August 2023 Reflections #WBOYC

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. It’s the last day of the month, so it’s time for my monthly reflections. Overall, August was slightly better than July, but it’s still been quite a tough month. Honestly, it’s been quite a tough year so far.

My spouse’s car broke down a few weeks ago, so we weren’t able to see each other each week this past month. Last Sunday, though my spouse did visit me, it was in my mother-in-law’s car. Thankfully, the car has been fixed for now.

My mother-in-law also only visited me once this past month despite there being five Tuesdays in August and her normally visiting me every other Tuesday. On the 1st, she had to work and on the 29th, a new horse was delivered. The story behind her having gotten a new horse is a bit sad, in that one of her horses, Remco, passed away suddenly last month. I mean, he was already crippled, so could only step around a bit, but still his death was unexpected. The new horse is a young mare called Marrit.

Now on to my own life. It’s been boring. I’ve been mostly waiting to find out more about the move. Last Sunday, my support coordinator told me that I’ll move within six weeks, probably sooner. I honestly have mixed feelings about the whole thing. Obviously, I try to remind myself it can’t be worse than here, but what if it isn’t any better either? Will I be expected to magically flourish there just because it’s not this home? I’m hoping, of course, that I will eventually flourish, but this isn’t going to happen magically. Indeed, this requires work, both on my part and on the part of the staff.

I also, like I mentioned yesterday, have had an increase in flashbacks to my childhood trauma. Of course, I could hope this will lessen when (if?) I’m in a calmer environment, but still I’m pretty sure they won’t disappear without support.

In the health department, I’m doing pretty well. I had a meeting with the dietitian yesterday and she asked me not to lose any more weight. I’m not sure how to do this, truthfully, as I’m eating well overall. There’s also this thought at the back of my mind telling me that I could still lose 10kg and be at a healthy BMI. Besides, I still have quite a lot of abdominal fat and watched some YouTube videos a while back that mentioned the dangers of internal obesity. Then again, the dietitian told me there’s very little I can do about this. The YouTube videos tell me otherwise, but then again my healthy voice is telling me (or at least I’m assuming it’s my healthy voice) that following those YouTubers will just lead to extreme restricting, which will probably just cause me to relapse into bulimia. I’m still struggling intensely with all the things diet culture tells me about what to eat and not to eat to preserve my health and, at the same time, my dietitian has one foot right inside diet culture as well. After all, my food plan was a classic weight loss plan up until I reached a healthy BMI. Heck, the very fact that I mention the BMI here shows how much I’m into diet culture. I want to unlearn this, but I’m not sure how.

With respect to other health factors, I’m doing okay. I walk more than I did in July, have been swimming again and went on the stationary bike occasionally. That being said, I do worry about a decline in my mobility. This could be the YouTube videos again, which told me a loss of arm swing could be a sign of overall decline. I have absolutely no idea whether my arm ever swung at all though. That being said, my drop foot seems to be getting worse too.

I did finally get the eczema on my legs treated. I also got a slight infection on the skin of my earlobes, where I had my ears pierced in early July. I’m currently on a course of an antibiotic ointment, so hoping that’ll work.

In the crafty department, I haven’t been very active. I did create a lot of unicorns out of polymer clay, but they were all done using cutters, not sculpted. I intend to paint them and use them as gifts for my fellow residents when leaving this home.

I’m linking up with What’s Been On Your Calendar? (#WBOYC).

13 thoughts on “August 2023 Reflections #WBOYC”

  2. I really hope this new home will be better for you once you move there and that you’ll indeed be able to flourish there. It’s concerning though that you’ve been given so little information about it. I also hope you’ll be able to finally get some support for your trauma.

    Sorry to hear that you haven’t been able to see your spouse and mother-in-law much this month. So sorry about your mother-in-law’s horse’s death.

    I don’t know if this is going to be reassuring to you in any way or how common it is, but for what it’s worth, I have a feeling that arm swing might be off for a lot of people who are blind from an early age or have some additional motor issues, like cerebral palsy in your case and vestibular stuff and feet deformities in my case. I learned to swing my arms very late, it was never something natural or instinctive like it is for most people and I had no idea that people do it. Even now I don’t always swing my arms, especially not when I’m not feeling confident/safe around the space that I’m in, and I have to actually think about doing it. My Mum, who has quite obviously seen a lot of blind people over the years mostly at my school and who is a very keen observer and people watcher told me that a lot of other blind people don’t do that in a natural way either. So I think I wouldn’t necessarily worry that this has to mean your mobility is declining. I mean it sure means that it’s probably a bit off compared to an average sighted peep but I guess that’s to be expected when you’re multiply disabled.

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    1. Thanks so much for the reassurance about arm swing. Yes, that comforts me. Actually, the YouTube video wasn’t about mobility at all but about early signs of cognitive decline (and how to reverse them). I do experience slight cognitive decline but then again this could be due to my medication (at least I’ve heard anticonvulsants can cause this and I’m on two of them as off-label prescriptions for anxiety/PTSD). I try to remember that stressing out about my health won’t help at all.

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    1. Thanks so much. It’s mostly the uncertainty that scares me about the move and with me being quite a pessimistic person, I get all kinds of negative thoughts in my head. I try to put them into perspective though.

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