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An aloe plant perched on a windowsill looking out to a street.
Resting is hard, have some links

Resting is hard, have some links

I’ve been staring at this screen for at least an hour now, trying to decide how to start and what to say.

The truth is, I’m in pain. I’ve been caught by another days-long headache—one that doesn’t respond to even my prescription painkillers, seems like. It’s been off and on for about a week and a half now, so I’ve been able to do some things on the off days. Since yesterday morning the headache has been decidedly On, and I’m spending most of my energy taking care of myself and not giving depression an opening to stir up bad feelings.

It’s agonising to not be able to do the things I want to do because my body won’t cooperate. I have ideas and plans and dreams to implement! Words to write, but I can’t seem to reach them behind the fog of pain. I’m just watching time pass me by and getting more anxious about the things that need to be done that I can’t get doing.

An aloe plant perched on a windowsill looking out to a street.

But you know what? This is my experience. I fight the mindset that experiences are less valid when not accompanied by productivity. I fight that I am defined by what I am able to do. Why do I say that to other people, and then let myself beat myself up when I have days that I can’t breathe or can’t think for pain? Why do I hold myself to a different standard?

Those are questions to let myself sit with for a while. For you, some links to articles that are helping me pass the time during this headache.

On Barrenness and Lying Fallow: Esme Wang talks about damaging cultural beliefs about productivity and doing too much and navigating it and chronic illness. My chronic illnesses are different from hers, but they still define my day to day life—and I still have trouble recognising and accepting that.

To even categorize these days is a kind of self-punishment, because I can’t control how they happen. There is no magic formula for having a “good day” versus a “bad day.” I have a chronic illness. It doesn’t answer to me; I answer to it.

Slow Cooking Your Dreams: I have an idea I’m working on with a friend, and I told myself at the very beginning that it’s okay if it takes six months—or longer—just for us to decide on a domain name and what kind of content we want and who we’ll have to contribute. But let my Tarot dreams unfold in their own time? Never. Until I read this post. If I’m disrupting capitalism, I need to disrupt this myth within myself that I have to be productive to be getting somewhere.

We’ve been sold on the idea that what we desire must happen immediately, and that the longer it takes to arrive, the more of a reason we have to feel bad.

This is the premise we have collectively hooked into: things taking long is a perfectly legitimate reason to feel bad about our lives.

5 Productivity Hacks You Need Now: Not that we need more productivity hacks. This link was chosen for this acknowledgement that’s said so rarely:

This obsession with productivity defeats the purpose of a productivity hack. The purpose of a productivity “hack” is not to produce more but rather, to get better at what you’re producing so you actually have time to have coffee with a friend or read a comic.

Enjoy the links, help distract me by talking to me on Twitter, and talk to you again soon!

January is a hard time

January is a hard time

The weasels have slipped out. The brain weasels have gotten loose of their cage, and I’ve been too busy making myself busy to catch them again and lock them up. Over Christmas and New Year’s, I spent ten days with my family, my parents and sibling, because it’s been so long since we’ve all seen each other and we needed that. One of my mom’s goals was to have me go through some boxes of old things and ruthlessly decide to get rid of math notes (and chemistry notes, and biology notes, and some English notes, and definitely language notes I no longer need). That part was fine, but some of the things I found rattled my core. I found evidence of a creative, driven, artistic little girl… and I don’t recognize myself as that anymore. I didn’t get a good chance to cry about that, though, because I was trying so hard to be strong for other reasons. It was hard.

Now I’m back home, and it’s still hard. I am keeping myself busy with knitting (which my wrists would like me to stop doing today, thanks), cool television, and volunteer commitments. I haven’t pushed myself to take a time out and figure out what’s going on with myself, because I’m so afraid of what I will find.

This time of year is always rather fraught for me, so I’ve been telling people about how much better it is this year, but that doesn’t mean it’s all that. I’m so focused on being able to breathe enough to survive right now (hi asthma flare!), and to get through every day, that I’m not working toward the things that are important to me. Part of the reason is that I’m so scared. So scared that someone will tell me how stupid I am to try to take the LSAT, and confirm my doubts. Scared that someone will point out that I will never get good with my beloved Tarot cards, because, duh, you’re nothing special, SJ. Stop pretending you ever had anything to offer.

And I looked at the pile of things that little girl I once was created, and I grieve that she’s lost forever. I fear I can’t ever get her back. I know that most of this is my depression and anxiety telling me lies, but how do I get through that? I have so many hopes and dreams that seem unreachable—especially since I’m spending all my time lately worrying about the simple act of breathing, which turns out to be not so simple when you’re me.

I’m sorry. I wish I could say I’ll do better, and update this blog, and make the design happen, and ace the LSAT, and breeze through my upcoming surgery, but I fear that’s an empty promise. I’m too far gone into the desolate wasteland of my mental illness right now. I hope someday you’ll forgive me.

Time out

Time out

Yesterday, my wrists screamed at me, “Enough! We refuse to do anything more.” This on top of a building migraine of three days, on top of the heartache of the last week, on top of everything going on has been just too much. I took the time out. I didn’t get better. I guess I have to keep staying away from the computer and the knitting and keep trying to survive through the pain. Wish me luck, and hopefully I’ll be back in the Tarot swing of things soon.

