things are in fact going extremely badly but we’ll see if they pick up starting tomorrow night for reasons that will preclude me being here for about a week (seeing my SO)
Seeing what folks have said, I kind of feel bad griping about my own issues, but as of now I have nobody else to really talk to (or at least that’s the way it feels), so here goes:
- Work has been up and down. It has been super stressful and intense at times - especially on Mondays, and then calms down as the week goes on. It doesn’t help that we have half our team members and next week our team lead is going on holiday. And next week is going to be the start of support, where I’ll need to be available 24/7 (it’s a thing, and apparently it pays super well and also can help for a promotion)
- I bought a house in March and things are still ongoing from the sellers side despite being virtually done on my side. This wouldn’t be so stressful had it not been for the fact that I have a mortgage offer that will expire at the end of October, and given how the seller wants 4 weeks to paint their new house before I get the keys(!!!) that means I’ll need to factor the 4 weeks into the expiry and eventually consider putting my foot down and pulling out (which I don’t want to do, but interest rates have drastically changed in the UK, so I’m unlikely to have an extension or the same offer again)
- A few weeks ago I got shingles, and I had medicine for that (stress from house and work). Went over to my sisters and she started talking to me about the foot fungus she saw on my feet as well as fungal infection behind my ear. The behind-the-ear requires a shampoo, so that’s simple. The toenail fungal infection requires toenail clippings as well as blood test to check my liver. Yesterday the results came back slightly borderline for my kidneys, so I’m going to have to repeat the results (also I have to avoid alcohol and eat more fruit). At this point I can’t help but feel like my body is a Rube Goldberg machine and while it’s nice that my sister is spotting these issues, it just makes me feel slightly depressed about my body.
- The weather in the UK as well as the health issues has left me a bit house bound, and more importantly, I feel incredibly lonely.
But on the plus side:
- I have a very, very well paid job that seems to actually compensate me for the effort I put in - much, much more than my last job
- I have a genuinely very caring family that wants the best for me
- I’m lucky to live in a time when I can just write this post and several strangers will see it, even if they don’t respond. In some ways, the loneliness is much more in my head
- I already ate 3 bits of fruit yesterday and I had one before my dinner (this is actually quite a big deal for me) :D
- I’m self aware enough to spot when I’m catastrophising and (hopefully) I can make an active effort to nip it in the bud. Sometimes its easy, and other times it’s mentally exhausting.
- I’m sure there are others out there who are doing much worse with taking care of their bodies than me.
- I am not depressed yet. I may have bouts of anxiety through the day, but I think this is manageable.
Your difficulties are real, valid, and not relative to any other person’s. It’s okay to have them and discuss them.
Keep watching your own brain when you can; you cannot be successful every time but you improve your brain hygiene a little bit each time you do. Sometimes you’ll have to let it happen for bit of time while you regain enough energy to stop catastrophising and that’s okay too. The exhaustion you get from stopping it just means you’re doing good work.
So I have phenylketonuria, and a big part of this is being in tune with my brain and my mental/emotional/physical well-being as to try and gauge when my phenylalanine levels are high.
Since I’ve had my phenylalanine levels so low, I was able to correctly find out my levels were high.
As to catastrophising, unfortunately that is a symptom of high phe levels. I’ve been working on lowering my phe levels, and today was the first day I didn’t feel any anxiety or catastrophe despite starting something 24h support at work today for a week.
I totally hear you on the fruit thing. I wish I was better at stopping the catastrophising.
