Self-kindness isn’t always the obvious. Today I was kind to myself by I allowing myself to do as much as I could without beating myself up over all that I didn’t do.
Today I am giving myself three cheers (or would if I had the energy) for:
- Getting my morning pages written
- Having breakfast and my pills
- Getting dressed
- Getting the bed made
- Opening the shutters
All this by around midday.
I recognised that I needed food. So I
- Found my phone
- Phoned home, because I had already arranged with Mum to go to the bigger supermarket today, which worked out well, timing wise because I wouldn’t have had the energy to walk anywhere
- Put on more layers of clothes
- Get wallet and shopping bags together
- Find pen and small notebook
- Get a basic shopping list written out
- Put house keys in bag
And if you think that the above list is easier to do than to write out you would be right. Except on days when even thinking the words “get wallet, get cool bag, get shopping bag” take as much time and effort as I don’t know, my brain isn’t working here – think of some thing you have to do but aren’t good at, I don’t know like, reciting a poem you read once in school…
I got to the supermarket. I bought most of what was on the list. I was awake, my brain was able to think. I bought a pair of pillows, because I need a new one and they’re only sold in pairs and it was on sale and I paid and I remembered to put one of the cans into the food bank collection, because I am lucky, I can afford Food, and it was fine, it wasn’t an effort, I had some energy to spare from the energy my body had saved from barely functioning this morning, even when allowing for the energy used when wearing the mask of “being a normal,non-depressed, fully-functional member of the human race that is automatically put on whenever I leave the house when depressed and is there whether I want it or not.
I got home.
- I unpacked the cool bag
- I put groceries in the fridge
- I unplugged the phone which I had left charging
- I read a text from a friend. No energy to reply.
- I made myself write. It took me three attempts to get 27 minutes done.
- I ate something
- I made myself write some more fiction for 5 minutes.
- I felt relieved that I hadn’t broken the streak, that Today I Wrote.
- I was cold, so I went to bed, thankfully too tired to feel guilty for not texting my friend back.
- I slept
Depression isn’t sadness, sometimes it is just a much reduced ability to function.
I didn’t want to lay in bed thinking about nothing. It’s not that fun, honest. I am pleased that I managed to get up at all. I am pleased that I actually slept this afternoon. Not surprised though, functioning can be exhausting.
So can moving. I am awake now and though my brain is working enough to type this out (though looking at the clock it’s taken half an hour to get this far) I am aware of the slightly sick feeling of hunger. If getting my bags together is hard, getting Food together can be worse. I got to do this while not getting burned, or food poisoning or something. But I can do it. I am sure I bought something that can be heated up, knowing I would not be up to cooking from scratch.
Still something else I have achieved today:
The Friendly Magpie 