Question of the day (6th May).

Have you ever quit caffeine? What was it like? Did you wean yourself off, or did you quit cold turkey?

My answer:

Yes, I’ve quit caffeine very recently. I felt I had to. I was feeling very jittery in the mornings and my anxiety was often sky high and I couldn’t put my finger on it for a long time why it was this way. I used to drink only a cup of coffee a day most of the time, but very strong coffee, because for me it felt more like a necessity than simply something I did only because I wanted, though yeah, I loved my coffee. I had to drink it because my blood pressure is always very low, so it kinda helped me in the mornings to have the energy levels that little bit higher. It wasn’t really helping spectacularly, I gseem to have fairly high caffeine tolerance and it had happened to me a few times that I actually had a nap after my strong coffee without a problem, but I’d tried lots of other things like strong teas or energy drinks and couldn’t feel any effect at all. Coffee helped at least a bit in a way that I could actually feel somehow. Yet most often after a while it would become so that my anxiety and jitteriness would increase while energy would drop again, and all the dizziness and stuff would be back, and that was pretty bad. So, despite I really loved my coffee, I quit it cold turkey, I was really surprised by that discovery but also kind of relieved that I’ve figured it out. I don’t think I’d been addicted like on a physiological level, I didn’t have any withdrawal symptoms or anything like that despite my coffee was really strong and EVERY single day, which confirms my theory that I probably tolerate it very well but just react strangely. But I’ve surely become addicted on the psychological level and I miss my morning coffee ritual a lot, I miss the taste of coffee. And there is my low blood pressure stil with which I don’t know what to do, I really don’t like the idea of taking supplements or medications for that, yet neither green teas nor anything alike that I’ve tried seems to help significantly. I’ve kinda get used to it over the years but now as I don’t even have my coffee it’s a pain in the neck a bit. So I feel the lack of it.

Have YOU ever quit caffeine? 🙂

My inner phobias…

When I started this blog over a year ago, and wondered what it should be like, also what I should be like in relation to my readers, one of the things I thought should be particularly important to me was responsiveness. And it still is very important to me. I appreciate it a lot in others too and I think it’s an important part of communication, and also if you want to have a natural-looking blog that will appeal to people, I think it’s good to be in touch with them. Take an interest in them, who they are, what they are like, what is interesting to them, etc. and be possibly approachable. One of the purposes of my blogging is that I want to express myself – I have a diary for this, because I feel I can express myself so much better in writing than speaking, and I can be far more open in my diary, but I felt the need to connect with people as well. – So another big reason for my blogging was to find some people that I could relate to, or who could relate to me, with whom we’d think similarly or like similar things, just be like-minded in any way. So I thought that although my blog would be primarily for me, my readers’ opinions and suggestions should also be important to me. And I stick to it, or think so anyway. I try to engage with people and also help when and if I can in any way.

Last month I was going through my stats, including the often very quirky phrases that people search for and come across my blog as a result. While as most of you probably know most of those search terms are unknown, sometimes you can make interesting conclusions out of them and see what people are looking for on your blog, and some time ago I’ve got an idea that to be more accomodating for my visitors, I can look at those things they look for, and if I think they weren’t able to find the answer on my blog, but I could help with it, I could write a post about it, so that in case they search for it again and stumble upon my blog, they can find something relevant. So far I haven’t checked that very regularly , but from what I’ve seen so far I think in most cases people could find on my blog what they were looking for. Last month though, one of the searches that led someone to my blog was “my inner phobia”. Very interesting, don’t you think?

At first it got me rather amused and thinking what other kind of phobia you can have, other than inner. Are there any outer/external phobias? ANd if so, what could be the difference between them? Or is an inner phobia something you simply don’t share with others, don’t expres verbally? Or something that doesn’t manifest outside of a person’s brain and no one can see it? Well I guess my Mum must be right that I philosophise too much. 😀

I don’t know what that person meant, other than that probably they’ve been struggling with some kind of a phobia themselves, but it inspired me to write a post about my (inner or not) phobias. Don’t know what kind of help it can be to anyone but maybe at least you can realise that you’re not alone if you’re going through something similar. And I’ve been thinking about it earlier too, to write the list of all my anxieties, fears and phobias, or anything that triggers anxiety of any kind for me. Anxiety of different kinds has been a very present part of my life as long as I can remember, and has many forms, as you’ll be able to see. This post was quite challenging for me to write, because I had to open up if I wanted you to understand it a bit, I wanted to be honest but also not too negative and overwhelming, as much as you can be not negative talking about anxiety. 😀 and hopefully it might be of some help for someone, or you can just see how freaky I am. 😀

The list is extensive, but written spontaneously, mostly in no specific order, so probably not fully complete. It’s not just a plain list but I want to also clarify it somehow for you what it’s like for me so you can have an idea. I included both the more general and specific ones, more and less intense, some are very bothering, some just more like quirks or something.

