is just a log. If you need CalFresh help – look here or do a web search.