This is what disability looks like

This is what disability looks like

On Sunday, I woke up with a catch in my throat. “But that’s no problem,” I thought. “I’ll just take some extra albuterol [inhaler] this morning and I’ll be fine.” I did that. Felt better. Then decided that I was sick of the garbage accumulating in the kitchen. Rather than thinking, “It’s kind of cold out, that’s an asthma trigger, and I am already weak this morning, so maybe instead of multiple trips carrying things up and down stairs, I’ll ask a housemate to take care of it later,” I went ahead and took out all the recycling and compost.

As I finished my last round, panting, a housemate came home and found me noticeably shaking and breathing heavily. Sitting and trying to catch my breath back.

Two hours later, I went in to work my part-time job. Finding I was stationed somewhere with a lot of standing and talking to people, I went to find a supervisor to move somewhere less active. The supervisors took a look at me and told me it would be fine for me to just go home, and are you sure you don’t want the EMT to make sure you’re okay? Let’s find someone to walk you to your car to make sure you don’t collapse on the way there.

On Monday I got a second letter about a doctor’s appointment my insurance failed to cover. Last week I got my monthly premium bill saying I didn’t owe anything, so I assumed it had taken into account that I am not working and would be covered for insurance. Now I am going to have to spend a lot of time on a phone tree trying to understand what happened. Phones make me anxious at the best of times, and this certainly is not that.

Looking out of a rain-splattered window to a tree and garage
The dull, dreary view out of my kitchen window this week

SAD is rearing its ugly head, with the time change and the ugly drab grey days filled with rain. Time to take extra vitamin D and use a sun lamp after waking up. Try to conserve energy as best as I can.

Even just a few months ago, I called this “dealing with health issues”. Or “I have invisible illnesses”. But if I have days where I go in to work and have someone look at me and tell me it’s okay to go back home, then I am more than justified in taking back the word disabled. Disabled in our minds looks like using a walker, or wheelchair, or blind, or something we can see when we look at them. It doesn’t look like days that are fine and then days that suddenly I just can’t breathe. It doesn’t look like a pretty, vibrant young adult (woman) with strong energy and a sharp mind. It doesn’t look like me.

A black cat snuggled into the bed covers
This one wants all the love in this weather.

But these are the realities I deal with. I don’t know what it’s like to wake up with a healthy body. That’s never been a part of my reality. And as I’m getting older, my disabilities are wearing down my body. I’m in my 20s. No one expects someone my age to not be able to trust their body and mind. I’ve internalised this mind set so thoroughly that I have barely let myself be comfortable with disabled, and that means I haven’t let my body be what it is.

It’s time for me to take back disabled. To forgive myself for spending most of my day taking care of my body and mind. To not expect myself to do too much, and to understand that things like navigating phones are going to take a lot of energy, and it’s okay to treat myself gently. It’s okay to not be perfect. That’s a hard thing to get used to. After all, we have a social narrative that demands we fit in to how our lives are supposed to look like. Disrupting that is a challenge.

I hope to live up to that challenge.

Looking Forward 5 October 2015

Looking Forward 5 October 2015

This weekend was something. I alluded last week to working on a final comment collection push for my environmental activism, and on Friday we got the news that our work over the last five (!!!) years has paid off. Cue excitement and frenzy, plus a meeting with the utilities company—wherein they actually let me in the building. (A story we’ve been passing around for a year has something to do with their security people kicking me out…) We’d been planning an end-of-comment-period celebratory party tonight, but now we’re going to be celebrating even more.

This, and my weekend part-time job, and apple picking yesterday, and managing my depression and migraines (major headache last night, and major depression Friday night), and I’m pretty out of it. How are you doing? I’m really feeling like a person with disabilities today. All my spoons are used up, and I need to borrow from tomorrow’s for tonight’s event. It’s pretty intense. It’s re-shaping the way I look at life, having to think about managing my reserves this way. I don’t look sick. I look like a young, vibrant, joyful young woman a lot of the time, and that’s how I’ve been brought up to see myself. It really clashes with how I feel lately. Sometimes I wonder how much I could do if I didn’t deal with illnesses. I think I’d be a superhero, considering all I do while dealing with an unhappy body!

So I’m learning patience with myself and my body and re-shaping my narrative of myself.

How about some Tarot for this coming week, huh? I’d like a quiet week where the most I have to deal with is a cat on my lap most of the day. How about you?

Queen of Pentacles, 5 of Pentacles, and 9 of Pentacles

Three Fey Tarot cards laid out in a triangle on a table: Queen of Pentacles, 5 of Pentacles, 9 of Pentacles

It’s really autumn now that it’s October, so it’s a good time to revisit hearth and home, the grounding element of Earth that the Pentacles rule. This suit is the suit of what I said before: quiet time to snuggle a cat, eat apples picked yourself from the tree, and recharge with the energy the Earth can provide. The pentacle in 5 of Pentacles resembles a fire, even, to remind us to get cosy, maybe build a fire, drink some tea, and not worry too much about what’s going on outside, just take care of your own energy.

The 9 of Pentacles is a bit tricky, though. She seems ready to pass on a message: if you’re not going to slow down and let some grounding energy into your life, something you don’t like will happen. Something unbalanced. Got it, Lady 9. This week, I’ll make applesauce and deal with the bare minimum to live.

What about you? What makes you feel secure and comfortable when autumn arrives?