•    People. By fear of people I mean mostly social anxiety. Socialising, small talking, all the social dynamics, crowds, interacting with a large group of people, initiating contacts with people, strangers. My social anxiety is very weird and sometimes it can even show up when I’m with people I know well, while on other times I may not be too anxious with a person I barely know. It’s usually humming somewhere in the background whenever I’m interacting with anyone though, just with very variable intensity.
• Vomit. Anything to do with vomiting. Emetophobia is my most crippling specific phobia even though I’ve made huge progress with it over the last couple of years. I remember always being very sensitive and fearful about that but it got particularly bad very suddenly some 8-9 years ago, where just eating anything was dreadful and scary for me, or seeing people eating. I was quite good at hiding it but one of the staff at the boarding school was actually very suspicious that I had an eating disorder like anorexia or something, though I’ve never had problems of that nature with food, it just probably looked very much like that. Now food is not so much of a problem for me anymore, but is still to some degree, and there are things that i won’t ever eat, even if I like them in theory, because something bad happened either to me or someone in my surroundings after eating it. I am afraid of vomiting, feeling like it, other people doing it or feeling like it, people being sick, doesn’t matter contagiously or not, poisonous/expired food, graphic descriptions of people throwing up, the sounds, even similar sounds like choking, substances that are of a similar consistence, travelling, medicines, alcohol, migraines (even though it has NEVER happened to me that I’d vomit during a migraine), other conditions that might involve vomiting, even having things other than food in my mouth, like when I was going to the orthodontist on a regular basis as a kid it used to be very triggering, and I can’t stand even the simple medical throat examination with a spatula, I have to have it without it, otherwise it’s no go. It was even hard for me as a kid with brushing my teeth and while now it’s not as dreadful I still really dislike it. It’s not really because I am afraid that I can vomit while I have something in my mouth, or that it happens to me so easily, but it just makes me feel sick and anxious and I hate the sensation of having something in my mouth. Hell! even the words describing vomit sound scary! English vomit is probably the lightest, I don’t know why they have to sound so graphic or is it just me perceiving them this way. I particularly hate Swedish kräkas, so disgusting. Lots of things can trigger it. It really depends on how I am feeling overall I guess what and when will trigger this fear for me, sometimes it can be just a brief not graphic mention of it and sometimes I can cope with it much better and even read a book with someone vomiting in it if it’s not too detailed. As I mentioned in some of my previous posts, whether it is because of my extreme cautiousness, sheer luck or that my anxiety is so extreme, it actually happens to me extremely rarely that I vomit.
• Feeling dizzy. A closely related one, it’s a sort of fear that makes a vicious cycle for me. I have balance issues so it happens to me that I’m dizzy probably more often than to an average person, usually have low blood pressure and other such, and I believe in some circumstances blindness can also make you feel dizzy more easily than when you can see. It always makes me feel very insecure and out of control because my spatial orientation gets even worse than normally which makes me feel disoriented, as dizziness always does, also I’m afraid of falling or something dangerous happening as a result of my dizziness. Then also dizziness brings a risk of vomiting too. And the vicious circle is that dizziness is actually one of my physical symptom of anxiety, like when it gets very intense I’m usually feeling dizzy. And the more dizzy I am, the more anxious I am, and vice versa, which makes me freak out. Also heights and very big, open spaces make me feel dizzy so I’m afraid of them. I can be very anxious of travelling because of that, especially if the roads are bumpy or someone is driving very fast, amusement parks and such make me freak out, even seeing people swinging, on carousels, even just sliding, or rather hearing them doing it, especially if they’re talking at the same time so I know that their location is changing all the time, it also makes me dizzy.
• Future. A less tangible thing. I’m anxious and worried about my own future, as well as more generally, just what will happen to the world, particular people… It’s not something that I think about like all the time but I have times when I really can’t stop overthinking on it and it’s crazy. I guess I take it after my grandma. 😀
• Old age. I’m simply anxious about becoming old and what it will be like, I think it must be scary. Ideally I wouldn’t like to live longer than 45-50 years. Usually people freak out when they hear me say this and suppose that I am suicidal and going to kill myself by then, no, I’m not, and I doubt I will, that’s just how I feel, I simply don’t share the enthusiasm/desperation for longevity that is so common now. Maybe my way of seeing this will change with time though, who knows.
• My brain not functioning properly. That’s a bit of my obsession. I’ve heard even from my last therapist that my intellect is my strongest weapon and defensivee mechanism which I use to protect myself and my vulnerability. And yes I think it’s very true. My intelligence is one of few good things that I don’t doubt I have and that I usually do like about myself somewhat, I guess I might be a little bit vain about it sometimes despite that overall my self-esteem is low. And my intelligence has helped me to cope with lots of different things and survive different circumstances, well it’s always more useful to be intelligent than not to be right? Also most of my passions are of more or less intellectual nature and often require at least some learning, so I really really want my brain to be as fit as possible. And I can do a lot to ensure that will never change. I think I can say I have a sort of phobia for all those neurodegenerative diseases, they scare the shit out of me, even though rationally I don’t think I need to worry a lot about that, if not because of my languages and all the food that is good for the brain that I eat then because there haven’t been anyone in my family that we’d know of so far struggling with stuff like that. I tend to be very scatterbrained in some circumstances though, and my memory seems to work a bit differently from most people I know because I tend to remember things they usually don’t or easily forget things that they do remember, sometimes such that are actually quite important, which sometimes make me seriously wonder what’s wrong with my brain, though I suppose I just have to have different ways of doing things, apparently I have some minor difficulties with some of the executive functions or so said some of the people more or less knowledgeable in psychology/education  that I’ve met. And there are also my almost non existent math skills hahaha, though I don’t really care about those now as I don’t have to care.
• Being vulnerable and showing it to others, talking about feelings. Sooo awkward.
• Being a burden for others. There is one side of me that is very dependent on other people, mainly because I have to and need to because of my disability and various other difficulties however they should be called, which simply make me need a lot of help or at least support from other people with a lot of things. THe other side of me though is very individualistic and doesn’t like to ask people for help or needing it, and generally needing anything from others and making them focused on myself. That can cause quite a lot of chaos, for me, but also in a way to my family too.
• Anything that reminds me of the time when I was recovering from my Achilles tendons surgery as a kid. It was a very sudden and unexpected experience for me, despite I knew it would happen, but when it did I wasn’t at all prepared to what it would be like, and it was generally incredibly hard for me and I still haven’t fully recovered from how scary that experience was for me, or processed it well. My legs were all in plasters for six weeks then and I was bed-bound and mostly alone, and then had to learn to walk all over again and such, which together with other circumstances was rather devastating on my mental wellbeing. Our Zofijka has very fragile bones and she had broken a few of them, and that was always very unsettling for me, I couldn’t even touch her plaster without feeling dread.
