A couple days ago, I’ve been nominated by Meg of
Where Good Advice Happens
for the Sunshine Blogger Award! Thank you so very much, Meg! 🙂 So, since it’s been a few days already since I was nominated, time to finally make the award post.
Rules:
1. Thank the person who nominated you and provide a link back to their blog so others can find them.
2. Answer the 11 questions asked by the blogger who nominated you.
3. Nominate 11 other bloggers and ask them 11 new questions.
4. Notify the nominees about it by commenting on one of their blog posts.
5. List the rules and display a Sunshine Blogger Award logo on your post and/or your blog site.
Before we go further, just a little clarification, though I’ve said this before when doing award posts. There’s no logo to go with my post, since I’m blind and getting this on to my post seems a bit of a hassle that I don’t really understand how to go about. I know that some blind people do display award logos and similar things, so probably if I really really tried I could get my head ’round this, but, oh well, there are so many more fun and less abstractive things to do in life, and I’m also very minimalistic when it comes to images because they seem to be very distracting for people so that they don’t see the more important things. 😛
Questions for me:
1. What is your say on all positive approach to life?
Oh no no no! Positivity is okay, optimism is okay, but I’m allergic to people who tell me to always be positive and similar bullshit. I’m allergic to people who tell me what I am supposed to feel and think. If there’s anything that is mine in this world, it’s my brain and no one will tell me what I should do with it. It’s probably because I’d been exposed to such people a lot and actually found it very toxic and invalidating, because even if I wanted… well sheesh, you can’t always be positive when you are depressed, plus suicidal like I was then, right? Also I’ve learnt to suppress my feelings early on in life and still haven’t really managed to unlearn it even though it’s better these days, and that’s why I probably respond the way I do to when not only I feel like I have to suppress what I feel but also am supposed to feel something vastly different. And I’m a bit of a control freak when it comes to my brain and feelings and all that. Just like constant, all negativity approach is wrong and toxic, so is with positivity. I consider myself a defensive pessimist, and that has been working really well for me since I’ve adopted this approach in life. But, at least in my view, being a pessimist absolutely doesn’t mean that you have to be negative all the time and about everything, grumpy and complaining and make other people feel miserable. I really enjoy appreciating all the good things in life, relishing them and I love the fact that although I have depression, I am nevertheless still quite a hedonist at least when I’m at what I consider my normal, and I like to be enthusiastic about things. Just not about everything, and not all the time, and not when someone tells me to. And thanks to my defensive pessimism, when something in my life turns out better than I expected, the more happy and positively surprised I can be about that. Oh, that was a bit of an essay! 😀
2. What you do at times of writer’s block ? Also mention reasons for a writers block, if any?
Sometimes I just wait it through and don’t stress overly. At other times I use some writing prompts, music or other stuff to inspire myself, it also depends what I am writing. Sometimes I just have to get through a difficult period and then my writing brain is back to normal after some stressing event is over. And as for the reasons, as I said, stressful events can give me a writer’s block, or particularly low mood and energy. But most of all I guess it’s the emotional overloads that can block me the most in any way of expressing myself, especially that when I experience them I usually have particularly low self-esteem to the point of self-loathing so even when I write something I usually don’t like it. Sometimes I try to write anyway and it can help if I push through, but at other times it’s downright impossible and then I have to wait until it passes, or try to get rid of some of those emotions that are raging in my brain in some other way.
3. When you started or even now do you feel like deleting a frank post, overthinking that it’s too bold ? What you do if it happens?
Yeah it happens sometimes that I write a very candid post, and then decide mid-writing that actually I shouldn’t be writing this, either because I don’t like what I wrote in general or it feels like exposing myself too much or sometimes I’m scared that someone whom I don’t want to will read it if it touches on some very sensitive topic. Then I sometimes delete it altogether, but at other times I keep writing it anyway, even when I don’t feel fully convinced about whether what I’m doing is right and feel like it’s very risky. But I rarely delete posts after I publish them, unless some time passes and I decide that for some reason they’re not right, too candid or vulnerable or whatever.
4. Do you believe in planning to the last detail or rough plans or no plan at all?
Hmm hard to say. I’m not a spontaneous person at all, but at the same time I hardly make rigid and thorough plans for anything. I like to be able to know what I’m going to do soon, and I really like routine and hate changes, but meticulously planning very far ahead is boring, so I guess I’m somewhere in the middle.
5. What is the weirdest flavour or combination you ever found in a drink or snack?
Chocolate with sea salt! My Mum used to have a phase where she would buy lots of chocolates with really strange things in them – like chilli, some weird alcohol fillings, or sea salt. – I found the sea salt in combination with chocolate particularly repulsive. I loooove love love salt, I mean, I used to eat just salt alone from the salt cellar, and my uncle who was a mariner got me lots of salt crystals from the Dead Sea years ago and I was licking them whenever I needed my salt fix, lol, my grandad used to say that it could have something to do with the fact that I have low blood pressure all the time but I’m not sure if there is a relationship, I guess I just simply like salt, and I also love chocolate, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t or don’t think I do, but together they’re just yuck.
