Self-Diagnostic 4
Checking in on myself again, assessing how I think I’m doing. Here we go!
January was, in a lot of personal ways, a good one for me. I continued writing one handwritten page every morning when I get up. It goes like this: wake up, brush my teeth, feed the cat, get coffee brewing, write a page, reward myself with a piece of Dove dark chocolate, make a star on that day in my calendar, then get online and check my email and social media. I didn’t skip a single day (and have so far still only skipped writing one day, my birthday) and it’s helped me break the habit of checking my phone and getting sucked into the internet as soon as I wake up. I’m very proud of and pleased with myself for that. I started scheduling an hour every day just for writing (usually at night, but one days when my nights are busy, in the morning) and while I haven’t written every day, and when I do it’s not always for a full hour, I have been writing more than I have in a long time, which feels fantastic.
I also posted something on this blog or, more often, my other blog every single day in January, and when I did, I made a black X on that day in my calendar. I’ve very proud of myself for that, too, although the pressure to have something to post started to override any pleasure I got from actually writing, so I might not continue posting every day. Instead, I’ll concentrate on writing every day and when I feel like I’ve got something to post, I’ll post. If that happens to be every day, cool. If not, also cool. As long as I’m writing something every day, no matter how small or rough, even just playing around with random words and phrases, I’m a very happy camper.
One way in which January wasn’t a good month for me? My anxiety got pretty bad. I took a week off from most social media when I started getting overwhelmed with personal and political postings. After the break, I’ve found it easier to step away and not spend so much time and energy on things like Twitter and Facebook, but I still get sucked in pretty easily and my anxiety still gets triggered pretty easily. I had a kind of anxiety breakdown on Monday–not a huge one, but it was bad enough that I felt like I needed to take a hard look at my habits and how I’ve been dealing with things. I think I had a breakthrough yesterday and started working on getting tools together–some new, some old but neglected–to better deal with my anxiety and not let it control what I do and how I do it. Anxiety is fucking exhausting, folks, whether you’re fighting it or giving in to it. But giving in to it also brings up feelings of weakness and of being broken. When I’m fighting it, I might feel exhausted, but at least I feel like I’m doing something positive. So. Yeah. Fuck anxiety!
I think this means that overall, I’m doing really well. Our current political situation is very dire indeed, but I’m personally getting stronger and more agile. I think I’m being at least some of the change I want to see in the world. For that, I get a cookie.