• Institutions like schools or hospitals and such, that are aimed to help people and often do, but can make things worse for people as well. Can’t say that I have a full blown phobia around that, but I’ve been through a fair bit with different institutions, not always good things, and it has surely impacted my brain and the way I look at them, so I avoid them now if only I can.
• Authoritarian, overly self-assured, egocentrical, obstinate and meddlesome kind of people who know best what’s best for everyone and always tell them what they should do, and have an aggressive way of being, sometimes unintentionally I guess. Well I doubt anyone could like such individuals, but I know a couple of such people and they are all terrifying!
• Clinginess. I mean, I hate it when people cling to me like want constant attention, constantly being with them, helping them or doing something for them, invading my privacy, you know, I don’t know how to deal with it and feel disoriented, and because of this, I avoid being clingy myself and I often feel like I am in some way that might be annoying for someone. So I’d rather prefer to seem detached or uninterested than clingy, as it’s one of the traits in people that I dislike the most. I can’t judge it objectively if I am clingy or not, but I know that sometimes I can strongly attach to people, like them a lot, think about them a lot, want to be a lot with them, and if that happens, to me with someone, it can be a dilemma.
• Rejection. Well I have the diagnosis of AVPD so that would be easy to deduce. I think my fear of being clingy is related to it. It’s not like I really desperately want everyone to accept me like for all means, like that I would be afraid to for example say my opinion on something in fear that someone might think differently and thus they will dislike me, or I don’t go frantically in search for people who will like me and then do everything to keep them, and I think I can hide well my AVPD issues in everyday life, to some extent of course. It’s more like that I often don’t let myself to be close enough to them so that they can’t reject me, or I don’t let them close enough to me even though I would like to, but am too scared. When I am close with someone, friends or something, and they are important to me, I tend to test people subtly, so that they wouldn’t be aware of it, or so I hope, well OK even I wasn’t fully aware of it before I started to explore that whole AVPD thing and the way my close relationships look like, I must say I feel very weird with this since I know it, testing people sounds scary, doesn’t it? 😀 I guess sometimes I do it almost involuntarily, though I don’t know if it justifies me. I just feel I have to do it though, to find out if they are able to accept me, what’s their opinion about me and relation to me really like, even if it means that I’ll make them reject me sooner because of that than if it happened later on, as it makes me feel more in control of things. Otherwise I’m afraid that they will reject me suddenly before I either manage to escape or make them do it myself. Ugh it’s hard to describe and sounds freaky, I don’t really know how to talk about it.
• Criticism. I think I generally have distance to myself, often use autoirony and self-deprecating humour. I can take constructive criticism now, or so I think, I often een ask people for it to see some things from someone else’s point of view, especially if something is important to me, and I value honest opinions, and I at least try to appreciate it, but even constructive criticism can be very very hard for me to deal with. I actually hate to admit it.
• Losing Misha or anything bad happening to Misha. Sometimes even small things can set me off, like when he gets badly stuck somewhere or closed somewhere for hours. I guess sometimes I care about it more than he does hahaha. And about losing Misha, well I guess I don’t have to say more.
• Losing my Mum. My Mum is a very important person to me emotionally, but also helps me a lot with lots of things which otherwise would be impossible/very difficult for me to do.
• Tech issues. My devices help me with things that other people can do without technology, everyday stuff like reading, shopping, learning etc. They also help me with communication with other people and expressing myself, and being less dependent on other people. It usually upsets me then to some extent when something’s not working as it should. Although I have an impression that those things started to worry me much more since last year when I had that long monthly hiatus from blogging in September, when my computer crashed so badly. I’d suppose it would make me deal better with it, but guess it worked the opposite way.
• Change. Usually negative of course, but even positive but major changes can set me off for a while.
• Silence, and speciffic sounds, or as I call it collectively my “sensory anxiety”. I don’t really know how to explain this, because it’s very complicated and hard to describe. I’m also not sure I want and should, I haven’t talked to anyone about this in detail and usually people just can’t get it, I don’t either. But basically, just about the silence and the sounds, it’s that when I’m in silence, on my own, it doesn’t even always have to be complete silence, my brain feels sort of understimulated or so I explain it to myself, since hearing is the sense that provides me the most information, so it would be probably some form of sensory deprivation, and when there are not many auditory stimuli, my brain  tries to fill it in with something, and that’s when weird things can start. That’s how I’ve been told it apparently might work, though I don’t know anyone else with this type of thing other than a few blind people who had something slightly similar as little children and then grew out of it. Why it has to cause me so much anxiety, I don’t know. Maybe my brain is an adrenaline junkie. Well I am certainly not.I guess it could be compared a bit to how sighted people are afraid of darkness, and imagination starts working at night especially for kids. With sounds, it’s that some sounds, harmonies, just auditory stuff is scary for me. Not only the things most people would find scary, so loud noises or other intrusive, objectively aggressive sounds that we associate with something bad, not necessarily them, just things that I subjectively find frightening to some degree. Some could be just slightly disturbing, some very unsettling and feel like they’re seething with aggression towards me.
• Sleep paralysis. Especially my sleep paralysis “friends”. I mean those people or creatures or whatever they are that regularly appear in my dreams. Therefore I’m generally anxious about sleep a lot of the time because I never know when it will happen for sure, and I have no way of freeing myself from them.
• Releasing strong feelings, especially around other people, especially anger, or not being in control of my feelings.
• Horse riding. yes, you read it right! I’m afraid of horse riding. I guess I’ve shared my story with horse riding somewhere on my blog before, and that there was a time in my life when I was deadly scared of it. Now I’m not deadly scared of it and I don’t hate it, quite the opposite, I love horse riding, as my loyal readers know. But at the same time I still do have some anxiety around it. I’m always anxious and tense before horse riding and it takes me a while to relax. I know it’s going to be great in the end, yet I can’t shake off the anxiety. Sometimes it’s stronger than normal and I once had a bad panic attack when riding. I hate it because it makes horse riding so much harder for me. I don’t even know what’s the source of it, I guess it could be my balance problems in part, sometimes I feel dizzy and out of control while riding, but I guess that’s just a part of it. My previous horse, Czardasz a.k.a. Łoś, was very good at detecting my anxiety, he was generally good at adjusting to the way the rider was feeling at any moment apparently, and I always felt like we had almost telepathic relationship haha. He was also so calm and phlegmatic and always making me feel safe that it helped me a lot with the anxiety to just be around him and feel him. But unfortunately Łoś died last year, so I no longer have him. I now ride another horse, when I have chance, whose name is Tarzan, aka. Rudy, and I love him to pieces as well, but we don’t have the connection like that, actually I feel that when I’m anxious, he becomes too, so it’s not helping.
• That when people say something to me, they actually make allusions and mean something different, or when they say good things to me I’m afraid they say it ironically or sarcastically. Paranoid I know. 😀 Happens to me very regularly, but I try not to let it affect my relationships with people as much as I can, and pretend that I ignore it, until I’m alone and can think through their motives and my brain explodes with thousands of “what if’s”.
