Routine

The bullshit workbook basically says now that I should stop tracking the pain, struggle, and success I experience each day. Something about acceptance rather than evaluation. Blah, blah, blah. Words.

Anyway, that's one less thing to accomplish each day.

I do have a bit more of a routine now. After waking up, I get breakfast and coffee and my fucking morning antidepressant. Sometimes I listen to music while eating, sometimes watch YouTube. When food is finished, I get off YouTube if that's what I was doing. I don't want to start my day trapped there.

I keep going with the coffee. Working on the bullshit workbook, finding new music, or just reading. Something at least a little productive.

The urge to shit arises before coffee is finished. I think my body takes coffee to be the signal to get my innards moving. I'm not really sure why; just that if I miss coffee, my bowels get off-kilter.

Anyway, shittin' comes when it comes.

Once coffee is finished, I go on a walk. Doctor's orders. Supposed to reduce my anxiety and agoraphobia by confronting "the outside" - being out and about makes me anxious.

Even walking two blocks makes me more tired than I thought it could, even given my sedentary habits. I'm not fat - I'm actually thin as rails, 5'9" but 135lbs - but somehow hauling this bag of bones a block or two makes my thighs and hips and neck sore the next morning. Fuck.

I eat an apple when I begin the walk. (My parents have a few dwarf apple trees, which I harvested last week, so we have more apples than we know what to do with.) Having something to munch on distracts my primordial hind-brain by convincing it that I'm safe - "if I wasn't safe, what business would I have eating?"

When I get back, I meditate for 15min. The bullshit workbook told me to. Whatever. (I don't like it. I feel exhausted and out of it - dissociated - by the time I'm done.)

Brush my teeth.

That's my morning routine.

Better than a job, I guess.

I'm writing this after finishing the above. Often by the time dinner is over, and I've arrived at the time I usually try to do this, I can barely think, let alone write coherently. I wish I was more able to summarize the day, but that's not what ends up happening anyway. I'll just add a piece of music, as I usually do, before actually posting at the end of my day.

I have an evening routine, too.

Take my fucking evening antidepressant.
Shower.
Brush my teeth.
Read a chapter of whatever I'm reading. (This ensures I get at least some reading done every day, though I often read more during the day too.)
Shuffle music while reading.
When reading is finished, turn off the lights and continue listening to music until fully sleepy. (Typically another two or three songs.)

Then it's another dawn to fear.

Great album by Cult of Luna last month.