Ithil

I am thinking about doing the next challenge with the same quests I tried last time as it sounds doable right now. There was a sudden need of surgery in the family so my challenge would have failed probably even though I hadn't had shoulder issues. Now things seem to have calmed down a bit so I should be able to concentrate on my quests starting next week and also my shoulder seems to be fine now. Next thing is to do another thread in the newer challenge forums, once I am done I'll link it here.

Thank you really much for asking, I've meant to answer to your message forever! My challenge went south soon after the start when I felt that I had major collection of fluid both in my left elbow, wrist and right shoulder. This meant I was able to do pretty much none of the things in my challenge except the side quest. I got my rheumatologist appointment so that it was a week or so ago and I got four cortisone + lidocaine injections into those joints plus a med change that should help in the long run. The bad thing is that I am still recovering as my joints feel nasty ("hey, the silly doctor stuck a needle in me, I am not happy!!) so I am not able to continue my challenge. That's why I most likely can't do really anything from this challenge that I am really bummed about which is why my goal is to do the same things I wanted to do this time in the next challenge. I have though eagerly been following your own challenge, you are doing great!

4. Sort of not sure, in a way it's good that there's not too many goals but I'd maybe like some variation in terms of goals 5. Definitely a good thing for me to do, interests me in terms of trying new things 6. This isn't something that interests me, might not be also possible depending on my injuries/pain situation and topic so might not suit all if theme isn't fitting for my current health 7. Unfortunately not possible in my current life situation

That sounds like a great thing for me as I have injured pretty much every part of my body except my left shoulder at least once and also suffer from chronic pain and neck+back issues making occasionally exercise selection hard.

Your goals sound really great and support each other really well! Sometimes balancing busy university life with exercise and "life outside the university" seems like a huge balancing act but your goals seem realistic so there's no reason why you shouldn't succeed. Edited to add: Otherwise good but I answered to this old thread, apparently time to head to sleep.

What type of dissertation are you doing? Good luck for your challenge as well!

After a short break I am here again (I totally missed when the last two challenges started, ugh!) I am now level 3 without having updated my charts below but I'll do that tomorrow. The new twists in life are me being now home 100 % time writing my thesis so I have more time to put in exercising and healing from the burn out than before. It's good as my current challenge is designed to help with that. My right shoulder which I injured 1,5 years ago has been worse so I need to take this into the account as well as the tiredness from the burn out. Quest 1: Running/biking Running or exercise biking from anywhere between 30-60 minutes including warm-up and cool-down. This I'd like to do minimum 2 times a week if my knee can take it, in next challenge I hope I can up it to three. 100 %: 12 biking/running times Quest 2: Flexibility I got Nerd Fitness Yoga and will start this week the flexibility challenge by doing the start measurements and then measuring them again every month or so. Since there's 5 measuring days during the first week and I'd afterwards like to do Nerd Fitness Yoga or Flexibility challenge things twice per week it means that together there's 15 days with yoga/stretching. 100 %: 15 stretching/yoga sessions Quest 3: Shoulder physiotherapy As I still struggle with both lifting heavy things (anything more than a cup of coffee) and with my posture as I hunched oddly for so long due to the pain (and now the hunched position which is my current "basic" position hurts but I don't know which should be the normal one..) I still need physiotherapy even though I've been doing it for a long time. I have to lift weights to increase the muscle mass in that arm two times per week unless there's pain and then there's posture exercises I need to do two times per day so this means 84 times posture exercises and 12 times strength exercises. 100 %: 96 physiotherapy sessions Side Quest: My goal is to use the sick leave I have (to the end of the year and probably to March after it) to resting and figuring out a way to live with myself, my physical issues, anxiety, PTSD and burn out in a way that doesn't drive me crazy so I've decided to put aside an hour to pick up an actual book (no audio books!) and relax with it. Books have always been a way in addition to soccer which I had to quit after tearing all my ankle ligaments to make me feel better and give new perspective, so starting to read those dozens of yet unread books on our shelves would do good for me. 100 %: Have 1 h reading session on 42 days I'll come back and edit in this the attributes, percentages and stat points, for today this is enough talking.

Aquatic therapy sounds interesting, can you tell me more about it? Yep, after missing out two challenges (managed to slip past the start time, ugh) I am back again!

Well, to sum up overall in this challenge I did well, I just happened to forget my login information to here so I wasn't able to update. My first goal was exercising 3 times per day and it ended up being mostly exercise bike. That I managed to do 15/18 times which is bit disappointing since the misses happened on the first week of the challenge when I had a flu so I wasn't able to do anything about it later. My second goal was warm ups and cool downs and that I managed also to do 15/18 times. The fourth thing was physiotherapy: that I did 17/18 times, one I missed due to the cortisone injection to the shoulder so I wasn't able to move my hand on the physiotherapy day and even now my hand is really killing me as well as my thumb which got the other injection. The fourth goal was eating a fruit per day and six glasses of water which I did 42/42 times! So my overall stats are: Goal 1: 2 STR + 2 STA Goal 2: 3 CON Goal 3: 2 CON Goal 4: 3 CON Regarding my life goal I've learned to let myself have time to relax and find things that I like doing which is great. I will though have to do it more since the burn out and PTSD are still kidnapping my mind quite often but I'll win those in the end. Regarding my next challenge I'll stay in the scouts and probably concentrate on upping my veggie and fruit intake, try to get my sugar intake down and try to change my exercise goals to that there's both strength and endurance training since I notice that often I just choose my exercise bike which makes exercising quite boring but I seem to be reluctant to change my habit without a good reason to do so.