• Eating around other people. First because of emetophobia, that someone or me might feel suddenly sick, but I managed to deal quite well with this now as my emetophobia is milder and I know it’s unlikely for people to get sick suddenly like that, Second social anxiety and that when I’m anxious I don’t feel like eating, while I feel that I should, when there is for example a family gathering it looks weird that I’m not eating, so I try to eat but it can be a nightmare when I’m really stressed. And third is that I am so self-conscious and just afraid I’ll do something wrong or inappropriate, for example because I can’t see what others are doing. Or that I might do something accidentally like knock over or spill something, not a frequent occurence, as even though I’m rather clumsy I try to be careful in such circumstances, but you never know. As a little kid I once had a situation at my gran’s that I was eating something that was hard to eat for me and I ended up being a bit messy, not very badly but my Dad saw it, and was very concerned and sort of told me off rather loudly, so that had to turn all the others’ attention. Now I don’t even remember the episode very clearly and I don’t think it was that important, but my Mum says I took it very badly at that time and as if  he offended me in front of others. So I guess that might be why I’m so self-conscious with eating.
• People staring at me. Yes if someone is staring at me long and persistently enough I can feel it. I hate it. I guess I more hate it than am anxious of it, but am anxious too. I also really dislike the consciousness of a lot of people looking at me at once. I am afraid of people looking me in the eyes and seeing something I don’t want them to see (though rationally it’s highly unlikely), so when I don’t feel confident I like to use that luxury that I can keep my eyes closed whenever I want. 😀 I am a characteristic person overall, don’t like to turn to much attention to myself but on the other hand I like being different, I also wouldn’t have much choice even if I wouldn’t like it because I am disabled and it’s usually visible in this or that way, so it happens that people are staring at me when I’m out somewhere and if there is some bigger distance between them and me I can’t always feel it. But I have Zofijka on whom I can rely with this as she often informs me that someone is staring at me. And, quite to the contrast with my social anxiety and all, sometimes I like to let them know that I see them – stick my tongue at them, show them my middle finger or wave at them, depending on the severity of their stare, my mood and additional circumstances.
• Singing. I used to love singing as a little child, or maybe I just believed I did, don’t know really, but I guess I was quite a good singer, some people were moved, said I sing very well and liked it. When I was in the nursery and early school years I was singing publicly on different occasions. But something just changed with time. One thing was that I started to see, or maybe it was just my perception, that people only see me through my singing, some people were very kind to me and showing me lots of their attention but as it seemed only because they liked my singing. I didn’t want to be perceived like that. At the same time my anxiety which was always a part of my life started going higher, things in my life were changing making it gradually worse and finally I realised I hated singing for other people and making music. i then had two years break while being in the integration school, from where I had to go back to the boarding school, but never came back to singing. I’ve heard lots of people complaining about that and asking me why I don’t sing anymore, what a pity and such, one teacher even said that she wanted to be my class teacher because she loved my singing. Maybe I was hypersensitive but I felt relief that she wasn’t, if she liked my singing more than me. And I still feel this way. Maybe I was hypersensitive because when people made comments about that and what a pity it was I felt like if they can’t get over it so much they probably didn’t like anything else about me or didn’t think that I can do anything else well. I was forcing myself to stay in the music school for a couple years and play piano, and sang together with others in a sort of church choir, I also once sang solo which was incredibly difficult for me, and in the meantime I tried a bit guitar at home, but finally I realised creating music probably just isn’t for me, even if I have a talent. I was relieved to free myself of it all finally, and concentrate on listening to music more. I am terribly blocked from singing in front of other people, after I stopped doing it at school and left the school, I did it only once, singing with my friend Jacek from Helsinki, who loved music and always wanted to hear me singing, and, well, he could persuade the moon to shine in the middle of the day if he wanted, I suppose. 😀 Other than that, I never sing in front of others, unless fooling around or something, although I do like to sing when I’m on my own or for Misha to sleep hahaha or in the shower. I’ve heard it from someone that it’s very bad, a sin, to neglect a talent that you’ve been given and that you know of. But honestly I don’t care. And I suppose in a way I use it with my languages, as languages are also a form of music. A bit surprisingly, I could deal reasonably well when I had to read something publicly, or even say if I knew exactly what, or act in a play though I was horribly stiff with the last. No I didn’t like it and it was challenging, but manageable if necessary and I think still would be if I had to speak in public, although I’m happy that I hadn’t have to be on the stage for years now and have no desire for it anymore.
• Travelling, getting out of the house. In a way I like it, in a way I hate it. I hate travelling because it correlates with my other anxieties a lot, and getting out of the house because it often involves being around people and sometimes just feels unsafe. But on the other hand I do like travelling, and appreciate it very much that sometimes going out of the house and being out in nature, or even with other human beings, can actually alleviate your anxiety. Just depends I guess.
• Being touched. Sometimes it can be comforting and I actually want it, but at the same time it’s scary. Same as any other kind of closeness.
• Wasps. I had three bad encounters with them and I hate them. I’m not so scared of bees though, i’ve never had to do with them personally, maybe that’s why. And they are useful hahahaha maybe that makes a difference.
• Some tastes. It’s not that I just dislike them but they are somewhat disturbing for me. can’t say I’m anxious because of them, but just very uneasy. Guess it’s more of a sensory sensitivity stuff than anxiety though in fact.
• That people will use things I say against me. Just have happened to me quite a few times in my life in important situations.
• Public transport. It’s simply scary and overwhelming. How can you not see it? Well OK trains are bearable, but the rest is real scary.
• Parties, especially proms, balls, discos, dancings. No, I’m not really scared of dancing. I dislike it and don’t feel it like some people do that it’s so cool and fun, but am not afraid of it. I don’t know why I hate dancing parties so much and dread them so much. It was always the case. Apparently when I was a little girl my parents took me for a ball organised for children and I felt sick and threw up there but I don’t even remember it. Maybe it was that. I just know that whenever there was some disco or prom or ball at school when I was a child I would do everything to avoid going there. i feel very lost at such places. Crowds and loud music are overwhelming, and so is socialising, but it’s something else that must be so dreadful for me. I do a bit better at such parties and can even have some fun if I am with someone safe to whom I can stick to and always know where they are and have them close to me, so maybe it’s just disorienting.
• Flying on the plane or travelling on the sea. That’s ridiculous in a way because I’ve never been on a plane. But considering all my travelling issues, it must be scary, and I always dread it. Travelling on the sea is very challenging for my balance though I haven’t had much to do with it either, only to and from Sweden.
• Splinters. Seeing someone removing it, having it removed, having it removed myself. I’m normally not very afraid of pain but for some reason it’s different here and it really scares me.

