Four Skills I’m Pretty Good At #Write31Days

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to day 15 in my #Write31Days challenge on personal growth. Today, I have another list post for you. One of Lisa Shea’s journaling prompts on self-esteem has us write about our skills. What things are you pretty good at? Here goes.

1. Writing. I’m by no means a bestselling author – I have only had one piece of writing published in a book so far. I also make a lot of typeos in my writing. Overall though I consider my writing to be pretty good.

I started writing at about eight-years-old, wanting to become a children’s fiction author once I’d grow up. Now my husband is one of my worst critics when it comes to my children’s fiction, saying my stories aren’t very imaginative to say the least. Then again, when he compliments me on my blog posts, I take it all the more to heart.

2. Calendar calculation. You didn’t know that’s a skill? It is! My husband can’t tell whether October has 30 or 31 day without looking at the calendar, so I’ve got to believe that calendar calculation is a skill. It refers to being able to tell what day a given date in the past or future falls on. I’m not nearly as good at it as I used to be some twenty years ago, but am still pretty good.

3. Researching topics of interest. When a topic captures my interest, I can research it for days on end and will quickly get to know a lot about it. As such, I know a lot about psychiatry – more than some so-called professionals would like me to know. The flip side si that I cannot convert all my knowledge into practice. For example, I know a lot about soap making, but after those first few attempts, I haven’t tried making soap on my own again.

4. Relating to other people in a unique way. Particularly to people with cognitive, intellectual or developmental disabilities. I consider myself pretty good at relating to my fellow clients at day activities. As such, I have been known to come up with some ideas for sensory activities.

What skills are you pretty good at?

The Most Important People in My Life #Write31Days

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to day 13 in #Write31Days. It’s getting harder and harder to keep up with the challenge, but I was reminded by my husband not to give up now that I have nearly two weeks’ worth of effort put into it.

Today, I’m making a list of the most important people in my life. I’ll also explain why these people are so important to me. I tend not to come across very appreciative of wht people mean to me. I mean, the people in my life right now are mostly very supportive, and yet I don’t tell them so that often.

1. My husband. Do I really need to explain? I first met him in 2007, when I was struggling to hold on living independently. He supported me throughout my 9 1/2 years in the mental hospital and through the nearly eighteen months we’ve been living together now. He also fully supports my choice of trying to get into supported housing, even if it means we can only see each other on week-ends. He’s also just the most loving person around. Hubby, I love you!

2. My in-laws. As regular readers know, I am in low contact with my own parents. For this reason, I’m all the more thankful to have my in-laws. My mother-in-law particularly helps me with important meetings and with other decisions I need to make.

3. My home support staff. I first met my support coordinator in August of last year, when I finally got approved for home support. At first, she mostly just monitored my care with my old support worker, but eventually, she had to step up more. She now sees me usually once a week. My new support worker – the old one was moved to a team in another area – sees me twice a week. They’re both very supportive and skilled and especially my support coordinator goes out of her way to help me.

4. My day activities staff. My assigned support worker is one of the nicest staff working at that group. Not that the other staff aren’t nice, but she is the one who most truly gets me. The other staff truly try too. I am so glad to be here. Now I must say my old day activities staff were nice too, but they weren’t equipped with the information to properly support me. Besides, the manager was probably more stacked against my “psychiatric” needs.

Who are the most important people in your life?

20 Things I’m Grateful For in Life #Write31Days

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to day twelve in #Write31Days. Man, I’m late writing my post today. I really planned on writing two posts today, one for #Write31Days and the other for Ten Things of Thankful. I may write a #TToT post for this week tomorrow anyway, but I also found a great topic that fits both #Write31Days and #TToT. It is to list twenty things (or people, I assume) you’re grateful for in your life. Here goes.

