Category: mental health

Finding the balance of stubborn and holding my ground that actually serves me

At my last work place, I got quite angry when a senior worker said she’d been leaving a piece of rubbish behind a door to see how long it took for other staff to clean behind that door. I’m all “just tell them they need to pay more attention to that when they mop”. but no, they persisted with things like that.

I’m very much tell me what to do, tell me what I’m missing, it might not be obvious to me. Or, like some things, I might not actually notice that certain thing, at night, when my vision is at its worst.

So, why do I find myself getting stubborn when it comes to my stepkids and them not cleaning things? When Bee was with us they said they weren’t bringing out their rubbish all the time and that it would help to have a bin in their room. So I got a bin, and then they just filled it and left rubbish around it. Because there was the baby involved I really couldn’t leave it, and cracked it a few times and just cleaned everything when they were out of the house. But that was more extenuating circumstances, with child protection hovering around the edges.

How many times do I ask my stepson to bring out his dishes, to clean up after himself, before it’s reasonable to be irritated? Still in post-inspection mode, how did it take a day for there not be enough dishes in the kitchen for me to serve and make dinner how I like? I felt a little bitchy, but since I didn’t have to dishes to plate up for three, I didn’t and only served up for two and he could find his own dinner when he got home from work. That of course then leads to him using more dishes and me having to clean stuff ahead of the next meal I make. It’s not personal on him, it’s how it works with any person you share a space with, I remember in my first share house cracking it at someone who never cleaned up the cutting board.

We all have out own ways, and my ways surely irritate others. But right now I just have to strike the right balance of doing what needs to be done fore cleanliness and my sanity and not letting others walk over me whether that’s their intention or not.

A bit worse for wear. Woke up feeling all refluxy, got up and started gagging and made it to the bathroom for a spew. Ugh. So another day of pottering. I might find some basil for my Sim. I’ve been told it’s in a certain map, so I’ll head there and pick some for her to take to work to make the hot stuff potion. It’s good for what ails ya.

As your local Eternally Online Elder Millennial, I volunteer to be Social Media Envoy to the Albanese Government

I started a new Sims save today – after reinstalling windows last month I needed to get all the updates and update OBS and all the other things to make streaming possible again. And I got there. It’s cleaner because so much got purged, I’m sure I’ll add to the clutter on the screen, in my life – both Sims and IRL.

I first got online in 2000, aged 17/18. So an older teen, but still a teen. I got onto playing Neopets, chatting through ICQ and Yahoo Groups, and we started online journals and blogging. I made friends around the world. I don’t see banning teens and tweens even from social media as viable, let alone a good thing. Kids already just get their parents and older siblings to make accounts for them or watch hours of appropriate and less-appropriate content. A ban would see kids less able to speak up when things are a bit shady online, less able to know who to turn to if there’s a problem if they’re having to hide that part of their lives and learning to navigate it with less guidance than how many are now – locked down Instagram accounts with a select audience, Minecraft servers with strangers and friends, Youtube channels and Twitter bringing us the headlines more reliably than the national broadcaster.

The country doesn’t know when to actually let kids be kids, and when to criminalise them to to imposed outdated views on what kids should be doing. Access to information when growing up is important, and these days that information and social experimentation happens a lot online. People are worried that kids are being sexualised too young if they’re learning about queerness when really they’re just learning the terminology for what they’re feeling inside themselves that kids in the 90s and earlier couldn’t find out unless they were avid readers borrowing every book in the local library, or were in a very progressive pocket of town. Kids know they’re “not straight” but doesn’t have the words for it, just as trans kids exist and need families who just let them explore themselves – through playing with gender roles, names, types of clothing and more. Kids get to see that Straight, Gay, Lesbian, Bi, Transgender, Intersex, Asexual and other categories of people are able to grow up into happy and healthy adults and can see that positive possibility for themselves.

I’m loving that future for the kids. Let’s not take it from them.

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Coughing and Perfectionism

I coughed a lot as a child. My colds always continued on for weeks into night coughs and it was a great break mover the period of covid shut down and precautions not to have a regular cold that trailed on for weeks disturbing my sleep and just being unpleasant.

I have one horrible memory of a coughing fit. In about grade 6, I was singing in choir before and assembly. And I started coughing. Turning away to cover my face but trying to stay with it in between. That was touch enough until the strict kindergarten teacher that had taught for centuries came up and pulled me aside on the stage as the rest of the school came in for the assembly. She told me offndor turning away to cough and told me it was rude or distracting or something. And then of course I start coughing in front of her. “Don’t cough at me” she yells and I say big can’t help it I have a cough. Eventually she let’s me go and I head outside and cry. Another , also known as strict teacher sees me and I cry that I have a headache and she let’s me sit outside for the assembly and calm down.