• Children, other than Zofijka. Not always am I afraid of children, though I usually don’t know how to get on with them, which often results in feeling anxious if I have to or feel I should.

OK, that’s enough hahaha. All that I can think of at the moment. Do you struggle with anything similar? What are your “inner phobias”? 😀

Question of the day.

Since I haven’t posted any questions of the day for a long while, the question for today is just a simple one:

How have you been? Any exciting news that you’d like to share?

My answer:

Well how I’ve been… very anxious lately. It sometimes just happens to me like it is in case of many people I guess that sometimes anxiety is just worse, even without any particular cause. And add to that that some of my phobias were triggered around the same time, and also that I’d had some a bit creepy tech issues that were worrying me a lot, and overall low mood, so it all contributed to me feeling even more anxious. I’d been also feeling emotionally overloaded and having some sensory hypersensitivity or however I should call it more than usual and it made me feel quite exhausted and my brain was a real mess. The good news is that my tech issue has been fixed, and I just hope it won’t ever happen again. I am also feeling much better compared to the beginning of this week or last week.

In more or less exciting news, as you may know I’ve been looking for something that could help me to deal with my messy brain, especially after quitting therapy with my last therapist. And both me and my Mum have made some research, a lot of it actually, and recently I’ve started supplementing CBD oil as well as niacin. I’ve been on a benzo medication for my anxiety for years and taking it as needed,but I’d been wondering about some more natural ways that I could manage it as well as my other mental health symptoms. I try not to be too carried away with what people say especially about niacin, as before doing all that research I knew virtually nothing about it, and I wouldn’t like to just put too much hope in it, I’m also not sure what kind of improvement exactly i can expect especially that I’ve had most of my mental health difficulties pretty much since forever, as long as I can remember, and they just seem a part of me in a way. I’m not like desperate or anything like that, mostly because of what I’ve said above, that although my brain is a jerk and really difficult to get along with, I’ve simply had lots of time to get used to it and it’s hard to imagine it being very different. It’s more of an experiment for me, who knows maybe it can help me. But people say it can work very spectacularly, and that it is something that haven’t been researched by scientists or medical professionals too well, I guess perhaps because it wouldn’t be too profitable for the pharmaceutical marketing, and it’s weird to think that just some vitamin could help you with, or cure from, as some people say, a mental illness. So last week I’ve got to test both niacin and CBD oil, I’m taking the so called niacin flush. There is a substance called niacinamide, if I spell it right, which many people feel tempted to use because it doesn’t have this flush effect but it’s actually bad for your liver from what I’ve read. The flush while taking niacin can be quite a weird experience, especially if you don’t know what to expect and don’t know what it is, it looks like an allergic reaction, very much so, your face gets all red as if you ate lots of chilli, you might feel burning sensations on your face, be itchy and feel all warm and fuzzy. Can be horrifying in public places hahaha wouldn’t wish anyone. 😀 But it’s not dangerous, and it doesn’t mean an allergic reaction, it’s just a weird side effect that many people find pleasant with time, I somehow grew to like it too, and apparently as your teatment progresses you don’t get it as often and as intense. Personally I’ve had this flush so far only 3 or 4 times, and I’m now on 125 mg, but will keep this dose for a while yet I think. There is much more about niacin and taking it but I guess it’s not the place to talk about it very in depth, but if you too are curious, there’s plenty of books, online resources, and people you can ask, I’m just learning and still don’t get it all right for sure. CBD I’m taking twice a day but I guess that would need more time to take any effect, I’m also eating roasted cannabis grains, mostly because they are simply a good snack, and have a lot of minerals, I don’t expect anything from them, just for fun.

It might be just a coincidence, but what I’ve already noticed is that despite my levels of anxiety have been high recently, I’ve been sleeping surprisingly well. I mean, my sleep is always messed up. It usually takes me ages to fall asleep and then I often get nightmares, or just vivid, yucky dreams, or sleep paralysis, or I wake up horrified at night for no apparent reason. It still takes me a while to fall asleep and I did have a few a bit unsettling dreams recently as I usually do when very anxious, but for me they felt fairly mild.I mean they were just normal nightmares that an average person could have, even a bit funny at some moments, not my usual creepy stuff that I feel off all day afterwards. But where I’m going to, is that when I sleep, I sleep very deeply, and it is really refreshing sleep which is not something I’d been getting very regularly. Even when I had those few bad dreams, I woke up feeling like despite the weird content of my dreams, I slept well. And I noticed that I’m looking forward to go to sleep, which wasn’t always the case or if it was it was more because I just wanted to escape from the reality or felt low or not like doing anything else. While now I simply look forward to go to sleep because it feels nice, even though I still know that my sleep paralysis friends are lurking around the corner, but recently I’ve been fairly successful to avoid them, not because of niacin, just because of sheer luck, some self discipline with sleep routines which is always a huge difficulty for me, and some desperation. And I don’t wake up at nights or wake up groggy in the mornings. So I suppose it could be the effect of the niacin that I sleep so deeply, though I’ll have to observe it more.

Other very exciting news is that recently I’ve got my favourite bathsballs from Mum. They are small balls with different essential oils in them. And I used to use them a lot being at the boarding school, I loved them so much. I’d searched for them a lot some time ago but couldn’t find anywhere. And Mum got them for me. The winter will be over soon, and my skin is now getting slowly better again, so I can have baths, and the oils in the balls actually help me, which I found surprising because well it’s just a mainstream product and just for relaxation, nothing specifically for skin care though they do say that they moisturise skin, but so far the only thing that really really helps me with that is coconut oil, I really wouldn’t expect simple bathsballs to be able to make it better, but perhaps it’s just the seasons changing and my skin getting better on its own. I’m glad I can have baths, even if not too extensive and it really brightened my very gloomy week to get those balls from Mum.

So, I guess that would be all from me.

How about you? How are things going? 🙂

Question of the day.

How do you comfort yourself when you have anxiety?

My answer:

First of all, in the recent few years my main comfort in everyday situations when I feel mild to moderate anxiety and the most effective one is Misha. When my anxiety gets higher, Misha is of course of significant help as well, though might not always be enough on his own. Nevertheless, Misha provides me with such an excellent support that it’s a bit unbelievable to me, that such a little being can help you so much just being close to you. Other than that, it often depends on a kind of anxiety, and its intensity. Music usually helps me a lot, and distraction, so usually books or doing stuff online or going for walks with Mum or playing with Zofijka, the last only when anxiety is rather mild. Sometimes food comforts me, but when nxiety is really bad it usually doesn’t and food is the last thing I want to think about. I often feel shaky and chilly while anxious so warmth helps too, whether it is laying in bed with Misha and a hotwater bottle or drinking something hot or wrapping up warm or a hot bath or sometimes hot food, hot like spicy or hot like warm. If I am able to at the moment I try to reach out to my friends. And of course there are medications as well, though since my anxiety medication is quite strong and I take it as needed rather than continuously and preventively, I most often try as much as possible for it to be the ultimatum to which I turn to when all else fails rather than something I seek comfort in immediately when anxiety strikes. Other than that it really depends on the kind of anxiety, whether it’s social anxiety, any of my fabulously freaky phobias, the very strange and hard to describe, and even harder to overcome “sensory” anxiety, as I tend to call it, or freaking out about anything and everything. But Misha is the best for everything and always helps! 😂

What are your comforting strategies? 🙂

Update on Misha and me.