  1. My husband.
  2. My family. Even though my family of origin isn’t very supportive, they are still there. My in-laws are especially importantt to me.
  3. My great team of home support and day activities staff.
  4. My online friends. I don’t have any real-life friends other than my husband, but I appreciate the network of supportive people online.
  5. Our cat, Barry.
  6. My relatively good physical health.
  7. The fact that I’m mentally stable.
  8. More than enough food in the pantry.
  9. A roof over my head.
  10. My computer and iPhone.
  11. Social security.
  12. Never having had to worry about money.
  13. A relatively good health care system. It could be better, but it could also be a lot worse.
  14. Psychiatric medication.
  15. The sensory room at day activities and sensory supplies at home.
  16. Sleep.
  17. Being a lot fitter than I used to be.
  18. The readers of my blog. I can’t seem to stick to just one blog project forever, so I’m glad some people keep following me.
  19. The weather. It’s really good for October right now, but generally speaking it’s never all that bad.
  20. Being alive!

I must admit that in writing this post, I did cheat a little by checking back at a similar post I’d written several years ago. I could probably think of enough things without cheaitng, but that would take me longer, and it’s now time for bed.

How My Friends and Family Would Describe Me #Write31Days

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to day ten in #Write31Days. Today, I’m writing on how others see me. The prompt from The Self-Exploration Journal I’m basing this post on asks how my family and friends would describe me. They probably assume that my family are mostly supportive. My parents are not. But it still helps to look at how tey’d describe me to get to know myself. I am going to list a few qualities I’m told I possess.

1. Strong-willedness. Most of my family and friends agree that I’m pretty strong-willed. This can be a positive thing or a negative thing. I tend to fight fiercely for what I think is right. On the other hand, what I think is right is not always what others want.

2. Intelligence. My father pretty much reduces me to the three digits of my measured verbal IQ at age twelve. It’s 154, if anyone’s interested. My IQ was measured again last year and was down to 119, but my parents feel I wasn’t trying my best then.

3. Determination. Some of my friends view me as quite a go-getter. Other people tend to think I’m quite the opposite. It tends to depend more on their view on my disabilities than on me.

4. Humor. Way back in like 2005, my psychologist asked for my parents and sister to each come up with three qualities of me. My sister came up with my sense of humor. It tends to be pretty dark and cynical. I remember, when I had just been hospitalized on the psych unit, already cracking jokes about the differences between the patients and the staff.

5. Manipulativeness. I just had to list this one. Particularly my parents describe me as manipulative. In a sense they’re right. Then again, what strong-willed, determined person isn’t manipulative in the face of authority figures telling them what is best for them? I think that being manipulative isn’t necessarily a negative thing. All communication is in some ways manipulative, as its aim is to influence others. So can I just say I possess a bit of healthy manipulativeness?

What qualities would your friends and family say you possess?

My Successes in Life #Write31Days

Posted on by Astrid

Welcome to day four in #Write31Days. I use this challenge to write on personal growth. I’m struggling a lot, so as to get myself to think more positively, I decided to take the day one prompt from Lisa Shea’s journaling prompts on positive thinking. It asks us to list our successes in life. This is rather difficult, as my successes are often used against me. For example, the fact that I completed a high level high school, is used as “proof” that I don’t need lots of care. I am just going to write anyway and see where this takes me.

1. I completed a mainstream, high level high school. This doesn’t just show my academic ability, but my persistence too. I hated it with a vengeance from the moment I started it, but finished it anyway.

2. I completed my first year of college. Same shit really. I liked my major though.

3. I tried to live independently. I failed, but I still consider it a success because I tried the best I could. Again, this shows my persistence.

4. I have been a pretty consistent blogger for over fifteen years.

5. I got a piece published in an anthology. In 2015, my piece was published n a book on typed communication by autistic people.

6. I learned to use an iPhone. I thought last year that I may not be able to learn to operate new-to-me technology anymore, but I was.

7. I prepared my own breakfast today and didn’t spill it everywhere.

8. I am surviving. Having been suicidal on too many occasions to count and having run into a little too many other dangerous situations, I’m proud to be alive. Not happy, but proud.