Good work! It's also good that you already know how you might do even better next time no matter how well you did now. I try to remember to find you from the assassins, I'll be sticking in the scouts in next challenge. Try to survive from your family, that can be scary.

Baking fruits into something or making them into smoothie would work well! I have to try that in next challenge, then I'll try to up my fruit and vegetable intake to two doses per day minimum now that I have one all covered in this challenge!

How has been everybody doing? I've been doing quite slowly, burn out hit but I've been trying to be mindful about my time use which has helped. That's why I've learned to recognize helpful patterns when it comes to realizing what triggers panic attacks, what kinds of daily schedules work and what not and what activities make me help better. This has allowed me to plan how to do things making me succeed in my challenge. So yay for that!

It's good that you are letting go of perfectionism, it usually doesn't lead to good when overdone. Ask me how I know.. Any progress towards the right way is great work. I will probably in the next challenge decide to cut down sugary foods, now after the burn out I've noticed a totally new-to-me need to eat them. I don't know if I am eating in an attempt to make myself happier or what but I don't like eating unhealthy food so that will be one of my goals. It's good that you have hopped back on the wagon after letting go since that's the way you build good healthy habits rather than giving up if you slip one time. Time tracking well on the wayside also for me, it takes surprisingly much time and energy and seemed also to take the fun out of things when I had to first log the things on paper. That's why I've just been following in my head what I've done and been more mindful about it which has worked as well. Good work utilizing travel time, it takes surprisingly much time.

How are you doing now? Did the med changes top messing your body or are you fine?

The horn looks great!

It got worse in terms of PTSD and that stuff but now I am again feeling better. I've still kept on top of my challenge goals which I am happy about but since I wasn't active in here for a few days I have to get my trackers back on track so it's time to actually figure out at what date and what week we're on. I've just counted that I've had enough water etc to stay on top of my diet goals and counted my exercises to have enough exercise but I have no idea at what day we are actually on. I have to do some serious calculating based on today's date and the date when this challenge started.. Today was supposed to be the day when I start my C25K but yesterday I started to feel bit sick, now it seems that it was just a short thing caused by migraine rather than anything like flu but I will have to see. I am still stuck in physiotherapy with the resistance band but I hope I get the weights by the end of the month. There's been though some pain in my joint but only in rest and it isn't connected to my physiotherapy days so I assume it's the autoimmune talking. In a couple of weeks I have my doctor's appointment and he always ultrasounds every possible joint so if there's an infection I shall see. I can't get to him any faster as the queue is several months and this is just my regular check-up so I'll do light stretches until that and in other was as well stress it as little as possible. In terms of fruits I'm bit bored, I have to either figure out new kinds that I can eat with my allergies or figure out new ways I can eat them (now I've just eaten them rather than making them into smoothies or anything like that). Yesterday I just stared at my banana for a while without wanting to eat it at all so coming up with a solution to continue eating them and thus getting all the vitamins is needed.

I think I have to switch into doing this. I've tracked things until it got too stressful when it started to feel worse in terms of PTSD so now I've been feeling guilty about it. It's silly so I try to avoid it. __________________ In terms of your questions I think for me it's working that I try to be mindful about what I do so like I said earlier this post to track things on mental level but not on paper. On paper it gets emotionally messy and stressful so removing the stressful part is best for me. Writing things down is also quite limiting in a sense that if I don't put it down on paper the second I switch the activity I forget it and if I want to switch into another thing I have too much time to figure out a dozen reasons why I don't want to read before writing my start time making it possible to have several different activities written by the same starting time before finally getting to the thing. In general though this challenge has been useful for me since it feels better to be aware what I am doing at what point and how much I generally spend doing thing x rather than just doing the non-stressful stuff for hours as I don't want to move into doing the more stressful ones. In terms of hour group being honest about our situation and choosing realistic goals for example seem to be things that are working for us since accountability doesn't work if the other person doesn't know what reality looks like. This has helped also to know what strategies are helpful when it comes to time management and what are not for me personally. How are everybody else doing?

It tends to be like that for most couples I've heard (and adapting to my own life) that there's the thing that's the issue and fights tend to revolve around or in some way related to that. If it's on the level that you'd want to go to couples therapy try to get the idea presented this time as well since it might be a good way to get the issue solved. I hope for both of you that you get this worked out, since you've been together for nine years (for me and my fiance we've been together about a year less than that) you really have something you love in your life as for most people around ten years can have a lot of ups, downs, life changes, personal growth and growth as a couple and surviving those things together creates something valuable and worth preserving. You really seem to want to work things out with her so I hope she sees your side and the fact that there's a problem that needs to me solved in some way now in order to move forward no matter if it's talking it through with her or couples therapy which might be more beneficial in the long run.