First of all I wanted to thank all of you once again for all the support and kind thoughts for Misha. It’s way more appreciated than I can express at the moment and means a lot for us. 💙
So as you may know from my yesterday post Misha is sick and that’s for sure now.
I went to sleep almost straight away after writing this post though couldn’t fall asleep for ages, had that awful feeling when you’re just too exhausted emotionally and physically to actually fall asleep. Misha spent some part of the night under my bed, then he threw up again, which messed up with my absolutely fabulously overactive emetophobic brain even more and I felt so sorry for him as he looked so scared and devastated and I was just helpless and scared as well, maybe more than him. 😀 Poor child. So I finally gave up and had to take my sleep meds which I always try to avoid as much as possible but sometimes they can be really saving.
Before I fell asleep Sasha came to me and laid down on me purring so blissfully and loudly, even without me stroking him. He is really such a nice little furball, so very cuddly and joyous. As he lied on me, I felt more grounded and calm under his little, warm body and finally we both fell asleep, although I can’t say I was sleeping well because I was waking like every two hours or so which was really irritating.
Mum gave Misha the antibiotic in the morning, the one he was prescribed yesterday, but he was looking very very poorly. He didn’t eat anything, only drank some water, had diarrhea and fever, although he felt very cold and was shivering just like yesterday. He laid down in his bed – the basket on my bed – and lied there so silently, literally the only way you could actually see he’s alive is to feel his chest moving while breathing, other than that he was so still that it felt utterly scary to me and Zofijka and even to Mum, although she says she isn’t emotionally attached to Misha.
So finally we decided we should go to our local vet to check on him, maybe he would know what’s wrong exactly.
Mum and Sofi ended up packing Misha and driving there twice because the first time they went it was closed so poor thing was quite stressed out, no wonder as he hardly ever leaves the house. Luckily though the vet was indeed able to tell us what’s wrong.
He was actually laughing openly at the thoughtlessness of the vet who vaccinated Misha for cat flu, knowing that Sasha is sick, the more that he was sick with just the same thing. Who on Earth would vaccinate their child if another one is contagiously sick, and why should it be otherwise with pets? That was just what we thought, but obviously you don’t want to come across as a know-all, after all the vet should know better what she does…
Actually, before Misha was vaccinated on Monday, my Mum had one of those inklings she has – the first time they told us to come with Misha for the vaccination and Mum went with him it turned out that they actually didn’t have the vaccine at the moment, then the second time they went was just the same, and my Mum started to wonder out of the blue that maybe it means Misha shouldn’t be vaccinated. Then they planned to go for the third time, but Mum had to collect Dad so they didn’t.
As I said my Mum has such inklings or impulses quite often, she really seems to have a good intuition. It might look a bit like some superstitiality or something like this, but she really acts as if she had some sixth sense sometimes, and generally she’s not superstitious at all, quite the opposite. Oh gosh what a long digression!
So our local vet to whom Misha went today laughed at that vet quite honestly, and told Mum that Misha most probably has caught cat flu from Sasha and this is its very beginning. But because Misha was also vaccinated, plus has been very stressed lately, and not coming out of the house much, it might be a bit more severe than Sasha’s, as his autoimmune system is probably weaker due to all that.
He gave Misha two injections with no problem – although the emergency vet to whom they went yesterday couldn’t manage to do it and Misha broke the needle – and he told Mum to come with Misha again on Saturday to see how things are going. So it’s probably much less serious than it looks.
Mum mentioned to him that Misha is so very stressed out lately and so very fearful, that he’s always been rather prone to anxiety, but since Sasha is with us he seems much more stressed, and he prescribed him something mildly sedative that he can take ad hoc when he’s more stressed, like at such times as now, when he has a lot to cope with emotionally. When I heard all that, I felt somewhat relieved and so did Zofijka and Mum.
I can’t say though that Misha is doing better. What’s for sure though, is that he’s not worse and he’s even eaten a little, so we’re very hopeful.
Sasha is so very caring of him. He’s really such a kind-hearted baby. I went to Misha about an hour ago to check how he’s doing and I found Sasha sitting by his side and purring. Misha was indifferent and rather not encouraging to make any closer relationships with him, but Sasha didn’t care. He really likes Misha. He always purrs and hhrrrus when he sees him, though Misha usually runs away. It’s not like Misha doesn’t like him – he’s not hostile or anything anymore – he just seems like he still needs time to adapt to the situation.
When it comes to me, as I said I feel significantly relieved after all those news and that Misha is relatively stable even if still poorly, though I feel like it hasn’t sunk in in my brain yet. I can’t say I’m feeling well emotionally today.
I’m kinda agitated all day and very anxious in general, don’t know if it’s actually about Misha or for no particular reason. I’m just feeling sort of wired and antsy and jittery and my thoughts are racing quicker than horses and I feel like all the sounds and smells and everything was way more intense than normally and sort of overwhelming, – that thing happens to me quite often but today it’s really pretty distracting – but at the same time I feel exhausted. I don’t even know how to exactly describe it. My anxiety is pretty bad but as I said I’m not really sure of the reason so the more it’s hard for me to get rid of it. I guess I just have to get through this and can’t do much about it at the moment. I rarely feel that way, I mean agitated and like I can’t sit still for too long, usually my anxiety doesn’t look that way, so it feels rather awkward and annoying and maybe there’s something deeper to it that I can’t figure out, but honestly I’m not quite in the mood for figuring out anything at the moment, don’t think it would be actually productive. I think I’ll try my luck and go to sleep, who knows maybe I’ll succeed. Sleep well too guys. 🙂

Scared.

Long rant and unbossoming ahead, so be careful. Also TW for talking about emetophobia and all the obvious related yucky stuff. And about surgeries, and other related, possibly triggering, yucky topics. I will love you if you’ll get through all this, however it’s definitely not something I expect you to do, I just wanted to get things off my brain.

I’m having an absolutely shitty day, with lots of anxiety. I woke up very anxious because I had some gross nightmares for a second night in a row, but hey, that’s not the first time, so I thought I will get out of that murky place in a while. And I probably would, but then other things started happening. Particularly one thing a while ago.