Belated Weekly Gratitude List (September 29, 2018) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

I didn’t participate in #TToT last week. Yesterday, I was going to write just when I realized it was time to go off to bed, since my husband would need to get up at 5AM this morning. I for this reason didn’t write my #TToT post then. I’m feeling slightly less depressed than I was over the past couple of weeks, but my depression is still there. I am therefore going to attempt to write a list of things I’m grateful for again.

1. Exercise. I had a pretty hard time exercsing regularly last week. This week was better. I managed around 3 1/2 hours of exercise this past week according to my Fitbit and reached my five-day goal. It does count walking as exercise, but I also managed to go on the elliptical twice.

2. Swimming. Last Tuesday, I went swimming at day activities again. I hadn’t been going the previous time two weeks ago, because I had a cold then. This time, there was no extra staff for me. The volunteer watching me however complimented me on my independence. By the way, my Fitbit is water-proof so it did record my swimming activity.

3. An afternoon at my in-laws. On Tuesday, I didn’t have support after day activities, so I asked whether I could stay at my in-laws. My mother-in-law picked me up at 3PM and I was home again by 7:30.

4. Possibly extending my day activities hours. This we discussed on Thursday, when my support coordinator and assigned day activities staff came to my home. Hopefully come October 9, I’ll stay at day activities Tuesday afternoons. I hope to eventually be able to go four full days, but that has yet to be determined.

5. A good session with my nurse practitioner. We did continue to work the DBT manual, but I felt more able to contribute my own thoughts than I was before. Before, it felt like he was just reading the manual to me and I was unable to make sense of it.

6. Buying nice things at the wholesale store today. My mother-in-law has a customer card for them and I went with her. I got a pair of warm slippers, a night gown, two bras and a chocolate bar.

7. Browsing Amazon for Kindle books. It seems as though Adobe Digital Editions eventually decided no longer to work with at least my rather outdated version of the JAWS screen reader. That’s sad, as I have a lot of DRM-proteced EPUB books in there. However, it gave me a reason to browse the Amazon Kindle store too. I haven’t bought any books, since I still haven’t finished those in my library. Still, browsing the store is already a lot of fun.

8. Being at least a little inspired to write. I didn’t write everyday this past month. Not nearly. However, since having this blog, I never fell into as much of a rut as I did with my other blog regularly. That is, there haven’t been two consecutive days that I haven’t written at all since starting this blog. I should be proud of this! This really gives me hope. I will be participating in #Write31Days in October and am positive I will finish the challenge this year. Yesterday, a ton of ideas to write about started popping up into my mind again.

I notice I’m having a little bit of a hard time finding things to be thankful for this week. I wanted to mention horseback riding or the long walk on Monday, but those are on my list almost every week. I felt this’d get boring. However, I mention them here anyway to make a point out of being grateful for my everyday experiences.

Seven Things I Wish My Unsupportive Parents Understood About Me

Posted on by Astrid

I just read BPD Bella’s post about ten things she wishes non-borderlines knew about her. I have only some BPD traits and couldn’t relate to everything she describes. However, this post inspired me to do my own list. I’m dedicating this list to my parents by sharing some things I wish they understood about me. For those who don’t know, my parents are particularly unsupportive of my disability experience.

1. I am not “just blind”. I know that many blind people like to minimize the impact of their disability, to prove that they’re competent adults, blindness and all. My mother at one point told me about one of my sister’s college friends, who is blind. She then remarked she wished every blind person had the same abilities. That’s not how it works. But guess what? Sighted people vary in their abilities and difficulties too.

2. My needs are valid. I wasn’t being “manipulative” when I threatened suicide in 2007 while living on my own. I was desperate. If I had really been able to cope, I would have. Similarly, I’m not being “manipulative” by trying to get into supported housing now. No, I’m not in a suicidal crisis on a daily basis anymore, like I was in 2007. However, I want to prevent it from getting that far.

3. If you want me to have a skill, teach me. This is too late, since my parents should’ve gotten this message when I was young. They expected me to be able to live fully independently right out of high school in 2005, though I didn’t have most daily living skills. I appreciate how hard it was for them to teach me growing up, but that’s no excuse to drop the ball.

