Blueberry's Journal

[Lingurine]

Good for you Blueberry 

Lingurine

[Blueberry]

Thank you, Lingurine! It turned out to be like an EF, and I haven't gone back to the work yet (though I have done other work in the meantime). But anyway the most important thing was that I consciously took the break so that I could even figure out that I was in an EF! You probably knew that, but important for me to notice that now again.

[Blueberry]

This is the continuation of a post I started under Three Good Things Today because the realisations I came up with while writing about the incident would have been way too much to write out in that space.

So here goes:
When I mentioned to the tradesman that the proposed solution - which I'll have to do myself every spring and fall - will be a bit tricky for me, since I'm not very good at 'handyman' jobs, he suggested I try it out right then and there!

This was the best idea because when I do things myself, I learn them. When somebody shows me and I don't get to try it out, I'm liable to forget and then when I have to do the action later, I automatically go into such an EF, that I can't do it. Or maybe I even go into an EF while the tradesman is explaining? Yes, that's it, the 'inner head' is nodding.

OK, so somebody explains something to me which I don't quite understand or can't picture and then presumably some sort of fear or panic sets in. Yes, that is also correct, I notice how I'm holding my breath. (So take a brief break and consciously breathe!) Aha, it is the old fear of that painful ridicule. Note to myself: Keep breathing! It's not easy for the breath to flow round the stopper in my throat, I have to keep concentrating on it, but I can do it.  So I go into an EF due to fear / panic when something is explained, even if I do understand on a cognitive level, I don't really understand enough to carry out the instructions later with my body (e.g. with my hands or feet)  and then the fear of not being able to do the job later makes me feel useless, worthless, hopeless, stupid, and then the whole problem compounds itself. So this has been a very useful exercise - writing out what happens in my mind and my feelings.

The great thing today was that some person who didn't even know me and isn't a therapist or doctor or anything like that realised what I needed in order to be able to keep solving the problem of my heating and got me to carry it out!
So now instead of feeling useless, worthless, stupid and potentially having to rely on somebody else every spring and fall, I'm feeling great, full of energy and the impulse to keep going! i.e. not to give up, stay in bed, curl into a depressive ball and give up again. Because something that is often so difficult worked out, I'm feeling self-confident!

I'm also feeling very tired with this realisation and with having remained in my emotions and in my physical body enough to write what was going on within me. So that's enough on this topic for now.  for doing all that in past few minutes and  for ending the post now.

[Elphanigh]

So glad to hear this!  Way to go Blueberry

Now go get some much deserved rest

[Blueberry]

Just a note to myself: it was good to read in here right now because I realise that the mental exhaustion and huge reluctance to get back to the work I mentioned on June 22/23 has to do with feeling into the EF that I normally experience when hearing or reading instructions, particularly when about actions to be carried out with my hands.

I had been thinking the reluctance was due to the type of work itself or because I stopped after I pulled out some hair. That may be the case in part too, but only in part.

It was still good to feel into the EF because that taught me a lot and this year therapy and healing have higher priority than work. The EFs connected to work with my hands are a major long-term problem which I've been working with on and off for a good few years.

I haven't spent the rest of the time since June 22 knowingly in an EF. I have done other things, including quite a lot which normally grounds me: being outside in the fresh air, cycling and walking in the forest, with other fairly safe people, talking about interesting topics, but not anything like therapy or emotional work. But I have been avoiding getting back to completing this work due tomorrow. But it does seem to me as if it's been a comparatively long time (4-5 days) since I was last working on that particular piece of work, but it's only been 3 days. That's one sign of not being completely in my present-day adult body and mind: remembered activities seem further away than they really are.

So for not the first time I was unknowingly in some minor form of EF, which can be re-triggered into a full-on one if I push too much in one way or another. So now I will try some foot-stamping, that usually helps me get back into present day adult body and mind.

[Blueberry]

Now I have done a little more work on the project due tomorrow. I can feel my brain beginning to spin and a fuzzy EF feeling coming so I need to take another break and I'm going to act on that. This is progress.  In the past I've often pushed myself to keep going, just another 15 minutes or another hour or something. Often that was very unhelpful because I couldn't work at all efficiently.

[Candid]

Huge kudos to you for your get-up-and-do while feeling rotten. 