Zofijka’s friend came over. She is, I dunno actually what’s with her, I guess she has some cold or something, anyway she is coughing a lot, but she seemed to be OK besides and they played lively as always and with lots of scream, as always. I was writing an exhaustive email to my pen pal, because I wanted to do it much earlier but haven’t been very well organised so didn’t manage, plus I wanted to distract from my other anxieties doing it. It wasn’t something very private or that I’d have to concentrate a lot on doing so I had the door open, the more that Misha was going in and out all the time.

And suddenly I heard someone running to the bathroom, the one that we have upstairs and that is beside my room. It was Zofijka’s friend. She was choking and then it sounded like she was gagging. So, well, I just froze. I couldn’t do anything, even just turn on the music or close that stupid door or do whatever. This is usually my reaction when I hear someone vomiting. Then Zofijka came to her and they talked silently and after a while they walked out. I don’t know what happened to her, I guess her cough was just so intensive. I know she had a brain tumour and isn’t fully recovered from it and Zofijka was mentioning that she had different things happenign to her as a result of it, but still objectively it didn’t look like something major. But I don’t want to know what it was… Or actually, I want, but I don’t want. That’s the best way I can describe it. But I think I don’t want more than I want. She looked like besides the cough she’s just OK, she played with Zofijka they were running and stuff, but now they just are sitting in Zofijka’s room and watching something. Obviously I wonder whether she has some flu or something and whether it’s contagious. I hate overthinking about such details. I wonder whether she’ll sleep with Zofijka. I generally like when other kids come to Zofijka for night, which may be surprising for you if you know me even just a little bit and how socially freaked I am, but everyone of us likes it, because then we don’t have to pay so much attention to her, she can be really really absorbing and exhausting long term, so it’s nice when another child comes to her for a weekend and she has something to do without either Mum or me having to constantly watch her, keep her company or endure her moodswings. BUt if she’s sick… and Zofijka will catch it too? And these scary bacteria and all will be all around our house… Grrrr!!! Scary!!! But I can’t stop thinking about it. Even if it isn’t anything contagious, I’m still scared, and I feel absolutely helpless about it at the moment.

I’m trying to distract, listening to music, I snuggled with Misha for a while when he wanted, went down to my Mum to smalltalk with her, but realised my Dad came back and they’re arguing so… well, ugh, I was reading blogs, tried to finish that email I started to write which didn’t go that well so I’d have to rewrite it, and now I’m writing here in hopes that if I’ll get it out it won’t feel so scary. More than an hour has passed since that little incident and I still can settle, and it scares me too, because I feel like it’s way too much time to process such a little thing, I don’t even know whether she actually vomited. But I just still feel so shitty, shaky and nauseated and cold and hot and dizzy and my thoughts are racing. Before that happened I planned to eat something soon but now I can’t think about eating anything without getting more nausious. Actually I’m rather surprised it affected me so much because I was doing better with my emetophobia recently. My family were sick in March and I had a lot of stress with it and other stuff combined together and although it WAS very tough, they were sick for a long time, I got through it more smoothly than this thing now. And I also feel like some major mood dip is starting for me, or maybe it’s just my anxiety trying to convince me that just everything is pointless. I took my extra anti-anxiety med but it doesn’t seem to do much.

And that other thing that scared me, not as much as the previous one, but now it all just combined into one scary monster in my brain, was something we talked about with Mum earlier today. Mum woke up having awful muscle cramps in her neck – she has issues with her spine so it’s like normal when she sleeps long in one position, and last night she slept very heavily. ANyway she wanted to make an appointment with her massagist as soon as possible. Then it reminded her that she also wanted to talk to him about me. Because of my feet and my muscle contractions that came up again when I started doing those five Tibetan rites with her. I agreed that she could talk with him about me and that it perhaps would be good if he saw me. Well I actually don’t remember if I had ever told you that I had a surgery for my Achilles tendons when I was 10. The orthopaedist I saw said that the source of the issues with my feet are the Achilles tendons which are to short so they’d have to lengthen them. They told me I would be in plaster for six weeks and how the surgery would look like. But it was all very brief and I didn’t really know what is going to happen, how I imagined it to be was completely different, and it seemed a very distant future. And when it finally happened it happened very suddenly, just the doctor told us out of the blue he can operate me in a week so we can come soon and that was it. So I had this operation, in pretty awful circumstances which I won’t go into now, and then I woke up hearing my Dad and nurses complimenting my new white high boots and how fashionable they are, and then I realised I had plasters allover my legs. Like, the surgery area was my Achilles tendons and maybe some part of my calves, while the plaster was all the way from my tighs to my toes so that I couldn’t even bend my legs. I think it had to shock me. I saw people in plaster before, like my Dad had his leg broken a few times, but I never thought you can be like this – I just though people who have something in plaster walk with crutches and do everything normally, like my Dad did. While I was actually bed bound. I think my parents weren’t prepared for such a big thing either, which only contributed to my insecurity around this. I actually felt much more like I was after some major accident than a minor surgery. Mum asked them to discharge me after the surgery and so they did, but I didn’t feel any better emotionally when I was at home. My existence started to be absolutely monotonous and depressive. This was the same year when I started integration school for a while in hopes it will work out for me, and Zofijka was born, so a lot of changes in other fields as well. I was overwhelmed that all the independence I had to the day of surgery was actually taken from me and I had to ask people for help with literally anything, like my Dad had to carry me to the loo and all that felt incredibly humiliating. I spent most of the time alone with not much to do since I couldn’t even change my position a lot. Mum was very occupied with Zofijka who was a very screamy baby and also we were moving houses and there was a lot of hustle with it so that she was mostly out of the house and then coming back in the evenings. I remember that I felt then that I was never going to recover or things will even get worse, that it will turn out I will have some weird complications or something. I think apart from all the boarding school shit etc. it was one of the things that screwed me up the most. That year many of my worst anxieties were brought to life or exacerbated, and I think then it was exactly when my first full episode of depression started, but it was diagnosed much later. It was then when I first was actively suicidal, and lots of other rubbish happened. When they finally took off the plasters of me I was very unsettled. In fact, when I was going hme after the surgery I was rather numb, but when they took the plasters off I felt like everything suddenly bursted out of me and I was a sobbing mess and noone, including me, could actually figure out why. It wasn’t the end though and the recovery afterwards and all the physio was even more traumatising and scary for me. When I finally recovered, after some time it turned out that the whole thing was actually waste of time and didn’t help much, and also that the plasters didn’t necessarily have to be that huge. I couldn’t recover emotionally for much longer, like even the songs I heard on the radio that I heard back then in the hospital or that were often played when I was after the surgery could bring me back to those feelings and experiences, and I could just feel situations as if they were now, or I had dreams in which it all was starting allover again, or a deep conviction it’s going to happen again, also that depression in which I slipped after the surgery has stayed with me for a long time. But I hardly ever talked with anyone about it and if so, very briefly and not going into my feelings. The only thing I am happy about with that surgery is that at that time I was luckily at home, not at the boarding school, otherwise I would have to go through that hell there, my Mum even told me once that she actually regretted I didn’t have the surgery there because it would be all easier logistically, so well, I should be thankful. Then Mum also brought me to another orthopaedist after a few years, and he told us that actually all that could be done with my feet, should be done when I was a baby and then everything would be OK, but what we could do at that moment was a surgery called Grice-Green’s surgery. I was just frightened, the more that this guy in turn described it all to me with lots of details and it seemed dreadful to me. However, somehow the thing was soon brushed under the carpet and of course I didn’t want to be the one uncovering it. My feet deffects aren’t so serious that they would affect my every day functioning significantly, or be very troublesome to live with, so I didn’t care and still don’t care much about it.

