Hey y’all. I wrote a whole entry today, and then I realized that it was full of information that I wouldn’t want a total stranger to read… so I didn’t publish it. I miss LiveJournal and FB’s privacy settings something fierce right now, but I’m also very glad that I’m starting to have more of a filter about what I’m willing to share with total strangers all over the world. It’s an important boundry to find.

I did, however, make something for myself that may be helpful for others, so I’m linking to it here.

Happiness Is Homemade — Daily Worksheet

This worksheet goes through the 4 exercises that I do every day to help me combat my brain’s natural tendency to gravitate to the negative.

3 Great Things About Yesterday requires you to remember good things about the immediate past. I’m a big fan of trying to focus on 3 Great Things that I had no control over whatsoever — like great weather, or getting a phone call from a friend. This exercise is about appreciation.

When I was at the absolute darkest part of depression, my list looked like this:

1. Still Alive
2. Not In the Hospital
3. Adam Hasn’t Left Me

3 Things I Deserve A Sticker For requires you to think about what your day has been like and give yourself credit for doing things that may have been challenging. For a while there, “Changing poopy diapers” was on my list every day. For the last week, “Fighting the urge to check social media” has been on there.  I messed up a little today. But that’s how growth works — we try our best, we mess up, and then we try again as our best gets better. In any event, this exercise is about giving yourself credit where it’s due.

3 Things I’m Looking Forward To requires you to use your imagination to envision anything positive at all occurring in your future. This can be especially challenging if you’re deeply depressed or you’ve totally embraced nihilism and are just wondering at what moment nuclear annihilation is going to unmake our entire species.

I’ve had to remove the following 3 from my list because it was the same list every day for a long time, though they’re still there:

1. Having good conversations with Henry.
2. Henry using the potty consistently, like a big boy.
3. A future with autonomous vehicles that I can access.

Gratitude Rampage is an open-ended exercise that you can do for 5 or 10 minutes — or more if you prefer. You simply sit there and list (for whatever amount of time you’ve chosen) everything you can think of that you’re grateful for/happy about in that moment.  The practice requires you to think about how you’re feeling in the moment and to not ignore the positive things in your life that are currently occurring.

If you can, print this out and fill it out by hand. Your brain gets more from writing than it does from typing.

Well, the last few weeks have been… interesting.

My mom came in town last Wednesday (2/1) and stayed with us all the way until yesterday. We were together for an entire week and a half…and it took over a week before I completely lost my shit on her.

On the one hand, I see that as immense growth. After starting EMDR therapy for PTSD and realizing years of repressed anger, I used to only be able to handle being around her and being kind/civil for about 3 days at a time before becoming an overly-emotional reactionary mess…so going more than a week is deserving of a high-five at the very least.

On the other hand, I’m still sick at my stomach for losing it on her in the first place, on the day before she left. I said shit that was mean and that I don’t actually think. Don’t get me wrong, I apologized, and we’re good now — but I really wish that I had more emotional control when I’m already triggered and am trying, desperately, to regain rationality.

Truth of the matter is, keeping my anxiety in check has been nearly impossible since Trump took office. The amount of irrational fear that I was experiencing when he announced the travel ban was enough on its own — but all of the internet think pieces forecasting the demise of all of humanity was just too much for me.

I lost my damn mind one morning because Adam didn’t understand how totally important it was to leave the country immediately (even though he and Henry didn’t have passports yet) and ended up going for a long walk in my nearly threadbare pajamas in 12 degree weather until I could cool my jets and act like a semi-reasonable human being.

In the twenty minutes-or-so that I was gone, Adam called my mom and my therapist.  I’m glad he realized that he didn’t need to call the cops this time… because we all know, he’ll do it if he needs to.

Social Media Changes

The first major change that occurred when I got home is that we put a site blocker on my laptop. If I try to go to Facebook, I get redirected to Cute Overload. If I try to hit Twitter, I’m redirected to ICanHazCheeseburger. If I try to go to Reuters or the Associated Press, it sends me straight to FailBlog.  Because, let’s be real… the news is full of fail right now.

I haven’t read my Facebook or Twitter news feeds in nearly 2 weeks, though I have kept Messenger around for PMing with friends. I both miss feeling “in the know” about what’s going on in my friends lives and in the world around us — and don’t at all miss feeling the near-constant panic that comes along with Facebook’s ability to show you the same bad news 10 different ways with 10 different click-bait-worthy headlines all foreshadowing imminent doom… And I sure as shit don’t need to scroll past comments showing that there really are morons out there who both want to fight for fetal “rights” and also stop those same babies from ever being able to be covered by insurance… or women who simultaneously scream that racism is over and that they don’t need feminism because they have Jesus, but don’t understand why white, affluent rapists don’t get sent to prison.

Truly, I always knew those folks were out there. Shit, I grew up in around a ton of them… (you don’t have members of your own high school drumline drawing swastikas on your practice pad and books and get to ignore the rise of NeoNazim in the South) but I don’t have to read their hate-filled, scarcity-based fearmongering.  I don’t even have to see that it exists and scroll past it. I can stop tuning in.  I wouldn’t watch FoxNews or CNN all day, so why would I let the 24 hr news cycle rule my social feed?

Instead, I downloaded Instagram and SnapChat.  There’s almost zero in the way of political crap, and that suits me fine. I’m actually seeing more personal pictures and am reading about what’s going on in the lives of my friends, which is what I actually care about.

I also do not understand SnapChat yet… because sometimes I want to see what someone said again, and I can’t get it to replay.  It’s frustrating. I swear I’m not a luddite, btw… just a little lazy, considering everything else going on in life.

But my real new addiction?  A game called Habitica. I’m still learning it, but I think it’s is one of the best possible changes in my life.  It has multiple to-do lists that you can populate with what you need to, and it gives you experience points and loot for living in integrity with your intentions.

It also doesn’t hurt that I have both a cotton-candy pink wolf and a royal purple tiger cub as pets that I got for remembering to brush my teeth, take my meds every morning and night, and eat 3 meals a day, every day this week. (It’s the little things, for real.)  It tickles me that I’m going to be getting fake gold coins for remembering to make social contact with people I like at least 3 times a week.

Anyway, much as I’d like to keep writing, Henry is up from his nap, and we have limited daylight left to take a walk on a beautifully sunny 48 degree Sunday afternoon. So, for now, I’m gonna wrap it up.

I’m not dumping my thoughts in 140 characters or easy/fast/thoughtless status updates anymore… so, I think we all know where my significant updates will be found. (Right here.)  That also means that if you want to comment on any blog entry where I can see it, you’re gonna need to comment right here and not on Twitter or on FB. I won’t see either of those. 

P.S. – I finally bit the bullet and contacted Pace Paratransit. Sometime in the next month or so, Henry and I should have significantly more freedom to get around. Cabs are fucking spendy.