chandrarueff1961-yasmb

This is going to be a strange introduction to me and my everyday experiences with my mental illnesses.

The everyday challenge: How do I get out of my own head, stay in the present, and pay attention to the people I’m working with? This is my everyday form of “multitasking” (a term I’ve always had a problem with) to the extreme. It’s not like I’m walking and chewing gum at the same time here.

Instead, it’s paying attention to the back and forth of a meeting and adding my piece, all while battling with the demons in my head. The doubts (“Do I really have anything relevant to add?”), the anxiety (heartrate climbing, searching for my water, looking around the room at these people who expect so much from me, and wanting to gracefully nonparticipate or, even better, exit the room.) while I’m organizing and looking over my notes, desperately hoping they will get me through my presentation. And then the presentation, all the while wondering if I look okay (as in appearance), and if I look “okay.” as in not about to fall apart, because I feel like I’m falling apart. Leaving en masse, smiling and chatting with my colleagues as if the meeting was no big deal, which it really wasn’t. It was just a big deal in my head.

So that was exhausting. A one-hour mundane meeting, and I’m already a basket case.

I retreat to my office and back to the safety of my desktop. Computers don’t judge. But…. look at all the tabs I have open! That computer isn’t judging me, but it’s challenging me. Yes, I’m multitasking, moving back and forth from one task to another and trying to integrate them in my mind. This is the problem that I have with the term, “multitasking.” Is it really possible to complete two or more tasks at the same time? To attend to more than one problem at a time? It’s not walking and chewing gum at the same time. It’s not even solving one problem and chewing gum at the same time. None of these concepts in front of me are mindless.

I’m a content writer. My idea of multitasking is pulling information from one place and putting it in writing, then getting more information from another place and putting that into writing, and so on until it’s finally enough to be just short of too much. Then, it’s time to put it all together coherently. So all I really did was to do several things in succession. Okay, well, I did have one concept in my mind when I was pulling together all of this information. And I did condense information from any given source into some of the stuff I wrote down. I guess that’s multitasking. Is worrying about a deadline and working on a project at the same time multitasking? If my phone rings or someone pokes their head in my door and asks me a question, it’s all going to fall apart. That would be a multitasking fail. I have those all the time. If I didn’t integrate all of that data that I pulled together before the interruption, I might as well start over again. I do my best work at home with the phone off. I can mindlessly pet my dog and try to multitask at the same time.

Before I know it, I’ve spent a couple of hours mulling over the true nature of multitasking. But I made my deadline.

Don’t judge my job performance by my grammar here. This is casual writing. I get picky about spelling most of the time, but proper grammar is optional here.

I’m not a very social coworker. It’s a blessing, being a writer, to be able to take my work home, away from the human noise and presence. At work, I can’t shake the feeling that I have an obligation to get out of my office, walk around and smile and say hello and in general make sure that I don’t have a resting bitch face on.

My dog doesn’t mind my resting bitch face. She leans in for a mindless pet, and it’s all good.

Somehow she always knows when my workday is over. At the same time every day, she starts her “walk me” dance.

If for some reason I’ve started to think about the next project, this can be irritating. There’s this “she’s a dog, she’s a dog, she’s a dog,” thought running through my mind while I want to shout at her to just stop.

Preparing for said walk seems like a monumental task sometimes. She is all joy and anticipation, bouncing around like the 12-year-old puppy that she is, and I’m wondering if I need to do anything with my hair and whether or not I have to go to the utility room to find suitable clothing in the dryer, because who has time to take clothes out of the dryer and fold them and put them where they belong? Fortunately, I do generally manage to put my shoes back to where they live, so I don’t have to search for them. By the time I get to my shoes, the dog is beside herself, barking, jumping up on the bed where I’ve just parked myself to put on my shoes. Then I have to tie the shoes. *sigh*

Once I’ve got the leash on her, the really hard part begins. I have to go out the front door, set my “tracker,” (my Apple Watch) for the walk, and commence walking. I know the walk is good for me, but it’s really for her. And that makes me a good person – I take care of my dog. Therefore, I’m a good person. I make a point of smiling at everyone that we pass on our walk and even saying “hi” if they make eye contact. That makes me a good person. I really just want to get this walk over with, but I’m patient with my dog, who is a good old Tennessee coonhound, born with a nose that demands exercising, when she sticks that nose into everything along the way. That makes me a good person. I give her fresh water and feed her, topping her kibble with fresh food from the fridge. That makes me a good person. And by then I’ve totally ignored the fact that I love my dog and she deserves no less. Instead, I’ve made it all about me.

I have to prove to myself that I am a good person. Otherwise, I am a person who is sad, nervous, jumpy, lazy, and just plain “weird” a lot of the time.

I eat dinner without enthusiasm. I don’t cook much. If it won’t cook up in a crockpot and make a dozen servings that I can quickly put into single-serving Rubbermaid containers, I’m probably not going to cook it. Otherwise, I try to find frozen meals or soups that are high in protein and low in fat (my version of good nutrition), and that’s dinner. It’s probably lunch, too.

I inevitably stay up too late. The meds help me go to sleep and stay asleep – if I don’t take them, I’m up for hours, stuck in my head, and that’s never good. I toss and turn, and the dog, who sleeps with me (usually through the night and even letting me sleep in), sometimes loses her patience with it and retires to the couch. Getting up sucks. Except for breakfast. Breakfast is actually worth looking forward to. I occasionally make a huge frittata and eat some of it several mornings in a row. Then there’s cottage cheese with pineapple. Or plain Greek yogurt with blueberries, oats, and a little Stevia thrown in. The best part of breakfast? Without a doubt, coffee. I drink one generous cup of coffee, creamed with a caramel protein shake, sweetened with Stevia, and savor it. That is the highlight of my day. That is what gets me out of bed.

Otherwise, preparing for my day is a challenge. I shower, floss and brush my teeth, and get dressed because I have to, because I have to be around other people for at least part of the day. I don’t do makeup. At my worst, I consider wearing makeup as “putting lipstick on a pig.” Otherwise, it’s just plain uncomfortable. It makes my face feel heavy. There are rare occasions when I actually enjoy being clean and smelling good and wearing comfortable clothes that look relatively good. Those clothes somehow make it out of the dryer and into my closet and dressers. Uncomfortable clothes sometimes make it into my closet because when I tried them on, they looked good. But they rarely make it out of my closet.

Oh, I forgot about cleaning my house. I usually do forget it, literally. I just don’t understand people who say that they find cleaning relaxing. Actually, I don’t believe them. Once my house is clean, I enjoy it. Getting it clean? Anything but relaxing.

So there. Not in chronological order, but that’s my regular day. Trying not to be or act abnormal while knowing all the time that I think in ways that are abnormal.

I’ll talk about crisis days another time.

I hope I haven’t bored the hell out of you. I’m actually looking forward to hearing about your everydays.