I am absolutely the last person you want to take lifestyle advice from. I am not what you would consider a fully functioning adult. Heck my goal is to become a “I can manage this” adult. I know big dreams there Boblin, slow down you might hurt yourself. As I sit here writing this, I realized I have already implemented this idea in my life in a few ways the catch; there’s always a catch. My needs were tied to something I thought was more important ‘then myself; therefore I didn’t see it as taking care of me. Do I hate myself that much, that’s a conversation my therapist and I will be having. Yes, I have one; fabulous been seeing them for years. Make therapy a priority, don’t use your friends as a therapist. Let them be your friend, once I started regularly seeing a therapist all my relationships improved. Who would have thought the person trained and schooled is 100% more unbiased and maybe I am reaching here qualified to therpapize (I am making up words) you.
Back to the post at hand; turns out making take care of myself a non negotiable is something I absolutely fail at. Except medication compliance; which with someone with my goblin brain is shockingly good at. I wasn’t at first but I put it in the routine after taking care of my animals and all of them including FootFoot would get upset if I didn’t do the whole routine. I don’t know where they get these neurotic tendencies, our current furry overloads have added their own touches to the bedtime routine. I promise I will break down the whole over the top multi step bedtime routine in another post. Current residents get aggressive if we try to go to bed at the wrong time. Yes I take meds that need food; I eat a protein rich snack at bedtime. I may not be the thinnest I can be but I found a system that works (like almost a decade of success here.) so me and my bedtime snack will stay.
So I realized that if I want to become the best Boblin; I have to make Boblin a non negotiable. Over winter break (everyone else in my house had like 13 days off) I really took the time to think about how I could be better at this life bullshit.
One of the first things I realized is that if I consumed fuel for my body regularly instead of waiting until I was an angry over hungry beast. I bet it would help my mood regulate. The egg is on my face. I have eaten breakfast for the past ten days; made an effort to eat lunch regularly. And I am already seeing results. I really didn’t want all those crunchy insta moms to be right 💀, I still drink my one cup of coffee but it is after I eat now. Oh and I am giving up coffee creamer (because I left my creamer on the counter and I do this far to often. I am tired of throwing away half used containers of creamer. It isn’t for health reasons, it is because I am lazy.) I eat some variation of the same thing, will until forever. Because I hate breakfast, and the idea of making that many choices first thing in the morning is too overwhelming. I eat two pieces of toast with a spread, and something on top of it. (Example: sourdough toast {store bought, because I can barely keep myself alive. I am not adding more} cream cheese, avocado cup (I buy them in bulk at Sam’s), and a piece of chookie board meat (I literally buy one of the fancy board packs of meats separate them and freeze the ones until I need them). I am no dietitian but it is better then a cup of coffee full of coffee mate and flavored syrup. I will follow up in a bit to see how this goes but 10 days in seen enough changes to make me eat breakfast the next day. I try to drink water with my food every morning. Will I be 365/365 probably not but my goal is never go have two days in a row where I don’t eat regularly.
If you have been around me on the internet for the past decade you know I was pretty heavy into to pretty paper planning. And then 2020 happened and I just couldn’t anymore. I don’t really miss the pretty planning but I did miss aspects. So my notes app my look like a squirrel at a rave went wild but ten days in I am getting so much more done everyday. I hate how every post about getting your life together talks about planning the day the night before; because they are right 🙄. As part of the multi step process of going to bed; we break a million sleep rules by watching a show in bed. While that show is on; in my notes app. I loosely map out how I would like my day go. I also pick what I want to wear putting it in the note. The less decisions I have to make to keep moving forward turns out everything doesn’t come to a screeching halt. So I try making as many choices as I can; I know this sounds dumb. It might be; but it works for my personal hell of neurodivergence. Also have other notes of stuff I want to get done in the foreseeable future to reference.
