self-care

New Year’s Eve

I love treating NYE as a mostly regular night.

It feels like mixing the magical and the mundane to be journaling and drawing while people set off fireworks.

I’m not usually a fan of the saying ‘start as you mean to go on’ because I don’t usually know how I want to go on but this time I am certain:

I plan to spend this year going easy on myself and doing things on my own terms.

That works for this evening and it works for 2025.

Creative Review

I spent a little time yesterday evening doing a creative review of 2023 from some prompts I found online.

I was expecting to feel a bit disconcerted or let down by my results but I felt exhilarated.

Because of my grief over the loss of my Dad, I felt like I had been haphazard with my creativity, working in bits and pieces but not really doing anything cohesive.

Actually, though, I taught lots of workshops and made zines and took workshops and experimented with using fabric in my art.

That means that despite my difficulties, I kept turning to my creativity to remind myself of who I am and what I need.

I’m really proud of myself for that.

On Trying To Figure Out A Bad Day

Yesterday was a hard day.

I don’t know if it was the fact that I had slept poorly or the fact that the weather was so grey or the fact that so many of my planned tasks were irksome, but I couldn’t make my brain get things started.

None of my usual get-going techniques worked and I got more and more frustrated.

And it was hard to know whether to try to push myself harder or to find ways to rest and take it easy.

You see, the thing about ADHD is that I can’t always trust signals from my brain.

My lack of enthusiasm for the day might be a sign that I needed more rest or it might be a sign that there was some part of one of my tasks was off-putting to my brain and so it had put the brakes on all my tasks to avoid that one thing.

That makes it very difficult to glibly choose to rest because even though, in general, it’s good to rest it might be the opposite of what I need. And, in fact, resting might make things worse because then the task I don’t even realize I am avoiding is going to seem even more daunting when I return to it.

But if I push myself and it turns out that I do need to rest then I will be even more fatigued and miserable.

And, of course, all of this thinking means I’m going to end up overthinking and over-monitoring what my brain is doing (which is a path to misery in itself.)

So, it always seems like there is no good approach to a bad day and that, in itself, adds to my frustration.

Yesterday, I just tried to take it piece by piece.

I jettisoned anything I could.

I did some reading and some drawing.

I did a little exercise.

I tried to do some work.

I took the dog for a walk.

I made supper.

I met a friend for tea.

I went to bed relatively early.

Today, I feel a lot better so I guess yesterday’s non-plan worked ok.

My brain is a pretzel

Last night I was sneezing a bit and felt stuffed up.

This morning my throat is gravelly.

I didn’t sleep well so I feel a bit groggy.

I kind of want to go back to bed but I have a few non-negotiable things to do this morning.

And this is where my brain gets pretzelly.

What’s really going on here?

Am I having an allergic reaction to something blooming now?

Did my allergies keep me from sleeping well?

Are those two things combining with my general tiredness from yesterday and making me feel unwell?

Am I feeling sniffly and gravelly because I didn’t sleep well?

Or…

Am I coming down with a cold and yesterday’s tiredness was the harbinger?

Or…

Do I have the plague?

I know that, ideally, I would treat all of these things the same way – lots of rest, have lots of water, take it easy – but that’s probably not going to happen.

If I am just sleepy and allergy-ridden, I’ll probably feel better by getting a few things done, by getting my brain in gear.

If I have the plague, I should stay home. (I really don’t think I have the plague, by the way.)

If I have a cold, I can do a few things but I should mostly rest.

One part of me doesn’t want do very much, just in case a chance to nap presents itself. After all, wouldn’t want to be too awake to fall asleep easily.

Another part wants to dive into things, either to see if the feeling passes or to get them out of the way in case I feel worse later.

I know I have to pick something and do it but my brain just seems to want to stay as a pretzel, getting more and more tangled in what if.

Sometimes, I am not sure my brain and I are on the same side.