mental health

Some Weeks are Harder Than Others

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

It’s Thursday, and I’m having one of those weeks where Friday and the weekend can’t come soon enough. I worked from home Tuesday and called off entirely yesterday. Some of this week is a mental battle – it’s been pretty grey and dreary outside all week, and it’s hard to feel motivated when the sun doesn’t rise until after 7am and sets around when I’m getting out of work.

A large part of the challenge this week has been physical, though. My hands and arms have been aching in a way they haven’t really before, at least not so consistently. Since my job and all of my hobbies involve my hands, this is…distressing. There have been things this week that I just haven’t been able to do, because it hurts when I try.

My partner has been super great and supportive while I figure out what to do about this and has stepped up where I’ve had to step back. I feel guilty, leaving so many things to him. It doesn’t feel fair, and that’s a hard thing for this Hufflepuff to get past.

I need to call the PT clinic I tried reaching out to online that never got back to me. It would be the most convenient possible location. But the thought of calling is exhausting.

The good news is that I started taking a mountain dulcimer class at the Old Town School last week, and it’s easier on my hands than most of the other instruments that I play. So I can still make music, even if I feel like I can’t do much else.

I know I’ll figure out better ways of dealing with this as time goes on. Right now, though, it is no fun and I am pretty cranky about it.

Goals

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

I think I mentioned last week that after I wrote my goals last year, I didn’t look at them again until I was doing my review of the year. That’s how goals go for me pretty often. I have a hard time sticking to them and keeping track of them.

I got a shiny new planner this week (inspired by a friend’s planner purchase), and I’m using it to try to better track my progress on my goals. This is not the first time I’ve tried using a planner to do this (I have a bit of a planner obsession, really), but this one seems to fit how my brain works better than others have. (It’s the Clever Fox Premium Weekly, for the interested.)

I think part of my struggle with goals is that if I mess up once, my brain tells me I’ve failed, period, and I should just give up. I don’t often think of myself as a perfectionist these days, but I definitely have those all-or-nothing tendencies.

So this week I’ve been trying, and then working on being gentle with myself if I fall short. I’m trying to establish a new, earlier morning routine, which is hard, and I haven’t succeeded every day. But I’ve done better than I honestly thought I would, so that’s something.

The new year is hard. No matter how much I tell myself it’s an arbitrary marker of time, it’s hard to ignore the “time for a fresh start” energy everywhere. There’s a lot of pressure to improve.

One of my Facebook friends posted one of their resolutions as something like “eat the elephant (one bite at a time),” and that’s an attitude I’m trying to adopt. I’m shooting for some big shifts in 2020, and the only way to get them done is one bite at a time.

2019/2020

/ Alyxander James / 1 Comment

Happy New Year, folks! We made it to 2020.

I have a tendency to set intentions and create resolutions at the beginning of the year and then never look at them again. That kind of happened in 2019. However, I looked back at my first post from 2019, when I laid out goals for the year, and even though I hadn’t looked back on them at all as the year progressed…it turns out I actually accomplished most of them? So that’s cool.

Let’s take a look back and a look forward, shall we?

Goals I had at the beginning of 2019, and progress on those goals:

  • Find a new therapist
    • I found a new therapist in January, and it was, on the whole, the most productive year of my life, in terms of therapy. I’ve been working through all sorts of things and feel like I’ve greatly increased my capacity for handling shit that comes up.
  • Complete a second FAWM
    • I wrote 18 songs for FAWM this year (the goal is 14), including two co-writes with my partner! We’d never written together before, so that was cool.
  • Write 30 songs
    • I wrote 50 songs, which is completely bonkers. The last one was written via quietly-recorded voice memos on the late-night drive to Minnesota for Christmas.
  • Read more
    • Technically I managed this – I read more books than I did last year. Didn’t quite hit my Goodreads goal of 25, but managed 23.
  • Go back to Song School
    • We did this, and it was such an incredible, affirming experience. I even managed to write a song while I was there, and got to perform it at the open stage with eight beautiful people.
  • Play out at least four times
    • Unless we count Song School, I played out three times. However…
  • Find at least one opportunity to play out somewhere other than the Acoustic Explosion
    • I did this! I played a show called Homolatte for the first time, and it was brilliant.
  • Play more D&D
    • While I always wish I could play more, I did this. Also got into some other games. I love the folks I game with so much.
  • Keep tracking finances and get money under control
    • I still feel less in control than I’d like, but I’m way better off than I was last year, and I’m on track to have my credit card paid off in June!

