A few Measly Steps a Day

Hi thread, all leaks found and fixed. It's been about a week and nothing new turned up. Next we have to sheetrock and paint the gapping holes left in the process.

Next up @ ye ole condo, getting our chimney's swept. It's been months due to my getting too busy with work, then a few weeks ago the owner of the sweeping company died. They carry on but obviously it's shaken them and they are just getting back to their backlog of appointments.

My Dear Partner will be on retreat for 2 weeks next month, which is my first time with a 2 weeks stretch alone since I can remember. My typical personal vacations are just over a long weekend. And before, when I consulted from home and she traveled to the office I had my days to myself. This both retired and at home and in each otter spaces thing tries every ounce of patience and understanding.

Lately, I've been researching independent (community) bookstores and thinking about their necessity and their threatened status. I had 3 (yes, 3) pairings with other participants for our conference on Monday & Tuesday and they all failed to follow-through to talk about it ahead of time. Oh, they have their reasons: the first just never connected; the second recalled she's booked and withdrew, and the 3rd (of course the most exciting because they actually own 3 bookstores) ... forgot the time because they were on the floor serving customers.

I'm also developing an ideas I named Pop-Up Book Clubs™ for an one-off chance to read a book with an invited group of friends and then meet with the author. I'm the co-lead and we've done it once, and are about to do it again.

I'm getting in more bridge. At the mentor/mentee games 2 weeks ago we came in 2nd over all and 1st for my category. Hm. This got me excited to play more. So I played Tuesday at their Rookie Games. So much depends on your partner, and I don't have a regular one, yet.

Finally, I like having a small priority something to put time on when feeling in the mood. Right now I'm reading Balthasar Gracian's maxims on worldly wisdom and commenting on them on Goodreads through their review feature. Just beginning ...

Revu2

I did everything I could think of in terms of applying for the grant. Maybe I'm overthinking the whole thing. (I hope.)

Big whoopie for California - it's raining. We may get a normal winter this year. It's supposed to rain for several more days. Yay!!! serious happiness!

Hello thread. Just got a notice from my Dear Friends at the IRS that my business forms were filed late and they'll penalizing us over $400! Looking back through this thread I find I finished around March 4, and dropped them in the mail a couple of weeks later. Maybe I missed the 16th a day or so, but not by much. They were due 3/16.

So, now I have to decided on the music I will be listening to while on hold tomorrow when I call to talk this over.

Fancy footwork, per usual. Revu2

As a survivor, a person with a dissociative disorder, and a person with chronic fatigue syndrome - I'm supposed to keep a log of my activities, so as to maintain co-consciousness while utilizing internal family systems treatment, set goals while I'm self-isolating (going on 19 months now and counting), and eventually figure out my PEM/CFS/ME baseline on my own (since I lack adequate treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome). So here goes.

First, I quit smoking as of March 27, 2020. I planned on quitting smoking since 2017. I relapsed many times. I first attempted to quit way back in 2004, just a year after I began smoking heavily. You could say the pandemic scared me straight, but I did it - cold turkey - no less. So that's one major goal I got checked off my list.

Next, I initially lost weight because I was sick and stressed back in 2020. However, I regained the 30 pounds I had lost. I'm back to square one with slowly cutting down carbs, working in fiber and vinegar into my diet (two known protective factors against insulin resistance and related obesity), possibly considering timing when I eat my meals (which might include intermittent fasting), and get on a more consistent sleep-wake routine. This will take some considerable time, given that I stocked up in case there was another lockdown, so I have to eat that which I stocked up. I can still try to eat in moderation while adding healthier produce (something I was avoiding for most of the pandemic, due to fomite scares).

Following the above goal, I intend on getting the flu and booster shot soon. I was told by the VA to wait about two weeks to schedule. So I will wait. I'm hoping that I can find a safe ride to take me to and from.

