#WeekendCoffeeShare (August 11, 2018)

Posted on by Astrid

I did the #WeekendCoffeeShare for a while on my other blog, but stopped eventually. Now that I’m getting this blog up and running, I think I’ll participate again. I’m currently having a cup of organic green tea with my mother-in-law, but if you’d like coffee, that’s fine with me too.

If we were having coffee, I’d ask you how you’re doing. I hope you’re all doing as well as possible. I hope the weather is good where you are. It is here. For me, that means not soaring hot anymore but not chilly either.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I started new day activities last Monday. My first week as a whole was as good as my first day. I have been doing a variety of different activities, both indoors and outdoors.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I’m still enjoying this blogging adventure. It is a challenge to blog everyday, but so far I’m meeting that challenge head on.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I am considering exploring a low-FODMAP diet for irritalbe bowel syndrome. I discussed this with my mother-in-law, who is trying this too. It is pretty compliicated, particularly the elimination phase, but it may be worth trying. I was provisionally diagnosed with IBS in 2013 after a colonoscopy, bloodwork and a stool sample all came back normal, even though I’m not a classic case. I’m already pretty sure artificial sweeteners trigger my IBS. I consume those in relatively large quantities, as I tend to believe they’re an excuse to consume sweetness without gaining weight. Thankfully, with low-FODMAP, you don’t need to stop eating products that may be triggering altogether. IBS, after all, is painful and annoying, but it is not dangerous.

If we were having coffee, I’d share that I’m enjoying the day at my in-laws. My husband is visiting his grandma, who had a stroke a few weeks back. Unfortunately, due to her cognitive decline, she probably won’t recognize me, so I am not going with him. I’m so happy that I can stay at his parents’, because I don’t like being alone all evening. My father-in-law made a delicious pizza for dinner.

So what have you all been up to lately?

Weekly Gratitude List (August 3, 2018) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

It’s Friday again, so it’s time for Ten Things of Thankful or #TToT. I loved all the positive comments on my post last week. My apologies to those I haven’t commented back on. One of the reasons is the fact that I struggle to comment on Blogspot blogs. However, I may also have been too distracted to comment. Anyway, with no further ado, here are the things I’m grateful for this week.

1. Having had a barbecue with the in-laws. That is, my mother-in-law wasn’t there, but my father-in-law and two sisters-in-law were. The food was delicious and we had a great time.

2. My having lost weight despite not following a healthy diet too strictly and not having exercised much at all. I really hope and in fact I believe I can stick to this healthy’ish lifestyle for a long while.

3. The fact that I click well with the Center for Consultation and Expertise consultant assigned to my case.

4. Good sleep in spite of the hot weather. It’s still over 30 degrees Celsius at midday. Like I said last week though, my husband got us a fan for in our bedroom. As a result, I’m sleeping pretty well.

5. Watching documentary series on Netflix. I haven’t completley figured it out, but it works okay.

6. The fact that my computer hasn’t died yet. It is over four years old and incredibly slow, has two broken keys and many programs aren’t working. I cannot get a new computer yet though. After all, for a new computer, I’d need a new version of my screen reader, which is very expensive and won’t be paid for by health insurance unless I get a prescription from a blindness agency, for which I’m on the waiting list. Thankfully, the two broken keys aren’t letters and I have gotten used to the slowness of things.

7. On a related note, the fact that I finally figured out how to subscribe to blog feeds in my favorite feed reader on this broken PC. This used to only work in Firefox, which is one of the programs no longer working with my outdated screen reader. However, I finally worked my way around this and can now subscribe in IE. This means I can finally follow new blogs I discover.

8. Having still kept up with this blog. I don’t write as much as I did last week, but at least I still manage to write at least one blog post everyday.

9. Snack veggies. My husband bought a bucket of cherry tomatoes and a bucket of snack cucumbers on Tuesday, but I forgot about them until he reminded me yesterday. Now I can enjoy snacking without guilt.

10. The hugs, cards and presents I got from the people at my now old day activities. The leave-taking was bittersweet but I truly loved how nice everyone was.

What have you been thankful for lately?

Friendly Fill-Ins Week #115

Posted on by Astrid

I discovered Friendly Fill-Ins already a few months ago and participated on my other blog a few times. However, I didn’t like it that my posts always came out way shorter and less “serious” than I intended my blog for. I felt they were cluttering my blog. Well, since this blog is quite chaoitc anyway, I’m giving it a try here.

This week’s questions are:


  1. I deserve a gold star for _________________ today.

  2. Right now, I am loving _____________.

  3. The best advice I’ve ever been given is _________.

  4. If I had to choose a new first name, it would be _________.

My answers

1. I deserve a gold star for blogging so much today. This is my third post for today. I have a rule on my other blog that I can’t post more than once a day and I can’t post less than once a month. Also, posts have to be at least 300 words long, because I seem to remember shorter posts (especially without pictures) are bad for your Google ranking. Now, on this blog, I don’t care about my Google ranking.

2. Right now I am loving the WordPress community. I guess I take my other blog a little too seriously, because I didn’t like connecting with personal/journal-style bloggers. IN fact though, I love this type of bloggers and am so glad to be interacting with them now.

3. The best advice I’ve ever been given is to live your life. I don’t really know who said that, and maybe it’s a combination of advice I’ve received, but I agree. My life is mine alone.