4. A family is not a business. One of the reasons my parents didn’t teach me independence, was that it got in the way of them running their family efficiently. That’s not an excuse.

5. Not everything is my IQ. My parents are convinced that I am such a genius intellectually that I should be able to use it to overcome all of my difficulties (except maybe my social ineptness). Also, this genius IQ enables me to manipulate the world into believing what I want them to believe, which is apparently that I’m weak and dependent and need lots of care. (I am not trying to say needing lots of care makes a person weak and dependent.) No. I would’ve graduated university and gotten a job if I could.

6. Depression is real. Some professionals believe that my childhood irritability stems from depression. I’m not sure that’s entirely true, but it’s possible. I definitely suffer from depression on and off in adulthood. My parents instead say it’s an attemtp on my part to make other people feel miserable, presumably because I refuse to accept the fact that I’m blind. Well, going blind can be traumatic and is not something you “just need to accept”.
Besides, depression is an illness, not a weakness or choice. When depressed, I do make other people feel miserable, but it’s not because I want to.

7. I am an adult, I make my own life choices. In 2006, my parents threatened to abandon me over my wanting to delay university one year. In 2008, they showed up at my hospital ward to take me home with them, because they didn’t agree with the social worker’s plan for my follow-up care. I’m pretty sure that, if I go into supported housing, they’ll try to guilt trip me into not doing it. I couldn’t handle that in 2006. I could in 2008. I am pretty sure that, should they decide to abandon me for good this time, I’ll be able to handle it.

I see this list sounds rather accusatory towards my parents. It is. I don’t even intend for my parents to read it. I know that I’m past setting things straight with them. They won’t change. Besides, my childhood and early adulthood won’t change. I can change to an extent, but I doubt this will lead me closer to my parents. I don’t care.

What I’m Excited About for the Coming Week

Posted on by Astrid

Today, DM over at Pointless Overthinking asks what excites you about the future. This is a really timely question, in a kind of ironc way. You see, I was pretty badly depressed most of the day and found looking even an hour ahead hard. Now that I have gotten some more clarity of mind, I am going to make a list of things that excite me at least a little bit about the upcoming week.

1. My support coordinator coming over tomorrow. I texted her this afternoon to let her know I’m not feeling that well. She had just come back from vacation this morning, so I felt pretty guilty for having texted her, but the feeling of despair was stronger. At around 6PM, she called me back. She would originally only visit me on Thursday, but she offered to see if she could come tomorrow too. I said I’d much appreciate that. At 4PM, she’ll be here.

2. The good weather forecast. It’s said to be sunny and around 27 degrees Celsius here tomorrow.

3. Celebrating my seventh wedding anniversary on Wednesday. My husband already announced that he’s going to take pizza home after work then. I love pizza, particularly from American-style pizza chains like Domino’s and New York Pizza.

4. Horseback riding on Friday. Do I need to say more? Oh, I love Angie!

This isn’t all that much, but I’m still a little bit more cheerful now that I’ve written these things down. It isn’t that I’m magically no longer depressed. However, like gratitude for the things that happened in the past, excitement for things that are going to happen in the future, may help some.

Weekly Gratitude List (September 14, 2018) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

I’m still not doing very well. Depression seems to be sinking in deeper. Because it’s only been a few weeks, I’m still hoping I’m just having a bad mood for a bit.

Kristi shared in a comment on my #TToT last week that her friend who started the link-up, did so to cope with her depression. For this reason, I’m trying to list the things I’m grateful for again too.

1. A good consultation meeting on Monday. Like I said on Monday, I discussed my options for getting appropriate care. An ideal situation would be that my husband and I could live together but close by a care facility. Since this is most likely not possible, I may have to choose between managing as I do now or going into supported housing. As it turns out, my husband is supportive of me regardless of the outcome. He says he’ll stick by me even if we can only see each other during the week-end.