[Blueberry]

From the outside I'm sure it looks like procrastination. I've known cognitively for a good number of years that it isn't.
Now I'm beginning to accept at a deeper level that my not getting on with my paid work or with any number of other things including giving my pet her medicine, doing the housework, taking my own meds, personal hygiene, doing things that are good and healing for me are not procrastination. It's not laziness, it's not lack of skills or lack of organisation in any kind of way that you could improve by doing a weekend course in "Organisation".

So what is it? EFs certainly some of the time. Other times it's intuition that something else is far more important, e.g. a different step in healing is paramount right now. Like writing this in here.                   

I also realised today that with the harder part of work I do (harder for me that is), I can work about half an hour and then I need a few hours break. Whereas the norm would be a few hours work and then a quick break of less than half and hour. Almost the exact opposite to what I can manage. Sometimes I even need a few days' break 

It could look as if I'm doing anything other than the work I'm meant to be doing, but actually this morning so far I've mostly been doing much easier things for which I had an impulse like laundry and hanging it out while there's such good weather to dry it, foraging for food for my pets, tidying up a little here and there, and even eating 2 small healthy meals (which I don't always do either, especially when working for pay). Impulses of that kind are generally good because they help my brain to sort itself a bit too and jobs like going into the garden to hang up laundry is grounding for me / helps to keep me grounded. (It wouldn't work if I was totally dissociated, but it's part of the day-to-day keeping myself grounded.)

There are also times when I'm incapable of tidying up at all or doing the laundry but am able to do the easier part of my job. So the important thing is that I'm beginning to accept these limitations more and at a deeper level, where thoughts don't reach. With accepting these limitations I'm beginning to accept myself better.  Mighty progress for me. 

Considering asking the client if she could wait till Wed. instead and I'll give her a bit of a discount. The job has been particularly useful for the above realisations rather than for the pay.

[Blueberry]

Considering asking the client if she could wait till Wed. instead and I'll give her a bit of a discount. The job has been particularly useful for the above realisations rather than for the pay.

Client accepted!

The rest of this post is over at CPTSD And Others / Employment.

[sanmagic7]

well done, blueberry!  and i'm very glad to hear that you're more and more getting into those little things that make up a familiar and comfortable routine for yourself.  i think that kind of thing is very important - it is for me.  still working on it, but it's coming together a bit at a time.

meanwhile, i hope you keep it up.  the garden is a grounding place for me, too.  big hug to you!

[Blueberry]

Later on I did my other type of work, the type that's easier for me. I ended it feeling so happy, almost elated! This is something I can do well! I don't feel I'm constantly struggling with it. Of course sometimes it isn't easy, sometimes I have trouble with the odd client especially Troublesome Client, and there are some days I can't be bothered because Or days when I'm in a low-grade EF and it's difficult, or it takes me a long time to prepare for it. But generally it's something I can do well, for which I get good feedback, and which energises me. And the rate per hour is much better, I earn proper money.

So once again thinking: take a break from the other type of work for a longish time e.g. till I'm further on in T or maybe until I have a real longing to do it again, if that ever happens, and if not, discontinue! Though there is a sub-type to the difficult and triggering type of work that I've always wanted to try and have been looking into a bit in the last few months. I think it will be less triggering for various reasons and also it's one of those things I've wanted to try for years but cognitive reasons have got in the way. There are some steps I could be taking there to see if I could in fact take it somewhere. After that I still could discontinue forever. But actually it won't run away if I give myself more time till I'm really ready to try it out.

[Blueberry]

I have a really bad cold or maybe it's tonsilitis which I tend to get when everything becomes too much. It's a shame, I had something fun planned today with other people.

I'd actually decided to hand back the work I was trying to do and had done so, and then got sick anyway. I must've taken too long in handing the work back. my body had decided to get sick by then as the only possibility in stopping me.

I probably won't be on here often in the next few days.

[Candid]

  I hope you feel better soon, Blueberry. In the meantime just focus on being well.

[sanmagic7]

feel better soon, sweetie.  funny how our bodies will let us know when too much is enough!  that's happened to me more times than i can count.  getting better at taking those breaks before it happens, which is nice.

rest, rest, and more rest, plenty of fluids, all that stuff.  it's the nurturing earth mother in me coming out.   

[Blueberry]

Thank you Candid and sanmagic! There are worse things of course. But I hate being sick in summer. Or this summer. I used to quite like being sick because it gave me a real excuse for lying in bed and sleeping half the day. But now I'd rather be up and around and doing things. But I'm too sick!