I Am My First Priority: Intentions for Focusing on My Quality of Life

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone. I paged through The Goddess Journaling Workbook again yesterday and saw the first prompt: “I am my first priority”. Okay, I did write about it already back in 2020, but I think I need to revisit it and set intentions for putting myself first. I know, we are often taught, especially in more conservative circles, that we need to put others first (or after Jesus, but ourselves last, in any case). Then some more leftist folks teach us about self-love as if it’s about essential oils and vegan smoothies. Which it could be, but this is not what I mean. Rather, self-love means being true to our own values over those imposed upon us by others. And that doesn’t need to be selfish.

Now of course I need to determine my values. I’ll narrow those down to what my major point is for being in care, ie. my main goal. This is quality of life. This may be obvious to most people who aren’t involved in the care system and it should be obvious to those who are too, but for many, the presumption of competence or the need to manage daily crisis behavior clouds their vision towards quality of life. In fact, I’ve even seen one care agency state that their aim is to “maintain and where possible promote” quality of life in their clients. Well, this is wording I’d expect to go with “independence”, not “quality of life”, since truthfully, quality of life can always be promoted.

So what does quality of life mean to me? It means that I decide what I spend my limited energy on. This doesn’t mean lazing around all day doing nothing and it doesn’t mean I won’t ever improve on my ADLs at all either. What it means is that I take the lead, focusing on my daily level of energy. I told one of my staff the other day that I would prefer if she doesn’t tell me to do something independently, but rather invites me by asking me whether I want to do it independently. In that case, she’s much more likely to get me to actually do it, as I don’t feel the pressure of her expectation, because I can say “No” if I don’t have the energy at that point.

It also means that I decide what activities to do during my allocated activity time. In my current care home, I have been sometimes not even consciously adapting to staff’s preferences for activities way more than I feel comfortable with. For instance, I’ve been taken on grocery shopping trips for the staff’s personal needs under the guise of an activity more than a few times. I eventually put a halt to that, saying I would only go if I too needed something from the supermarket. Another, even more frequent, example is my playing endless card or dice games because I’m assigned a new temp worker who comes across like they’re just here to pass the time. Yesterday, I was assigned one of those and had had it with dice and card games, so I thought, screw it, we’re making a smoothie. It turned out absolutely delicious!

It also means being intentional with my unsupported times. This means rather than mindless scrolling, doing actual reading, watching or listening online. I fully intend on blogging or at least journaling more often. If I can stop caring about my stats, maybe I can post here more often based on self-help journaling prompts. I didn’t collect those books for nothing, after all.

It means being constructive in my relations to my staff. It means being honest about my needs. For example, if a staff member (usually a new temp worker) causes me emotional flashbacks with something they do or say, rather than just telling them I feel in distress, I will hopefully be able to ask for a more trusted staff to intervene for a few minutes (which isn’t the same as demanding I be supported by all trusted staff).

Finally, I will also be constructive in contributing to my crisis signaling plan once it is revised at the new care home. My plan dates back to sometime in 2021 I believe and was immediately thrown out by my former support coordinator here because “it doesn’t work at this home”. What “works” here, however, doesn’t work for me, but that doesn’t mean my plan will be fully useable at my new care home. I will try to understand the staff’s perspective when updating the plan, but will still put myself first.

#WeekendCoffeeShare (September 2, 2023)

Posted on by Astrid

Hi everyone on this first Saturday of September. I’m joining #WeekendCoffeeShare, even though it’s waaay too late for me to have coffee. That is, I don’t usually feel the energizing effects that strongly, but I am sure the staff won’t let me have a cup of coffee anymore. Or anything to drink except for water, truthfully. So let’s have a glass of water and let’s catch up.

If we were having coffee (or a glass of water, but I always start my paragraphs like this and even my saying that is a cliché), first I’d share about the weather. We’ve had rain, clouds, some sunshine and daytime temperatures usually around 20°C. Today, the daytime high was 23°C and next week, we might even get temperatures as high as 28°C.

If we were having coffee, next I’d tell you about my movement. I haven’t been exercising as much this past week as I did last week and today I saw in my trends in the fitness app that my exercise has decreased. Of course it has, you’d say, if I haven’t been exercising as much this week as last week, but the trends compare the past 90 days to the past 365 days. I try not to care, even though I did sign up for a month-long challenge in the Challenges app for September.

Yesterday, when on a walk with my assigned staff, we compared data, since she also has an Apple Watch. I’m glad my cardio fitness level wasn’t much lower than hers. I mean, I would’ve felt bad for her if both of ours were low, but mine is in the below-average range.

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you that, on Thursday, my assigned staff and I went out to have lunch together. She’s off on vacation for the rest of September and I’ll (most likely) move this month, so we won’t see each other again. We both had a large salad, mine one with chicken, of course. We both also had a heavenly caramel coffee.

Today, I decided to gift my assigned staff the blue polymer clay unicorn with Hotfix rhinestones on it. I remember creating my very first unicorn here at the institution with her. I originally hadn’t intended on giving my polymer clay creations away, like I had done when moving out of the care home in Raalte, but then again if I take them with me to the new care home they will probably break during transport. I’ve seen a little too many staff come and go here to have a piece for everyone, but I have something for the ones I see most often.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I’ve been collecting books of journaling prompts once again. Amazon.nl now allows customers to pay for Kindle books with their bank account, for which I’m extremely grateful. Until last Monday, you could only pay for digital products with a credit card, which I don’t have, so I only downloaded free Kindle books. Now you still need a credit card for other digital products, but eBooks are an exception. And, of course, the first book I bought was a collection of journaling prompts. I also bought a collection of essential oil diffuser recipes. Each book cost under €3. I do need to make sure I won’t spend my money compulsively, as a search for “journaling prompts” in the Kindle store returns over 3,000 books. Then again, a lot are free at one point. For this reason, I acquired three new books of journaling prompts over the past few days, only one of which I paid for.

Lastly, if we were having coffee, I’d ask you all to cheer on my oldest niece as she starts school on Monday. She will be four on the 10th. I need to pop into the toy store tomorrow to buy her a present, as ordering something online won’t get it here on time for me to send it on to her.

How have you been?