A lot of people, especially in the chronic illness community, talk about self-care. That’s great, but I have noticed it often time involves babying oneself. On some days it is good to swaddle yourself in blankets and watch anime, but not all the time.
Sometimes what we need is to give ourselves a swift kick in the ass and do the stuff we don’t wanna do. That is what I like to call self-parenting.
I have days where I don’t want to take all my meds, do my physical therapy, make food, bathe, or really do anything other than lay in the same sweatpants I slept in the night before and binge-watch TV shows. That leads down a slippery slope into a vicious cycle of self-neglect, increased symptoms of my illnesses, and depression. Don’t do that!
I have to pick myself up by my bootstraps and take care of myself. I am a grown-ass woman who luckily is still able to retain a decent amount of independence at this point. Sure, maybe not as much as I would like, but still a good amount. So I should use it instead of wallowing in bed because “I need as much rest as possible”.
I do have days where I absolutely do need to stay in bed, but if I managed my time a little better I could probably accomplish a lot more on my average days.
I’m working on outlining a basic default daily routine for myself on the days when I am at home. For now I am writing it out on my chalkboard, but I honestly might need more of a spreadsheet or something. I have the LibreOffice software (it’s an open source facsimile of Microsoft Office), so maybe I could work out something a little more complex and print it out.
At this point my executive dysfunction and brain fog tries to get the best of me. Maybe I can circumnavigate that by creating a schedule that I can kind of autopilot into whenever I don’t have any other plans that day. If anyone has more experience with this and would like to offer some pointers, please do so.
cyberneticrose 