Additionally, my T recently suggested that I check in with her at every session to see how I'm doing with my routine. I told her that I wished there were a boot camp for disabled people - something that could help me feel connected with others who hold similar goals, but this time, our goal is to heal ourselves. I wish I could do exercise, but I can't. I'm limited with the chronic fatigue syndrome and other physiological disorders. So, she told me to take small steps, and that we could work on this together. My T is a veteran like me, only, I was enlisted and she was an officer. I feel quite privileged to have her as my T, and for her to understand. We barely spoke about this idea yesterday, when I told her I miss my youth, that I think I'm dealing with midlife crisis or transitions, and that I'm struggling with dissociation, depression, being obese, being disabled, and having no purpose in life. So, here I am with this makeshift boot camp idea, though I have no idea where to start in my design and "training." I told her I'm alone, and I wish there were at least online Zoom groups to do this with. But at least I can check in with her twice a week via Zoom.

While I'm considering the boot camp idea, I have to figure out my baseline for chronic fatigue syndrome and post-exertional malaise (PEM). I need to figure out how much is too much before I crash hours or the next day, which then puts me out for at least one day, if not one week, depending. I already have a few spreadsheets cataloging my expenses and activities, but not in the way that will help me determine my baseline for CFS/ME/PEM. So, this is on my to-do list for next week and throughout this month.

Hopefully, I'll have made progress. For now, these are just ideas in the works. I'm still struggling with PEM and major fatigue, so I haven't recuperated from that yet. It's been about a week since I've been fatigued and half-functioning in and out of bed.

You have a quite a lot going on, like most of us.

We deliberately named this thread to emphasized doing something minimal, a few lousy steps, AND also doing them every day.

Or, per your great success leaving cigs Cold Turkey! Not doing something AND not doing it everyday.

What are you doing to replace the time you spent smoking? And, are you tracking all the money and time you've reclaimed?

Disclosure: I've been a tobacco control activist and keep a keen interest in how people celebrate reclaiming their health, money, & time.

Any advice or suggestions I might accidentally slip in please know that I'm the biggest violator of said advice. Keep a box of salt handy.

Revu2

Shoot - sorry, I suppose mine wasn't a few measly steps. Mine was literally SURVIVAL! I saw smoking as a death sentence when I saw the stats on how smoking can contribute to medical traumas like severe Covid-19. I knew then that I didn't want to die a traumatic death of being on ventilators. I can't even handle a CPAP machine for my mild sleep apnea. I felt really panicked. I was also sick for about 3 months with an undetectable respiratory illness (blood work was slightly abnormal, lungs fine in xrays, negative for Covid back in March 2020, negative for all other respiratory illnesses, but still positive with the symptoms I was experiencing). So illness, the advent of the pandemic, and my PTSD altogether scared me straight. There were no small steps; it was mere survival and an ongoing isolation from everyone - I've been isolated for 19 months and counting since that time. I also wear masks and get vaccines. I do what I need to do to stay healthy.

I have chronic fatigue syndrome, and I have PTSD. I've not been able to concentrate on many things, and my ability to concentrate has deteriorated. So, I cannot deal with "steps." I cannot deal with memorizing stuff right now. I have difficulty learning new stuff. My sole focus right now is survival. It's a PTSD response - and a very narrowed yet simplistic one.

So my simple step is this: I don't want to die a traumatic death.

I seek help to survive and stay safe.

I try to be healthy, and I still battle with suicidal ideation.

I don't get into the whys about my smoking habit (that's a long story in and of itself).

I just want to survive. I would like to live and thrive, too, but right now, it's trauma-versus-no-trauma for me.

The real test, however, will be when I finally go outside again and start feeling safe enough to walk past the areas where I used to smoke. It's still a habit that's hard to break, even in your mind when you were once addicted. It still takes something.

Some people need small steps, like 12 steps or otherwise. Some people just chalk it up to living a healthy life, which doesn't include cigarettes or premature death or cancer caused by cigs. And others, like me, chalk it up to pure survival mode and not wanting to die a traumatic death.

None of the scare tactics or videos on cancer scared me straight, but the immediacy of this pandemic did.

It was just that simple. At least for me.

Oh, and kudos to you for being an activist! Keep up the good fight!

Hi, SprinkL3
Good wishes with you plans. R and I will cheer you on. For me, baby steps work best. R and I have been posting on this thread for a long time. I've seen a lot of posts with grand ideas, and typically they don't work. So, for my two cents worth, take small steps and know you've accomplished something each time you take a small step. Anyway, that's what works for me. As R says, feel free to ignore my advice if it doesn't resonate with you.