Other things that happened:

  • Saw my grandmother for the first time in nine years
  • Attempted 50/90 (and managed 17 songs)
  • We moved!
  • Reintroduced myself to my extended family (which went way better than I expected it to
  • Was a pallbearer at my grandfather’s funeral
  • Deepened existing friendships; made new friends

Goals I have for 2020:

  • Write. Songs, yes, but also other things, poems and short stories and maybe even games.
  • Read more, especially poetry and other things that inspire me.
  • Make music often, as close to every day as possible.
  • Do the work, in therapy and on my own, to be an adult that my inner child can be proud of.
  • Take care of my body and my brain and my spirit.
  • Follow through on the plan to have my credit card paid off in June.
  • Create more routine and space for ritual in my life.

May your 2020 be better than your 2019, and may this time of transition treat you gently and leave you with what you need from it.

Anniversaries

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

Happy Thursday, dear readers!

I was so focused on my ER adventure last week that I completely missed the fact that last Thursday was my 6 year HRT anniversary. I’ve been on testosterone for six whole years! Which, incidentally, means this blog will hit its six year anniversary in a couple of weeks. I’ve blogged almost every week for six years, which is mind-boggling to me.

My therapist is constantly reminding me that I need to take time to recognize and celebrate progress. I’m not good at this. So today’s blog will attempt to do a bit of that.

A lot has changed in the past six years. My life has gained a welcome level of stability that wasn’t there before. I’m in a better place mentally than I was then. I had no idea when I started this part of this journey what would happen with my family. It’s been a trip…but I’ve ended up in a largely positive space. So that’s cool.

In addition to those personal anniversaries, there’s another important one coming up: Sunday will mark nine years since my partner and I went on our first date.

NINE YEARS. In two years we’ll have been together for a third of my life. It hasn’t always been easy, but it’s always been worth it.

In therapy this week we talked about how after three or so years in a relationship, we shift from thinking about that person as a new person in our lives to thinking of them as family. That means that unless we consciously work to rewire whatever dysfunctional attachment patterns we developed in our family of origin, we’ll perpetuate those in our family of choice. (On the one hand, breaking those dysfunctional patterns is overwhelming and difficult, but on the other, what a cool opportunity to strike out into new territory!) One of the things I’m working on is letting myself be cared for, even when I feel like I’m inconveniencing the people around me. I’m so grateful that I have a partner who’s so thoughtful and intentional about making sure I’m cared for.

What about you, friends? Any anniversaries, big or small, happening in your lives these days? I’d love to hear about them!

Thursday Ramblings

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

It’s Thursday, and I’m tired.

I’ve been tired all week. I’m fighting an end-of-summer cold, and it’s making mornings especially challenging. Today, at least, I was able to get up and out of the house at a reasonable hour – I’m leading a training at work this morning, so it would’ve been especially problematic if I was late. But I feel like I’m dragging.

The fact that the weather got hot again is not helping matters – I am ready for fall weather. I’m also ready for consistent weather – the constant shifting is really hard on my body – but that’s probably not a realistic wish in Chicago.

I’m not having a bad week, exactly. I’m just low on energy. The weekend was good – I got to play D&D and we got the apartment more settled. I wrote a song I liked for class this week, so that was exciting.

How about you, dear readers? How are you feeling as we wait for the season to really start changing? What’s new and exciting in your lives? I’d love to hear from you.

Moving Madness

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

This blog is going up a little later in the day than usual – last week, I was super on top of things and had the post written Wednesday evening. This week, not so much. But hey, at least I wrote something!

