etherealgoddess
perseverance is inevitable success
- Dec 8, 2022
- 193
I kept going in between depression spirals and mania, but I decided to do things differently this time. This is what I have been up to:
1) I am not changing my sleep patterns with alarms and am not changing my sleep pattern super quickly. My punishment is waking up late. Period. I have online classes that are flexible, so I am able to do this. But I have noticed I have so much more awareness and don't get so depressed so fast. Letting myself sleep the full amount I need has changed a lot. The second my sleep gets bad, I slowly become more and more dysfunctional. Waking up at 6 AM immediately isn't worth it if you're getting sleep-deprived. The more sleep-deprived you get, the less self-control you have. Thes less self-control you have, the worse and worse the cycle gets.
2) I'm making sure to eat enough during the day. There will be days when I'm like, "Wow, I feel so tired and depressed," and then realize that I ate nothing all day, and it's 5 pm.
3) I'm cleaning with the intent of being functional, not perfect. This sounds so silly, but yeah... this is like the first time in my life where I feel like my nervous system isn't dysregulated because my nervous system basically has been recovering from all the tons of emotional abuse I endured over the years. Before, I literally could not think when I was at home, so I was a complete mess. I'm also grouping up physical things together like all of my daily hygiene items together, weekly hygiene items, monthly hygiene items, etc. I'm also not using a calendar unless I really think I need help managing my time. Using a calendar used to stress me out immensely. Now, I realized that a calendar is there to just help me. If I'm stressing out over aligning with my calendar, I don't need it. (I'm a recovering perfectionist, so yeah). By the way, I mean a calendar where I would try to schedule my own time and breaks. Realized it just doesn't work like that for me lol.
4) I'm trying to be present. I imagine myself if I were to be in high school, and I try to be fully at the moment. For example, it's 2:23 PM. I'll fully embody like the fact that it is 2:23 PM. It really helps to think that I am in physical school like I was in high school where I'd check the time before a period is over. Like, if I were in class, I know if I had 10 minutes left, I'd try to finish as much work as I could before the 10 minutes but if I'm not present and completely out of it, hours can zip by before I realize it and did nothing.
A mindset shift that I like to do is try to focus on my external stimuli. What am I seeing, hearing, feeling in my body and outside my body, smelling, tasting. When you focus on those senses, it helps a lot. Also, do not think, "Oh, I must be feeling all of my senses to be present." If you're thinking about being present, you're not present. To be present, you also can't say, "LET'S BE PRESENT." It's all about just shutting your brain off and focusing on your external stimuli. Or it's about just doing one thing. The list of things you need to do? Pff. Doesn't matter. Do one thing and keep shushing your mind if it has more thoughts. Not shaming it, just being like, "I don't care about these thoughts." It was so hard to counter the entire fucking army of stupid thoughts that were telling me to not do it, but esp with my good sleep and eating a good amount, if you keep focusing and being aware on the battle, you can win it. You only lose the battle with your thoughts when you finally stop thinking about it and all the thoughts go like poof and you go and do your typical habits that aren't helping you.
I am not saying that this is the answer for everyone, but I just am so happy that I feel like I'm recovering. It's so silly to think that something like sleep and eating was sabotaging me and I didn't even realize, but it was. I can catch my troublesome thoughts a lot better and overall feel a lot less depressed. I'm not even reaching for my video games like I used to to cope. Video games don't even interest me anymore, but I was playing it out of comfort to get into a completely different reality. I can finally be in the real world and chill when my thoughts are kept at a distance.
1) I am not changing my sleep patterns with alarms and am not changing my sleep pattern super quickly. My punishment is waking up late. Period. I have online classes that are flexible, so I am able to do this. But I have noticed I have so much more awareness and don't get so depressed so fast. Letting myself sleep the full amount I need has changed a lot. The second my sleep gets bad, I slowly become more and more dysfunctional. Waking up at 6 AM immediately isn't worth it if you're getting sleep-deprived. The more sleep-deprived you get, the less self-control you have. Thes less self-control you have, the worse and worse the cycle gets.
2) I'm making sure to eat enough during the day. There will be days when I'm like, "Wow, I feel so tired and depressed," and then realize that I ate nothing all day, and it's 5 pm.
3) I'm cleaning with the intent of being functional, not perfect. This sounds so silly, but yeah... this is like the first time in my life where I feel like my nervous system isn't dysregulated because my nervous system basically has been recovering from all the tons of emotional abuse I endured over the years. Before, I literally could not think when I was at home, so I was a complete mess. I'm also grouping up physical things together like all of my daily hygiene items together, weekly hygiene items, monthly hygiene items, etc. I'm also not using a calendar unless I really think I need help managing my time. Using a calendar used to stress me out immensely. Now, I realized that a calendar is there to just help me. If I'm stressing out over aligning with my calendar, I don't need it. (I'm a recovering perfectionist, so yeah). By the way, I mean a calendar where I would try to schedule my own time and breaks. Realized it just doesn't work like that for me lol.
4) I'm trying to be present. I imagine myself if I were to be in high school, and I try to be fully at the moment. For example, it's 2:23 PM. I'll fully embody like the fact that it is 2:23 PM. It really helps to think that I am in physical school like I was in high school where I'd check the time before a period is over. Like, if I were in class, I know if I had 10 minutes left, I'd try to finish as much work as I could before the 10 minutes but if I'm not present and completely out of it, hours can zip by before I realize it and did nothing.
A mindset shift that I like to do is try to focus on my external stimuli. What am I seeing, hearing, feeling in my body and outside my body, smelling, tasting. When you focus on those senses, it helps a lot. Also, do not think, "Oh, I must be feeling all of my senses to be present." If you're thinking about being present, you're not present. To be present, you also can't say, "LET'S BE PRESENT." It's all about just shutting your brain off and focusing on your external stimuli. Or it's about just doing one thing. The list of things you need to do? Pff. Doesn't matter. Do one thing and keep shushing your mind if it has more thoughts. Not shaming it, just being like, "I don't care about these thoughts." It was so hard to counter the entire fucking army of stupid thoughts that were telling me to not do it, but esp with my good sleep and eating a good amount, if you keep focusing and being aware on the battle, you can win it. You only lose the battle with your thoughts when you finally stop thinking about it and all the thoughts go like poof and you go and do your typical habits that aren't helping you.
I am not saying that this is the answer for everyone, but I just am so happy that I feel like I'm recovering. It's so silly to think that something like sleep and eating was sabotaging me and I didn't even realize, but it was. I can catch my troublesome thoughts a lot better and overall feel a lot less depressed. I'm not even reaching for my video games like I used to to cope. Video games don't even interest me anymore, but I was playing it out of comfort to get into a completely different reality. I can finally be in the real world and chill when my thoughts are kept at a distance.