R. That IRS message sounds like a scam on so many levels. Be careful.

Me - The biggest impact that COVID had on me is that the isolation made me less sociable than before, and less energetic than before. I'm trying to reverse that, but just one step at a time. I get depressed sometimes - I'm an introvert, but I do need a certain amount of human contact to feel okay. I don't think COVID impacted me as badly as it did other people.
My writing is going well. Yay! Interesting observation. My heroine is entering an abandoned mine, and I wanted to give it a name that wasn't already used by an actual mine. It took me over an hour to find something. It was incredible. Every name I looked up on the Internet was already used by some mine. I started with old-fashioned women's names - already in use. I tried names like Dirty Devil and Hell's Gate. all of them already in use. How many mines do we have on this planet?

Thank you, delightful!

I liked your responses about small steps and taking only the advice that works. For my healing with DID and PTSD, I do have to take small steps. For my chronic fatigue syndrome, I have to take tiny steps. Also, what may work for me one day for certain things might be triggering or ineffective other days or in other situations. Go figure.

I never knew there would be so many mine names, until you brought it up. That's interesting! Good luck on your book!! It sounds like a really interesting read!

Hello Thread.
Ah, the IRS began with a letter, not online. I called, waited 45 minutes on hold, and spoke to Agent #something. I was distracted with email when she got to me, so I had to ask her to repeat her ID and name all over again while I made a note of it. We had a pleasant chat and ultimately I caught on I could ask for a full waiver, which I did, and their highness granted my wish.

Delightful and I emigrated here after our first base, Barbara Sher's forums, shut down. Soon after, Barbara died, too.

So with double sadness we wandered the splendid sites of the World Wide Web. This forum has a good approximation of the functionality we had become used to and thematically felt close enough to our old site. So, we planted a seed-thread and carried on.

Ah, the art of the one step a day. There were posts and posts on this challenge. For me, Every day cannot be the same step or I'll suffocate from boredom. I've found Jerry Seinfeld's "keep the chain alive" method close to ideal for my tastes. Example. Right now I have a book to review (a paid gig, no less!) and just this evening after a tiring day I still got myself to plunk down and look through one chapter. I'll have to read it more thoroughly, and that's another day's link in the chain.

Revu2

I was just wondering about other Internet friends from Barbara's Boards. - Inspire Success, Lyndon, Square Peg, Kashtanka, and others. I wonder how they're doing.

I'm starting another Nanowrimo challenge - 50,000 words in the month of November.

I had an interesting day. It used to be that nothing bothered me. For the last few years everything bothered me. - even stuff I knew wasn't important - it still bothered me. Then - last Friday - the days was full of annoying things, and I was okay with it all. I was even - dare I say it - happy. What the !@#@!# ???? It think it has to do with my self image. I was helping a friend, and I didn't do anything stupid. It think that's what it takes to make me happy.

R, signing off.

Yeah, a real study in the dispersion and cohesion of online connections. I'm in regular monthly contact with Inspire Success. She's had a tough time.

Today's goals: working on a book review [paid] which I feel slightly behind pace on getting done.
Attend online workshop. Since they are keeping us mute and our video off, it's very cas.

Start calling the City about some needed tree trimming. The branches are on our side of the property line, the trunk and roots on theirs. Called last week and, gee, their tree maps didn't show these big trees (maple and pine). The branches are too close to our chimneys and pose a fire risk.

Look for a gap in the rains to take a walk.
All for now, R.

Hi, R,
Tell Inspire I wish her well.

Re: tree-trimming.. When I worked with haz mat, I took a workshop on testifying in court. About half of the students were arborists - I think there are a lot of law suits about falling tree branches. I hope your public works gets on the ball. (Sometimes people are more motivated by the threat of law suits than by the possibility of hurting someone.)

Me - I'm done slinging paperwork around to apply for the grant to help pay for replacing the sewer lateral. Yay.
So far, I'm keeping up with the 50,000 word challenge for Nanowrimo. Also yay.

I'm doing physical therapy for my knee. I didn't realize how out-of-shape I am.

Happy stepping.

The city has found a way to dodge doing the work. Something about they didn't plant the trees and the right of way is really as easement from us. The permit is easy and "free." Ha ha, jokes on me. Figgers. I'll begin to deal with the tree docs in 2 weeks when the board chair is back from a break.