We’re getting closer and closer to Song School, which means we’re closer and closer to moving. I am overwhelmed, but also really proud of how much we’ve managed to get done so far. Over the weekend, we went through our knitting stuff, which was the biggest and most daunting of things on our project list. We now have multiple ten-gallon tubs of yarn and knitting accessories that will not be moving with us. We’re still figuring out what WILL happen with all of it, but at least step one is done. I feel so much better about my yarn stash now. I’m letting go of a lot of beautiful things, but they’re a lot of beautiful things that I wasn’t realistically going to knit. Now they can go on to someone else who can appreciate them. (Fellow knitters: we were assisted in this process by the StashFit workbook. It was super helpful and I feel like now I have a better idea of what I actually use, which informed the culling and will also inform any future purchases, meaning my stash feels like it’s not going to balloon out of control again anytime soon.)

This week we’re shifting from sorting to packing. Friday we’ll be packing for Song School (which is still a couple of weeks away, but that way we don’t risk losing track of anything we’ll need for our trip). Saturday the moving boxes arrive. I feel a little bit guilty that if anyone tries to schedule a showing of our current apartment between now and when we move, they’ll be faced with walls of boxes, but…it is what it is.

My goal is to have things packed/settled enough by the time we leave for Song School that I can actually be present for the trip and not preoccupied with everything left to do at home. I think it’s an achievable goal, but it’s going to be challenging. It would be challenging enough on its own, but add the unpredictability of my chronic pain stuff and both of our mental health issues and…yeah. Fingers crossed that bodies and brains cooperate and we’re able to have a productive week!

Facing Anger

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

“When was the last time you got really angry?”

This was a question that came up in my session with my therapist this week, and I didn’t have an answer.

I did not go into therapy this week expecting to talk about being angry. It had been two weeks since we’d met, and I was running through updates on things we’d been talking about in past sessions. One of the things that came up had to do with people talking about me rather than to me about my life.

“Does it make you angry?” she asked.

“Yes,” I responded immediately, and then found myself backpedaling. “Well, at least annoyed. Angry might be too strong a term.”

She pointed out that it was my first response, though. We talked about what “annoyed” versus “angry” feels like, and which response actually felt more genuine in that situation. It was definitely anger. She asked me to sit with it for a minute.

And I remembered something I haven’t super consciously considered in a while. Once, when I was about 14, I was fighting with my younger brother. At some point, I got really, really angry. I chased him up the stairs to his room. He slammed the door in my face, and before I knew what was happening, my fist came down on the door…and I heard something in the door crack. I realized in that moment just how capable I was of causing serious harm to another human being, and it terrified me.

I don’t remember much of the rest of that evening, aside from knowing that I retreated to my own room immediately and probably stayed there as long as I possibly could. And I’ve never lashed out in anger like that again.

I don’t do well with anger. I’ve known this for a long time, but in therapeutic settings had only really worked with my lack of coping skills around other people’s anger. I haven’t spent a lot of time digging into the fact that, for more than half my life now, my response to my own anger has been to freeze – I make myself and my anger as small as possible so that I don’t risk hurting anyone. I want more than anything to be a person who makes other people feel safe, and I don’t know how to feel safe around anger. I freeze because I’m even more afraid of my own anger than I am of other people’s.

My therapist posited that perhaps there’s a link between the amount of time I spend freezing and trying to make myself small, and the fact that most of my joints hurt almost all of the time.

It’s not a thing that’s going to be solved just by recognizing that it’s there…but that’s step one, at least.

Home Again, Home Again

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

Happy Thursday, dear readers!

