Daily Log: 6th April, 2017

I slept well, extensively actually – fot around 12 hours – that’s been the way of things during this crisis. I either sleep a lot or I don’t sleep at all. 

I’ve changed my bedding today, showered, cleaned my teeth, dressed, aired the bedroom and dusted the bedroom furniture. I’ve folded some clean laundry, washed a few dishes and emptied the dishwasher. 

I read for a while, and I’ve played a few games of Mahjong. I haven’t played any computer games for years, but when an ad for a free version popped up on my tablet, I remembered that I had once loved playing Mahjong on some device or other. Within days I’d whipped through the 40-odd levels, finding it an outlet for my natural drive. I’ll admit I was disappointed not to receive onscreen fireworks or some sort of fanfare to mark the achievement :D! I’m still hoping to beat previous times but mostly now play because I find it mindful and therefore calming.

I’ve just shot about a foot in the air at the sound of my buzzer, I have a ridiculously exaggerated startle response. I pressed the button to open the street door without speaking into the intercom assuming it to be the early arrival of supermarket delivery of groceries that I’m expecting between 9-10pm. Delivery charges range from £7-£1; this slot is the cheapest.I haven’t eaten today so I’m looking forward to it arriving and having some supper. I thought my wait was over but with no sign of the delivery person nearly 10 minutes later, it looks like wishful thinking. I’ve stopped hovering by the front door, peering at intervals through the spyhole for signs of my shopping being lugged up the two flights of stairs to my flat.  

The rest of the evening holds promise of further writing, making notes ahead of a planned meeting with my advocate tomorrow, and catching up with MasterChef before reading then sleep. 

Thursday into Friday

Good morning 🙂 

I’m feeling positively breezy this morning but I think I may finally have learned not to get swept along by my need to be positive, and to understand that my current ‘breezy’ is a long way from the ‘breezy norm’. 

Any improvement, however slight, on being locked into the fog of dissociation with only terror and desolation for company is wondrous. That ‘wondrousness’ is  a bit of blighter actually because it can leave me feeling guilty, that things are not so bad after all and that I certainly ought not to be requiring, or even less, seeking any help. 

I grew up believing that I wasn’t suffering at all, despite experiencing appalling trauma and abuse. I notice that as I wrote those words I felt a twinge of guilt that made me cringe. Was it really so appalling? Am I exaggerating? I say that as someone who aged nine witnessed one parent actually trying to murder the other and, while still a child, lost a parent to suicide on my birthday. Those are but two of many more examples that I could give. 

I grew up with that belief partly because these events were given no more significance than a broken fingernail in terms of their impact on me, by those around me. It was also drummed into me that I had it so good and that there were so many people in the world worse off than me. Consequently, I can struggle with the distorted perception that if someone, anyone, is worse off than me then I am not struggling/suffering/in need and should just ‘get on with it’. 

Yesterday, I made and ate a plain omelette,  ran two dishwasher loads – making a sizeable dent in the accumulated kitchen ‘crisis detritus’ – ate some kidney beans with tomato, black pepper and cumin, and, when late yesterday evening hunger was still a problem but food was scarce, a bashed together a banana loaf which, despite being missing a couple of ingredients, turned out to be my tastiest yet. 

I also took the huge step of introducing my oldest friend to this blog, *waves hello to her*, and thoroughly enjoyed watching the final of the Great Pottery Throwdown. Although, I’ll be experiencing withdrawal symptoms now it and the Great Big Painting Challenge have both concluded this week! 

Today I will be focused on cleaning myself up (a far greater task than it may sound) and receiving a supermarket delivery of some groceries this evening. I hope to work on a significant blog post. It may prove challenging to compose but I believe the benefits of doing so will outweigh the challenges.