Interesting what you saw in in your classes. Too bad they can't get the tree to testify. Or its Mother Nature, and the next witness is Acts of God.

Keep at your Nanawrimo challenge.

Speaking of writing, I picked up a gig reviewing a manuscript for a CA publisher. It's directly in my interests and my studies, so a good fit. I think I'm overdoing it a bit, but I'd like to get more of this work and this is the first time so I don't have a good sense of scale for my responses.

Shopped hard all day; talked myself into getting a new pair of blue jeans, then talked myself out. I have 5 pair, 4 of them are worthless in the winter because the knees are worn out, the other is lined and only for continuous cold outdoor conditions. Something I strive to avoid.

For tomorrow: review more of the manuscript; renew my pay-as-I-go phone.

Revu2

I'm still trying to understand this thread, so please be patient with me while I baby step with this thread.

First, it's not easy for me to check in every day, but I will try.

My goals each day as a ME/CFS, PTSD survivor include pacing myself, not overdoing it, and making one healthy adjustment per day - whether that be showering, grooming, doing a chore to completion, eating a healthy meal, being able to fast for a short amount of time, catching myself before making a mistake, etc. I don't have one set goal at the moment because my entire life needs major changes altogether in order for me to reverse prediabetes, deal with possible thyroid problems, deal with obesity, deal with emotional swings from all of my physical and mental disorders, and deal with this dreadful pandemic.

So, since I joined this thread, I've been able to process some of my thoughts with my therapist, maintain my safety list on a daily basis, and prepare for improving my daily routine to a healthier, more consistent one. I'm not there yet, but I'm thinking about it. The "thinking about it" and processing all my grief, loss, and anger at this necessary need for change is a huge step for me. It means I'm not dissociating, and I'm working with my alters (I also have DID) so that we can focus on health.

Sorry for the lengthy post here, but these small steps are helping me. I may not be able to post every day right now, but I'm summarizing what I've done since the last time I've posted.

You have the right idea, SprinkL3,

Do what works best for you.

Please don't worry about the guidelines - they're guidelines, not rules.

For me, it's been helpful having Internet friends such as R cheering me on. (And during the pandemic, all my friends have been Internet friends.)

Good Wishes.

Thank you, delightful!

I can maybe do a weekly check-in, since it takes me that long sometimes to adopt a new healthy habit to weed out the old unhealthy ones. My entire life is a work-in-progress. And sometimes I take two steps back before taking one step forward.

My steps for today are: change sheets vacuum bedroom, laundry, and write for one hour (I'm writing a novel.)

Good wishes to you all.

I've been enjoying our process of meeting one another, SprinkL3. Got me to thinking about why I'm on support forums (SF) and the value they have in my life.

I once kept a written journal where I'd write when feeling very down and never write when thing were feeling great. And I never shared it. About a year or so ago someone broke into our storage locker in our building and stole a suitcase full of my journals. Poof, like that, they're gone. I guess I'll never need to revisit those old sad times.

What's great about places like SF is I can have both my journal and my interaction plus the bonus of the record is on the web. Having a pen name is great as I can be myself yet somehow anonymous, too.

Right now I'm in serious negotiations with my Inner Critic and their minions. You see, there's a vicious Inner Critic that gets very annoyed when I somehow, despite it's best efforts, succeed at something. It manages to somehow get me to make a mistake, lose something important, rip my nicer clothes, drop something and break it, or misplace something and so on.

If Freud were here I could trace it back to my family of origin, and further back into slavery/post--slavery trauma where it was dangerous for slaves (or enslaved people, your pick) to know their kinship and express talents or mutual appreciation.

I look at Freud, he looks and me. I say, so now what? He says, so now you know. And asks for his fee. I pay him and show him the door.

Alone, and looking in the mirror, I asked myself: so, now what?

Revu2

(((( Revu2 )))) You write beautifully - and poetically!

I'm sorry to hear about your journals being stolen, but I hear you there with the many points you made. Our memory nodes recall not always one but maybe many different memories that relate to some reminder/trigger/external stimuli. And even then, there are historical traumas (such as slavery) that become part of our vicarious memories, and then part of our family of origin. It's tough to cope with constant negative reminders, but we nonetheless cope in some way or another. We only hope that we're coping in the right way. Support forums are excellent ways to cope, IMHO.