But where I’m going to, is that this massagist my Mum goes to is also a doctor. And it just scares the shit out of me that he could tell me I need another surgery or even anything similar. Of course I’d refuse, I won’t put myself into such things again now when I have the choice, but it all just… I think it triggered me. Because since we talked about it my brain is just flooded with memories. I feel so damn frustrated that I still haven’t got over with it. Like maybe I have a bit, but it still feels scary. I haven’t thought more about all that stuff for a long time now, I didn’t want to, and now it just all goes through my brain without me actually controlling it, like eveb the very details of that time and it makes me wanna scream. My Mum says he won’t do it, that he will just work on my muscles, because in recent years I’ve been getting a lot of contractions and stuff in many of my muscles, but particularly in my legs, and it actually is a bit disturbing for example with my horse riding or now with the Tibetan exercises. But some catastrophising parts of my freaky brain don’t want to believe in it.

Finally she called him and asked him if she could come, and then she went to him, and talked about me. She told me he said that these muscle contractions can also be neurotic, and that he’ll see me tomorrow at 12. I feel soo anxious about it.

Another thing I feel anxious about with this appointment is that I hate strangers touching me, even more if I’m just in my underwear. Mum says he wouldn’t care about it and how I look and stuff, that she was anxious about it too, but he has seen too many people to care about it, and she is sure I will like him. But for me it’s not about him. I don’t care if he’ll think I’m pretty or ugly or if he’ll care about how I look at all. It’s about me. I really really hate when people pay so much close attention to me, yuck.

So yeah, am very anxious today, but will have to get over it somehow. My emetophobia has calmed down a little bit as I’ve been writing and this girl isn’t sleeping with Zofijka, and also nothing very bad couldn’t happen to her, Zofijka would already tell me for sure.

I feel exhausted by all that anxiety, it’s been a while since the last time I can remember it being so intense, so I think the best thing I can do is to just shut off my brain and go to sleep, if I’ll manage, and hope tomorrow will maybe be better. Mum says she feels like having period and actually I would be glad if she would. It isn’t a Christian behaviour to wish someone a period, but then I know Mum would be stranded at home for the first day and we won’t go anywhere. I know I will have to see him and I know it could help me but I feel like right now I’m definitely not prepared. All that anxiety is, I guess, not adequate to the situation, and I would like some more time to digest it. I definitely wouldn’t like to come to him and freak out completely and lose the control over my anxiety, have a panic attack or something, which, in my current state of mind, would be very possible. Or I just hope this appointment will go better than I think it may. I just hope I’m only catastrophising with all this.

OK, sleep well, world. .

Question of the day.

Name one thing you must do more of and one thing you must do less of.

My answer:

Lately I noticed I need more physical activity. It’s been a little bit hard recently. For most of my life, my main physical activity has been horse riding. But this year things have changed slightly. I am taking my final exams this year and preparations consume quite a lot of time, and also money, as I have the tutor who helps me with maths, which is obligatory to pass the exam from and I simply wouldn’t be able to achieve this without her help, I’d say it’s even doubtful with it, but anyway… I needed to stop horse riding for some time as it also consumes a lot of both things. Besides my horse riding instructor and hipotherapist is a very busy person, she is also a professional rider, a doctor – working as anasthesiologist, neurologist and now also on A&E, ER or however you call it – and a mum, and has a lot of both children and adults she works with as either hipotherapist or riding instructor, so sometimes she just doesn’t manage to crowd everyone in her schedule and as I am one of people with less complex needs of those she works with and don’t necessarily need constant therapy/stimulation, it’s more of my hobby, it often happens that I may have breaks between my riding. Also my horse has been not in the best condition lately. I think I”ve told you about my horse Łoś who is quite an old guy with lots of stormy and not the nicest life experiences and because of that, he’s having more and more health troubles, recently something’s going on with his bronchi. I have my “emergency” horse – Rudy – but he has a lot of people who ride him, mostly children, on a regular basis, so it isn’t always possible for me to ride him. ANd also I’ve been through that awful skin infection which I had on my leg this year which was too painful to ride with. So actually the last time I rode was sometime in December. That’s such a pity. I feel like I’ll forget how to ride! That would be scary, but I hope I won’t and that I’ll be able to come back to riding soon.

Anyway, I’m out of riding for now and it’s a little hard to find some replacement activity. My spacial orientation and related stuff are rubbish, I’m barely able to navigate through our backyard and I don’t feel very confident about it, not to mention anything outside, I need someone to guide me. So I can’t organise much for myself. We do have some walk from time to time with Mum as we have some time on our hands at the same moment, but we both feel like it’s too rarely. At least I do some muscle exercises for my legs to not go out of practice when I’m back to riding, but I’m not that very systematic about that to be honest, especially now in all that mishmash. Hope I’ll be able to take it more seriously after the term session, maybe then I’ll have some more spare time, if the stress before the final exams won’t eat me completely.

The thing I think I should do less is overthinking. This is something I’m really an expert about, I could be a PHD in overthinking really lol. I feel like it’s a bit pathological and often very overwhelming so that I can feel absolutely insane just because of my thoughts overwhelming me. It’s damn hard to have any control over this, but I need to try and try and maybe someday I’ll succeed?

Now it’s your turn. 🙂