6. What is your most embarrassing moment?
I can’t recall one that would be the very most embarrassing, when you have AVPD a lot of things feel embarrassing whether they are or not, so I thought I’d share a recent thing that happened to me, that was quite embarrassing but also very funny. We were in church last Sunday and I was sitting next to my Dad, listening to the homily, and I had a scarf on my face since we’re still having some restrictions in place, but rather lightly at that moment because there was only me and my family sitting in the pew, there is some distance between pews and it was very warm in there, and I wanted to avoid getting overly hot as it happens to me quite a lot in church and then can get embarrassing when my bp is dropping and I’m all dizzy and have to get out or pray that I won’t faint or something. When the homily was over, there was a brief moment of silence, and I suddenly felt like I was going to sneeze. Unfortunately it happened faster than I thought and I didn’t even manage to get out a handkerchief or cover my face more tightly with the scarf in time, and since it was so quiet, I’m pretty sure the whole church has heard me sneezing. 😀 Sofi immediately hissed that “Whoa, attention, Bibiel is giving away corona for free! Who wants to adopt a little virus?”, and then Dad started giggling, then I started laughing, and as is usually the case with me in public places where it’s not that appropriate to laugh, when I’ll start to laugh I can’t seem to be able to stop that easily, even if the reason is rather trivial and not that very funny, so I continued to try not to laugh at the whole thing for quite a few minutes. I guess that’s early signs of hysteria. 😀 My Mum and my grandma are exactly the opposite, they start to cry in church, cinema, theatre, official events at schools etc. very easily and seemingly over anything, while I get fits of laughter for no reason. I guess it’s worse because crying, while also awfully embarrassing, seems a bit more acceptable in such settings. 😀 Anyway, I’ve been thinking that now, and after the coronavirus, sneezing, coughing, or even sniffling or grunting, are going to be way worse and shameful than burping or farting. Too bad for people with allergies like me. 😀
7. Are you a dog person or a cat person? Why or why not?
I’d say a cat person, just because I seem to get along better with cats and understand them better, and especially since I’ve got Mishmishbut it’s not like I dislike dogs, they can be very sweet too, I love to play with our Jocky for example. I just don’t get along with them quite as well and we’re not on the same wavelength. Dogs seem to like me a lot for some strange reason, even more than Zofijka so she’s always envious when we are at someone’s place and their dog is all over me rather than playing with her, but I much prefer the way cats show their affection rather than have a dog jumping all over me or licking my face haha.
8. If you had the opportunity to pick one superpower for the rest of your life what would you choose: time travel, teleportation, telepathy, psychokinesis, invisibility?
I used to want to be able to teleport as a kid and that still would be cool, then I thought that telepathy was the best since you could have so much insight into other people’s brains, but I’ve read a book about a boy who had that ability and that seemed quite overwhelming to have all the bullshit from other people’s brains go into your brain, I think I’d drown in it. These days I think I’d like invisibility the most, as long as it was so that I’d be able to choose when I want to be invisible and when not, rather than be invisible all the time.
9. How do you cope with stress or anxiety? Any special tricks you’d like to share?
Misha helps me the most. If you have an anxiety disorder or are just not very tolerant to stress and don’t have a pet, I highly recommend that you get yourself one if you are able to in your life situation. Music helps me especially with the sensory anxiety stuff, as do some other distractions that can occupy my brain really well. Distraction won’t always make your anxiety go away, sometimes it won’t work at all, but it’s always worth a try. Good sleep is key. It won’t always mean that you’ll feel completely fine and not anxious after a restful night’s sleep, but if you’re sleep deprived and have anxiety issues, I’d think you have it pretty much guaranteed that you will experience a lot of anxiety, more than you would otherwise. I also take medication for anxiety and although I didn’t do it for many years, even though I’ve had anxiety all my life, now I can’t imagine not having a help like that at all and often wonder how I actually got through some anxiety-provoking stuff in the past without it, when my overall mental health was much worse. My anxiety is generally of a chronic rather than panicky and coming and going kind, I have different types of anxiety, but when I get panic attacks or when my anxiety increases significantly in a short time, what I do is I try to think in another language. That is, not Polish and not English. I’m already fluent in English enough that English doesn’t work, and I tend to think about the things I feel more often in English than in Polish these days. But I try to think in other languages that I know. That is Swedish and Welsh. First, that provides a distraction and of course these languages are something I like. Second, it just is a good exercise for practicing my language skills. And third, it slows my thoughts. When I’m anxious my brain is racing with lightning speed, and since I’m not that very fluent in Swedish, and especially not in Welsh, it takes time for me to form thoughts in these languages. ALso Swedish is generally very simple so it’s strange how I can start to think more rationally in Swedish. There really is something in what people say that with each language you know, you get something a bit like a new identity. Often that language trick will actually help me to better realise what I am so anxious about, or will simply help to calm me down. Again, this doesn’t work always, because sometimes it’s impossible to focus, but when it does, my brain can slow down a bit.
10. Is the universe finite or infinite? And why do things even exist at all?
I think it’s finite but really really REALLY huge. And I think if something exists, especially when we are talking about living beings, there most certainly must be some very clear purpose to it, even if we don’t know it yet, or struggle to understand it. I’m sure we’ll all know it some day.
11. If you had one week left to live what would you do?
I would make sure that Misha would be well looked after and treated, have everything he needs for his whole life after I wouldn’t be with him. I mean my Mum is his main feeder anyway so he wouldn’t go hungry but they don’t know his habits quite as well as I do, or his dislikes, so I would do everything that I could to make sure that he would have someone who would always care for Misha and not make stupid tricks on him like scaring him with the vacuum cleaner just because it looks funny. I don’t know who it could be though, probably Mum because he is very attached to her even though she often gets irritated with him and screams at him which he doesn’t like. I would make time for saying a proper goodbye to my family and would spend a lot of time with them, I would probably have to explain some things about me to them. I think I would give most of my things to Zofijka. I would spend a lot of time preparing myself for death spiritually so that I could die happy. I’d like it to be a possibly happy week during which I would do some things that I never did before but that I would be sure that I’d enjoy them. Nothing spectacular or extravagant, just small, pleasant things. And I would like to do something really helpful for someone.
I’ve recently nominated quite a lot of people for the Real Neat Blog Award, but this time I just nominate everyone who reads this post. And you can answer the questions that I was asked, as I don’t really have many ideas at the moment.
My Inner MishMash 