I love how you ended your post with a question. Great introspection!

Thank you delightful!

For what it's worth, R, I think your inner critic is full of !#$!%!$@!. I'm constantly impressed by what you've accomplished.

Me - I accomplished all my goals except that I didn't finish the laundry yet.

My critic has the same things to say about me. Coincidence?????

I'm having a lot of fun with my writing now. I'm almost at the end, and I'm about to write a part where the characters admit to what they've done. It needs to be well written. It could easily be sloshy and overly sentimental. A published author (I don't remember her name.) said that her first draft is the scaffolding. It's necessary for building the home, but, you're not going to leave it up. You're going to tear it down after the house is built. She throws out her first draft and then completely rewrites the story. I'm not that brave, I won't throw out the scaffolding until the house is completed, but I do an awful lot of editing.

Good wishes to you both, R and SprinkL3 and anyone else who reads this.

Oh, thanks all for the luv and hugs. There's my Inner Stopper, the older sibling of my Inner Critics. Criticism ALWAYS follows accomplishment. Another sibling is the Inner Saboteur. Criticism alone would be enough to handle, but the Saboteur goes into the Real World and mucks it up.

The Game now is reeling into choice and awareness what happens post accomplishment (I'll use wins from here out because accomplishment is too long). Not all Wins creates any whiplash from the Inner Critic or Saboteur. That's fascinating all by itself and a real clue. When doesn't the dog bark? (To steal the key to the "Silver Blaze" Sherlock Holmes story).

It's like fishing, for sure. I got it hooked now on the end of the line of my awareness. It's twisting and struggling, sometimes a tick or 2 closer and I carefully notch the reel. Sometimes breaching the surface, most of the time underwater.

What are the Wins that get a yawn from the inner C/Ss? I've always been caution with alcohol and other drugs, never took up smoking, and zero recovery stories to tell. I guess I'm 67, almost 68 years in recovery. Yawn.

I pay all my bills on time, the mortgage is paid off, the 2nd mortgage deal just expired, and since childhood if I got a dollar I could save a nickel.

One period, when I had a steady paycheck, I began putting $128 a month into a mutual fund. This time period almost exactly matched one of the longest bull markets in history. I got into cash before the crash and used part of the money on the down payment for our home.

My parents divorced, neither of my brothers managed any long term relationships, yet I've been with my partner for 39 years.

Inner C/S: Stop Already! You're boring us to death.

Me: To death?

I C/S: Well, no, but into suspended animation!

Revu2

I have "inner critics" that sometimes sound like yours. I have DID, so they are in the form of alternate personalities. My T has worked with some of them, and she accepted them. They weren't expecting her to accept them. My T says that they use those criticisms as a way to protect - even though it doesn't feel like protection to us. It's a way to help us not to feel the full weight of betrayal trauma, or the full weight of social injustices, or the full weight of feeling completely and utterly helpless. But their internalized words are from the source of abuse, trauma, and/or pain. Their internalized words from the perpetrators, abusers, and more have now infiltrated our minds, memories, thoughts, emotions, and introspection. Such internalization is distorted and harmful, not fact-based or protective.

But our defenses (as maladaptive as they could be) could be turned around to being better protectors. Instead of fighting ourselves, blaming ourselves (which, during childhood trauma, kids most often blame themselves, so it's no wonder we learned that and kept that going in adulthood), and feeling powerless; we could learn a few steps - maybe small steps - to counter those negative thoughts. We could learn how to find ways to direct the anger and pain we feel toward the source - the perpetrators, the need for activism, the need for social justice, the need for awareness, artwork that describes our internal pain, journals that describe why it's more painful to admit that it wasn't our fault and instead someone else's, etc.

The small step here would be to acknowledge that the part of you who has internalized all that pain holds those memories of that pain, and that itself is a defense, a protection of sorts, even though it doesn't feel like it. The first step is to acknowledge how that part of yourself needs love and care, because it never got it. That's what my T showed me and that part of me, every time she accepted that part, and every time that part got mad at her and challenged her. She was kind to that part, and she was stern at times when the part got out of hand, but she still worked with the part. The part is now doing better and learning better ways. Your part can, too, but we first have to see how hurt the part is and why the part is reacting so strongly.

What you wrote is really helpful. Thank you, SprinkL3