I wonder if it was connected that this was the teacher I had in kinder when I got upset at home because I was too sick to go to school and distressed I’d fall behind.

Who knows

I used to get jealous of the kids who got kept home from school less sick than me.

But at least I was a good kid and never shut in the storeroom.

Who CAN we trust with our stories?

After the disheartening response to the Disability Royal Commission finally came out last month, advocates and many others were left in literal tears, wondering what the point of a 4 -year commission that heard the many stories of violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect of disabled Australians was. Again this week, those who gave evidence to the gambling harms enquiry are wondering the same. Why should vulnerable people who have already suffered subject themselves to rehashing their stories for the amusement of government panels who have already seemed to have decided what actions they’ll take no matter how harrowing it gets?

Of course, it’s just everyone else’s turn to learn this after the continued deaths in custody of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, seemingly not even slowing since the 1987 Royal Commission. The Closing the Gap figures last week were going backwards in essential areas, with the stirred up racism and disappointment of “The Voice” brushed aside by our dear leader, who can’t commit to Makarrata, to Treaty, or even to Truth Telling, which is sorely needed. We need to face the fact that we’re continuing the horrors of the Stolen Generations with child protection policies and locking up Blak kids and that more of the same isn’t getting us anywhere.

And our Governments support for Genocidal Israel is not instilling confidence in their willingness to not continue the Genocide here.

Each day I get emailed surveys to do, to share my story with another Not For Profit, or the Greens (who I’m still deciding whether I’ll renew my membership of, got another reminder text today) or news of another Senate inquiry. I don’t know what to do with these. I fill some responses out myself, when I have the spoons, but I’m reluctant to pass them on anymore. Reluctant to ask that emotional labor of people who are already battling to get through their day-to-day life when I can’t seem to offer them examples of how it will change things for them or the people they care about.

A lot of my people are burning out at the moment, running themselves thin, with family deaths and health issues themselves, wanting to ramp up to see if we can force Labor’s hand ahead of the upcoming election, but also needing to focus on self-care, on mutual aid, on trying to do some positive things too to brighten their lives in the immediate sense.

I’m down a car this week, so out of routine. Bruce’ll fix in on the weekend. But I went across the road for some sun with the dog just now and that was nice, gave me some healing warmth. I’ll catch the train into town tomorrow for group and might make some time to wander along the streets and browse the shops. There’s a few op-shops there I haven’t been to in ages I might pick up something from.

Love yas x

Blue Koala at the rest stop in Port Macquarie

Does my anxiety make you nervous?

I think this must come under unmasking as an Autistic person – making peach with some of my anxiety, especially when it doesn’t actually stop me from doing anything. Like, is my voice shaking? Sorry I mumbled, I’ll repeat myself, did I get my message across clearly this time? Awesome. 

Is my foot tapping and knee-bobbing a stim? Does it help the rest of my to focus, or have I had too much Diet Coke and need to get that out somehow? Or, have I been picking at a dry piece of skin or my scalp? That, I want to replace with something else or help calm it down because it actually can lead to other harms. I found that having 40mg of fluoxetine made those picking habits come back, but back on 60mg they’ve eased again. Not sure if that’s the only thing that I changed to make that happen, but the extra meds don’t seem to have harmful effects so I’ll run with it for now. If I notice myself starting to pick I’ll find something else to do with my hands, maybe smash out something here on on Twitter. Turn that nervous energy into words.

I still need to find a good oral stim, I do like chewing on soft drink bottle lids, and it really does bring me comfort. But they’re not always available and I chew them to death then they have to be thrown out. Gum doesn’t seem to be enough for me, it needs more resistance. Pascal Caramels when cold are great too, but since they’re full of sugar I can’t really rely on them. 

I’ve been using my under desk pedaller more, working off that need to move while I’m at my desk, especially in this cold weather. A walk is still so good, with its fresh air and sunshine, I miss running but it would take a bit to get my body back into that, especially with some residual injuries that keep nagging at me. We went bike riding on the weekend, that was good, I’m just a bit nervous on it, I did fall off before I even started, but after that I warmed into it. I’m sore though from using different muscles. Which means I need to go again soon.