Inside

Too much time inside. Seriously. I need to get into some hobbies or something.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy has this list…I think it’s called: Schedule of Pleasant Events. Basically, it’s a bunch of ideas for someone who says, “I don’t feel like doing anything.” Or “I don’t know what I like to do.” The idea is to try multiple activities on the list, whether or not you really feel like it. That is how you gain or regain momentum, rather than doing a whole lot of nothing.

Things I feel like doing: watching shows, eating snacks, driving around (literally driving around and looking at the trees, sunset, for animals), reading a series about dragons outloud to my kids at night, talking to my sisters on the phone, drinking coffee, attending live online class about trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy for kids.

The online class is fun. Its nice to hear from other people, doing the same job as me, in different states. The ideas are new to me and that’s encouraging. I don’t like thinking my own thoughts over and over without any new information coming in…some people appear to really enjoy this…it’s puzzling.

My kids want me to listen to them more. So does my husband. I’m tired of listening though. Might be a job hazard I had not considered when I went back to school for this. Or it could be that I wasn’t ever really cut out for listening? At least, I know how to listen now. I wish we could do more activities together: cards, a board game, walking, drawing trees and other wild things we see.

Sometimes, I like to cook. I like chopping up veggies, adding oil to a pan, and making sure there’s onion. If I am feeling sad, it can help to eat part of the raw onion while I’m standing there.

I’ve probably said this before, but I read that there are people who seek sensory experiences (rollercoasters, bright lights, hard workouts, loud music) and people to avoid sensory experiences (everything seems too bright, to loud, to intense…and these people like quieter, softer settings). The theory is that people experience their 5 senses differently than each other.

I miss all the activity of working in a setting with other people. I miss the day program and the bar/restaurant. I feel sad that we are having a global emergency and I’m not somewhere in the middle of it. I know that’s dumb to feel/say.

It’s weird. My “office” is an end table with a laptop a bookshelf and a chair. I sit for hours staring directly, DIRECTLY, at my treadmill. What on earth is stopping me from running? I look back at a text chain of my Mom and sisters and friend and count the days since I last ran: 12. That’s why I feel like shit. Also, the kids have been sick. Not covid…one of them took a test. Vomiting and diarrhea. I’m not sure how many days that’s been going on. I think since Sunday?

I feel like crying every second. But then I think about the kids getting sick, and I spiral down to thinking, “What if they were really sick, like REALLY sick?” and that sobers me up to the tune of how I have nothing to cry about when there are people whose children are actually sick with cancer and other such horrors. That follows down a tube that says, “Remember the environment? Plastic? Climate’s f%$ked up?” Then, I think about the people I know in domestic violence situations. Then, I think about the times I’ve been asked to go to court to try and protect kids…how sometimes it helps and sometimes nothing changes. Then, I think, “Why are people just jerks to each other?” Even though I know that there are multiple factors that go into every sad, unimaginable situation…except that I don’t imagine it….I just know now. And it’s hard to look reality right in it’s fucking face.

UGGGGGGGGGGGGG. Too much time inside.

I saw this video of a lady that was feeling worn out in human services. It ended with a slideshow of all these famous people that did amazing things for human rights. Her basic message was that some way, somehow these outstanding human beings found a way to smile. A way to be kind. To stand tall in the face of suffering. Maybe I should find that and watch it again?

Anyway. Sorry for the rant today 🙂 All the best to you and your loved ones!

Terra Rose