4. If I had to choose a new first name, it would be… I really have no idea. We’d each want our own first name and we have one already. (For those who don’t know, “we” refers to the multiple selves or alters who share this body.) I don’t think we could have one name that we all agree on.

Practising Self-Care

Posted on by Astrid

Yesterday, carol anne of Therapy Bits asked a question about self-care. This really got me thinking. Is self-care a challenge for us? How do we practise self-care?

Self-care can really be interpreted in several ways. Sometimes, what is self-care one day may be the opposite the next. For example, many people see self-care as pampering yourself. While this is good in moderation, it can become destructive if done too much. For example, we like to buy ourselves comfort food as self-care. However, this used to quickly turn into overeating. Now we recently realized that a small bag of sugar-free candy is just as enjoyable as a large bag of sugary candy and it is a lot less unhealthy.

Remember, any self-care activity can turn destructive if done in excess. We happen to be the classic overindulgent type, but exercise or healthy eating can also become an obsession.

We definitely find self-care a challenge particularly when we feel depressed. Like I said, we’re the overindulgent type, so then we sleep and eat all day. When we aren’t depressed, self-care comes relatively easy.


There are a variety of self-care activities we like. For example, we like to practise yoga and mindfulness. We also love the sensory room at day actvities.

Writing is also a good self-care activity for us. I am happy that we relaunched this blog, so that we can write without the pressure of having to create “good” content, as this was realy holding us back on our other blog.

We also try to take good care of our physical health. We are overweight and have been trying to lose weight over the past fourteen months. Though it’s been somewhat successful, it’s not been as successful as we hoped it’d be. We recently started a food log again, but we can’t keep up with it everyday. We try to exercise regularly too, though over the past few weeks that’s been hard due to the hot weather.

What do you do to practise self-care?

Weekly Gratitude List (July 27, 2018) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

Today, I’m participating in Ten Things of Thankful (#TToT). I have been looking at this link-up for a few weeks and wanting to participate, but somehow, never managed to actually go about it. I don’t promise I’ll be able to share ten things I’m thankful for right now, but I’ll try.

1. Sunscreen. It’s incredibly hot and sunny here. So hot in fact that it’s not funny anymore. I originally wrote “sunshine”, but then realized at this point I’m not thankful for the sunny weather anymore. I am, however, thankful for sunscreen. I recently started on a new medication and the doctor didn’t tell me it can cause photosensitization, which means you burn more easily when in the sun. This I’m not amused about, as I did explicitly ask about risks or side effects. It’s summer, man! It’s over 30 degrees Celsius. Thankfully I found out before starting the medication.

2. My sun hat. My husband bought it for me last year provided I promise to wear it. I never kept that promise until this week. It looks pretty cool on me or so I’m told.

3. Fresh fruit. Last Wednesday, I went to the supermarket with my mother-in-law and bought some peaches and blackberries. I’ve eaten them all by now, so maybe I’ll need to ask my husband to buy new fruit or take a trip to the supermarket myself again. I love love love fresh summer fruit!

4. Focaccias. Don’t know whether I spell this right, but they’re delicious and my husband bought some for us earlier this week.

5. Money in the bank. I received my disability benefits last Monday and that’s always something to be happy about.

6. My support coordinator. My main home support worker is on vacation now, but my support coordinator is thankfully able to fill in for her somewhat. This means I’ll at least have some home support.

7. My mother-in-law. She tries to come by on the days that I don’t see my support coordinator. I’m truly grateful to have her.

8. The fan my husband bought for in our bedroom. Thankfully, they weren’t all sold out by Wednesday, so I slept really well last nght in spite of the heat.

9. Being back in the blogging mood again. For those visiting from #TToT or otherwise unaware of this, I have been blogging on WordPress ever since 2007 and on other platforms ever since 2002. I have a terrible habit of dropping in and out of the blogging mood though. It seems it relates a lot to my general mental state. As such, I’m hoping to stay in this mood for a while.

10. Soap making. I made melt and pour soap again yesterday, this time with the help of my support coordinator. It makes me so thankful to have seen the result when she did the pouring bit, which wasn’t much better than mine. I don’t mean this to offend her at all, but it’s good for my self-confidence to see sighted people make a mess too.

Yay, I succeeded! What have you been thaknful for this week?

Starting Over (Yet Again)

Posted on by Astrid

I’ve had this blog for over seven years and have started and restarted it at least a dozen times. I keep being unsure of how open to be about my experience, but to be very honest, I need a place to write about my healing journey. I hope this time we’ll be successful. I don’t primarily write this blog for my readers, although I hope it’ll help some of you too. I don’t intend on going social with this blog too much, but if I make it altogether private, I’ve noticed that I miss the opportunity to interact and still feel restrained by this being WordPress. And yes, I’ve tried truly secure diary apps and sites, but none have satisfied me so far.

In case you stumble across this blog and don’t know me, I’m Astrid. That is, we’re Astrid et al, since the core of us, the “real” Astrid, is rarely if ever out. We are multiple. No, we don’t have a formal diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder, but we don’t care (or try not to care). We don’t experience amnesia much if at all, but that doesn’t make us any less real. We are a trauma-based system, but we’re fine with natural/endogenic multiples interacting too.

Here’s where we’ll share our daily struggles as well as our travels along the healing path. We’ll also post some random bits and pieces here. I hope you’ll feel welcome here.