I mentioned last week that I was getting ready to go on my first ever work trip. I got home from DC yesterday afternoon. It was a good trip overall, if not exactly what I expected/intended it to be. Here are some highlights:

  • I got to see our colleague who moved to Israel 3.5 years ago, who I’m always emailing/Skyping but who I hadn’t seen in person since she moved. It was great to catch up and hang out.
  • I learned things that I think will ultimately help me do my job better. Some of the sessions I went to went way over my head, but even those at least gave me things to look up once I get settled back at the office.
  • I got to meet up with my friend Heather Mae, who is one of the most genuinely kind people I have the pleasure of knowing (and also happens to be one of my favorite musicians). Taking an hour to grab coffee with her made my week. We have brains that operate in similar ways (#BipolarAdventures), and it’s always nice to be able to talk to someone who just gets it.
  • I did NOT do the networking I had planned to do. This had a lot to do with the fact that I’m just not great at networking, and because our 1800+ person conference (which was not the only large conference happening at the convention center) was a bit overwhelming for this socially anxious introvert. But I did think of things I can do better next time, and I have ideas of where to follow up on things from home.
  • I walked about 5 miles a day, most of them without even leaving the building where the conference was held. It was a lot.
  • I successfully got through airport security both ways without setting off any machines! I think that’s a first. (Usually if I have good luck on one leg of the journey, I won’t on the other. Or I set off all the machines. Body scanners are gender binarist bullshit.)

I’m on my way into the office now. I desperately wanted to work from home today, but I think my office mate would kill me if I left her alone for another day, so here we are. I’m exhausted, but still generally feeling good about the trip. As much as I enjoy traveling, I’m very ready to get settled back into my routine at home.

Tired All the Time

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

Hello, dear readers, and apologies for the slightly late blog today.

I called off sick today. It feels like I’ve been doing this a lot lately, although usually when I don’t go into the office, I’m working from home. But today I decided I needed a day to just not worry about work and catch up on some rest. So here I am, at home, listening to the most recent episode of the Gender Reveal podcast, and writing a blog post.

I have felt so tired so constantly lately. I know some of it has been pain-related (chronic pain is exhausting, y’all), and some of it is just that I’ve been busy, and some of it has been the weird weather. It’s made it hard to get myself into the office, and hard to do work once I’m there. It’s been hard to find the energy to get things done around the house. The shift to Daylight Savings Time was rough – while I enjoy the longer daylight in the evening, mornings have been really hard to handle now that they’re darker again. But I’m trudging through, hoping my internal equilibrium levels off again soon.

In addition to being tired all the time, here are some other things that I have on my mind right now:

  • I’m encouraged by the fact that spring officially arrived yesterday. Spring means allergies, which is not my favorite thing, but I love watching the return to green every year. I’ve seen a few green shoots poking through the ground, and I’ve seen robins hopping around the neighborhood, and it feels like I can breath deeply for the first time in a while (at least until the allergies start up).
  • One of the things I’m learning in therapy right now is that I need to celebrate the things that are going right in my life, and the things I’m doing well. I’m not great at this – I’m really good at looking at where I fall short, even in the moments that are largely successful. So I’ve been trying to celebrate little things, whether it’s with a glass of wine or reaching out to friends or something else, and it feels weird, but it’s good.
  • I got a letter from my grandmother yesterday, and I’m thinking a lot about my relationship with her and what I want to do about it. I haven’t seen her in almost seven years, and she’s 91. There are a lot of feelings there that I’m still parsing out.

Progress

/ Alyxander James / Leave a comment

Sometimes, progress is obvious and happens quickly. Other times, it can feel like it’s not happening at all. This week has largely been one of those other times.

FAWM marches on, and I have been writing – I’m up to 12 songs and it’s the 14th of the month. This week it’s been harder, though. I’ve had trouble waking up early to write. Still, I’ve written some keepers, and that’s exciting. Here are a few of the songs I’m proudest of so far:

Work has been frustrating, not because of anything specific to my job, but because my brain has been extremely foggy this week. I haven’t gotten much done, because I can’t keep my train of thought on the rails long enough to see things through. I feel stuck, and it’s not a pleasant feeling.

I am looking forward to the weekend. A friend of ours is coming down from Minnesota to hang out for a couple of days. I’m looking forward to some low-key hangouts and pizza.