2. My mother-in-law. On Tuesday, I was feeling so depressed that I didn’t really feel safe staying at home alone. I didn’t have my PRN medication at hand, so couldn’t just sleep it off either. I texted my mother-in-law and she offered to take me to my in-laws’ house. I feel so relieved that she did.

3. My in-laws’ dog, Bloke. While at their house, my mother-in-law took me to walk him. We joke that he’ll be a trained guide dog by the time he’s eight. He is a labrador retriever, so the right breed, but he’s five already and pretty disobedient.

4. My physical health. I had a nasty cold early in the week, but am feeling somewhat better now. Not great, but good enough to go on walks and to exercise again.

5. Nice staff at day activities. I was able to talk some with them and this morning, one took me on an early walk. One of the staff can be a bit blunt and I’ve had a few issues with her, but overall everyone’s nice.

6. Drinking a nice latte with my support worker. Because my support coordinator is on vacation – she’ll be back next week -, my support worker offered to take me on a special activity yesterday. We drove to a cooffee house in her town. I’d never had a real latte, just instant cappuccino. It was really nice.

7. French fries. Both on Sunday and today, my husband and I ate fries with a snack for dinner. Don’t tell the dietician – not that I have one -, but it was delicious. Overall, I’ve not been watching my diet and have been overeating way too much this past week. Let’s hope this depression thing lifts and I will be arsed to eat healthfully again.

Linking up with #TToT again.

Weekly Gratitude List (September 7, 2018) #TToT

Posted on by Astrid

I’m extremely tired and don’t feel like writing. I’m also falling into the trap that killed my other blog, taking it too seriously. That is, I can’t keep from comparing myself to “influencers”, which I am not and will never be. It’s a sad truth, but to be truly influential these days you need to be able to create visual content, which I, being blind, can’t do.

As a result of all this, I’m feeling a bit sad today. This makes me even more unmotivated to look at the bright side and create a gratitude list, but I’m going to try anyway. Here, hence, is my weekly gratitude list.

1. A nice walk with my husband on Sunday. I’ve had trouble sticking to an exercise routine over the past week. In other words, I’ve not been on the elliptical at all. For this reason, I’m extra glad my husband offered to go on a walk with me.

2. The new intern at day activities. She’s nice and seems very competent.

3. A good visit with my in-laws on Tuesday. We had a power outage, so I texted my mother-in-law whether I could stay with them to do some computer work. My husband’s 16-year-old cousin was staying at my in-laws and she was delighted to see me.

4. Nice food. We didn’t have the most high-class meals this past week, but I don’t like those anyway. My husband makes delicious pasta – very simple but so good. I also have been eating a ton of fruit lately.

5. Still another day that the weather was good enough to wear a skirt. I wrote a few weeks ago that we’d probably passed the last day for the year that I could wear a skirt, but Wednesday was a surprisingly warm day. I loved it. Thursday was chilly and rainy, but today has been okay too.

6. My home support and mental health staff. I wasn’t feeling very well yesterday – very tired, confusd and dissociated. My support worker noticed and was trying to help me as much as she could. I rang my mental health team eventually. The on-call nurse didn’t know how to help me, but offered to leave a message with my nurse rpactitioner to call me back. He did and he helped me find ways to snap out of the downward spiral.

7. Eating a delicous macaroon today. Because the weather was still nice and we didn’t know whether it’d stay that way (it didn’t), one of the day activities staff took us to the marketplace early this morning. We bought a delicious cookie for everyone and I chose a macaroon. It was sweet, but oh so delicious!

8. Horseback riding again. The weather was okay again in the afternoon, so we actually went outside. It was so lovely. Angie, my horse, did a very good job and the trotting was so much fun.

9. Books. I bought the new Cathy Glass book yesterday and have been greatly enjoying it. For those not familiar with her, Glass is a UK foster carer and writer of memoirs about the children she’s fostered. This new book is really sad so far, but it’s good.

10. Getting so many things I’m thankful for listed even though I originally wasn’t motivated for it. I just had to write that as a separate item to get to ten things. Not that we’re required to do ten things, but it just looked so cool.

Linking up with Ten Things of Thankful as usual.