I know the next part comes from a place of privilege because I am able to take myself and my family to all these appointments. I have not had an inpatient visit for therapy since 2020, my appt time is first thing in the morning. I usually drink my coffee and have therapy. One of my kids has an after workday appt time; so both my spouse and alternate taking them. They do better with in person but if we need to both of theirs can be Telehealth also. Everyone in my house respects the privacy of those who is in session, I know not everyone has that safety or option.
I briefly talked about this in the beginning; taking care of my mental health. This did not come naturally; I actually thought it was selfish and I was taking money away from my very tight family budget at first. 2012 a decade this coming March. I ended up inpatient when my youngest was 6 months old. So I didn’t start this journey until I was circling the drain. Now in 2023, 3/4 of are in therapy (because they ask to go; one took a long break and then this fall asked to go back). It is a line item in our budget; our insurance is through the marketplace but I did a ton of digging and therapy copay is extremely low. Our insurance premiums have risen since we got this plan in 2017; it isn’t the Land Rover of policies but our meds and mental healthcare copays are low; which is what we use the most. Sometimes there is a lot of legwork in the beginning of this journey. And if you need help and don’t have all the sporks to do it at once. Break it down; it to manageable bites. It might take a few practices to find a mental health providers to find the right fit. That is okay, sometimes staying with a care team even when you know it is a bad fit so you don’t loose access to meds is okay too. I have done it; I stayed with a provider for too long because the idea of jumping through all the hoops was too much. Sometimes just being consistent is enough, this is more for psychiatrists (if a therapist doesn’t work. Find another as soon as you can, it may take a few sessions to figure out you aren’t vibing). It may feel selfish but bettering yourself is never selfish and always worth it. I don’t do weekly therapy; I go biweekly in a perfect world. In reality between our two schedules; it averages out to one-two times a month. I have been stable enough to go to the psychiatrist once every 90 days. They have wanted to extend to once every six months but i personally don’t feel that stable yet. The hormone changes of perimenopause and pmdd are a beast to figure out. I will say we made sacrifices to make this happen; a decade ago I would’ve said oh my can skip this stuff if the budget needed tighter. It took time to realize that I am a much more pleasant person when I make my mental health a nonnegotiable. My children’s is mental is also a nonnegotiable, I want them to have the tools and be equipped for the things that this life my throw at them then I was. And if that means we don’t take fancy trips, drive newest cars; that’s okay. I had parents obsessed with what the world saw; I want my kids to love themselves and all that comes with it. I will add from 2013-2016 we had one car and my husband was active duty, it wasn’t easy but my cheerleader husband was like you deserve to live a life where you don’t hate yourself. Yes this is a lot of appointments but years ago I realized if we cancel them we are hurting ourself. This is so much easier since both my psych and therapist are Telehealth. I saw them for years in person before 2020 happened and both are completely comfortable with us staying telemedicine for now. If that changes, I will probably complain but we make the appointment as we are leaving the current appointment. As soon as it is scheduled it becomes a non negotiable time on the calendar; like cancel other plans to be at the doctor. This is probably the first thing that became nonnegotiable in my life and will remain there. My inner circle know when I am slipping here and don’t hesitate to tell me “whens the last time you went to therapy” if things are really off “I think you should probably try to get in with your psych”. This hurt when people said this at first but my circle is full of people who are TEAM BOBLIN; this took time. None of these people say this ever as a weapon or to be mean. It is always out of noticing I am a storm cloud instead of a rain cloud,
I haven’t always been good at making myself non negotiable. I really sucked at it when my kids were really small. And slowly I realized when I put my oxygen mask on myself first. It was easier to tackle what life threw at me. I wasn’t a terror to be around; because I didn’t hate everyone and everything all the time. I still dislike myself most of the time still; I am working on that. I find the rest of the world tolerable now. What can I say; I am not a rose colored glasses goblin. It may take time, there will be times where it feels like you are burdening others by taking care of yourself. I promise you are worth it (as I say to myself).
Awkward Club 