The situation is really hard and I am sorry that you are in it since fights are never fun and when they go to the level that there seems to be no common ground it's just awful. You have been progressing with your drinking but if she's been worried and maybe became really worried only after you started your challenge realizing that if you think this is an issue you want to take as a part of your challenge then it's a major challenge for you especially if she isn't one that drinks anything much. If that really opened her eyes that there is a problem the worrying could have escalated to this. It may be that if she isn't one that has ever cared much or struggled a bit like you with alcohol that she has problems relating to the struggles you are going through sometimes with limiting your drinking so she is expecting a fast and easy fix for this so there might need to be a discussion about what is realistic, what's not and how you really feel about it since it's your issue which she is only watching only from the outside. So overall it seems to be that there needs to be a conversation, it sucks but hopefully prevents further issues and helps you be on the same page again. The important thing is to try to understand the other person, without it it's impossible to solve anything if one of the parties is locked on their views without even will to hear the other out. This is of course easy to say for you since if she isn't prepared to listen to you as well it doesn't matter how nicely you would handle the conversation. I wish you both strength and also courage to say the things that need to be discussed but also sense to be nice in the process as often things can be put in a constructive way and in a "I-am-saying-this-to-be-nasty-" way.

I know this logically but telling my feelings that this is totally fine and actually competely natural considering the situation I was in but the stigma of mental health issues is so huge that talking about this in work to sort out the situation with my superiors has been hard since one clearly sees me being just lazy when I can't do a full day. I've been depressed for 10+ years so with that I just consider it as an illness but with my burn out/PTSD I am not oddly yet in a place where I can't on some (irrational) level blame myself. I also work in health care so it's odd that I am much harder towards myself than any patient who would be in the same situation. My parents used the "snap out of it/smile more to stop being depressed" mentality as I got diagnosed for the first time with depression during my early teens so the fact that mental illness is somehow less of an illness has been quite well programmed in my health (not when it comes to my patients, just when it's about me). It will be a long road to heal from this burn out+PTSD combo but I'll do it, I am also happy about any development in panic attacks, some days are better and some are worse but I have found methods to cope with them and to live with them. It will all be fine in the end. I'll try Time Logger, it sounds interesting.

I am sort of keeping up with the tracking, I forgot it totally on Saturday and find that sometimes I just don't remember to pick up the pen and write when I start something, then I'll try to remember later what I did. I don't know if posting my whole lists here are so beneficial, I'll most likely do that on Wednesday (tomorrow I have a gp appointment, I can't sleep thanks to the burn out again so he needs to figure out something). I've though noticed that I mostly start panicking when I haven't gotten anything done (most of the time thanks to panic attacks) and they start a cycle that gets worse since I can't do anything productive during an attack. I've also noticed that tv helps during them as it's the most effective way to get myself forget my own life and concentrate for somebody else's situation for a while. This leads to a lot tv hours which I'd like to change, I also find that starting new things like picking up a book, crafting etc is hard so maybe doing a list like you did would help to find activities that I like to battle the attacks. I've also noticed a schedule that helps me right now the most to be as productive as I can but more about that on Wednesday.

Welcome to our group! Your appear to be the thrird member with PTSD (in addition to myself and Terinatum if I remember correctly) so I am so sorry that you struggle with it as well on top of bipolar. It's though good that you got treatment for it and got help when the relapse happened. I hope your recovery goes well and you don't have to check yourself in anytime soon.

For me it sounds good and of course I'd welcome a new person if they want to join!

You are right with that. He has done a lot to me both with helping me to go through this but also in terms of taking care of the apartment and pets alone and I know that he can see that I am in agony and get me in that sense that what I am going through is awful. I would be a mess without him and I wouldn't have been progressing to the point I am now without him. Probably a better way to put my words would have been that each person who have lived through this gives me more trust that I can get through this too, the message goes less strongly through from doctors, fiance or myself. So I think it's the actual knowing that there's other people who have made it part that helps since for everybody no matter what the condition, issue etc it is, it can have very different emotions and manifestations so to actually get me 100 % the other person would need to be me as well which is in itself not possible.

The one I got in now is for translational medicine so it's sort of related to my old one in a sense that I am staying within the same general field of science. I though applied into genetics as well which I haven't heard back from, it's my old dear love as well but maybe I stick to these two master's since after them I will get to the phD which is also a long term goal of mine. I know I got it, it's just the fact that I have to move it to fall 2016 instead of starting this fall, it makes me mad that this burn out is not in the end making it possible to enjoy the program I have been trying to get into two years a row. If I could I would just wish it all away but as I can't make it disappear like that I have to actually give myself a year to mainly recover. It will all good then, I just know that if I'd go this fall I'd crash and burn since I am in no place to study or work full-time. I just have to hope that they accept my doctor's note about switching the starting year thanks to this, if not then I just have to do some introductory courses in the fall and do a couple of others in spring.