things are pretty dece. i’m at r’s place after drawing. it took about 30 minutes for me to settle on a youtube video to put in the background that was calm and mildly interesting but not too demanding. i thought of so many things i could watch if i wanted to just watch—ahhhhh here we go, now that i’ve gotten comfy, r is home. i don’t know how to share space effectively with him. he doesn’t want to watch makeup videos lmao ok i’m turning it off
in the last month, i’ve had about 10x the medical appointments that I had in the preceding 2 years. gp, pt, bh. it’s weird and kind of stressful and time-consuming, but still very very good and important. i haven’t been applying myself to the cbt worksheets and trying to remember/implement any of it, but i can tell that like… the framework is useful, if i choose to apply myself to it.
even better, i’m finally in physical therapy. #bless. the first guy i saw was dismissive of my back pain and said something ridiculous along the lines of “well, sometimes people get back pain because they’re sad–your back pain could be happening for literally any reason” yeah ok but as the owner of this flesh prison, i’m telling you that the pt exercises previously assigned me for acute issue #1 were exacerbating acute issue #2, and that’s why I fucking stopped doing them, and stopping the exercises relieved the tightness (for a long while… until it didn’t.) the second lady was like “yeah so if you’re not engaging muscles in your hip when you’re supposed to, the lower back on the opposite side can definitely overcompensate and develop bad habits” like wow!!!! great to have confirmation after several years, but also, great to be listened to on a very basic level! so yeah basically i have a bunch of exercises now that i’m going to be doing for the rest of my life… and ideally, continuing to push myself to do more sets and with higher band resistance levels.
what else… hmm… it seems like my fear of abandonment is actually like this giant thing simmering under the surface at all times. The sense I get is that the CBT exercises we are playing with aren’t meant to necessarily be that difficult…. but I’ve found a few things that reliably upset me strongly, when prodded in the right direction. it seems like it’s not just normal sads.
ugh. i think r is home but thinks i’m asleep so he’s avoiding the bedroom. i want to go to bed, so i’m going to go brush my teeth now.
wish i would start using my planner more. cbt made that feel more accessible, too, maybe.