milythael

Before the world outside drags you down, close your eyes. Before you lose another night without sleep, close your eyes. Take a moment to breathe. Close your eyes. You can fight the demons. Close your eyes. You can touch stillness. Close your eyes. Take the time to taste. Close your eyes. Goals Meditate Sleep Savor Survive Method Close your eyes. -------- I'm tired. I'm not well emotionally, physically, mentally. It is the end of the year. How much can I slow down, take stock, and become present just by closing my eyes?

Grief, isolation, and depression have beaten me for most of this challenge. I have not been moving. I have not been exercising. Eating has become very hit or miss, and rarely any kind of sensible. My weight shot up over 20 lbs in weeks. Most days, apathy wins. I'm not sure if I will keep doing NF or not. If you would like to stay in contact with me, please send me a private message and I will share contact information with you.

Week 3 Day 5 Hours awake: not many. Hours slept: lots. Ate: not much. Moved: barely. Exercised: not at all. The apathy demon is one of the strongest living in my head. Hard to detect, it keeps me rooted to the ground, uncaring, unnoticing.

I like this for you. Doing things you love makes sense to me.

Week 3 Day 4 I did not exercise I did Cook and eat food from basic ingredients once. Drive myself to where I could call in for group. Troubleshoot forgetting my headphones. Call in for group. Overcome a spot of bad depression. Discover the battery of the car was dead. Call for assistance. Jump the car. Drive home. Post this. This will do.

Thank you.

My eating plan is eat. On good days, my stretch goal is to eat or even better prepare and eat food from ingredients. Sticking to this plan is a challenge. I did, however, manage to eat again. My body was demanding fat and protein so I ended up eating cheese and ham. I was not capable of even single step in the microwave food by that point. I felt like I was already asleep with my body running in riot mode until it got the resources it needed to finish TGU repairs.

Week 3 Day 3 I really didn't want to do anything today. I was being held back by fear of TGU, so I dropped them from my intentions for the day. I was being held up by wanting someone to come hold my hand, so I shut up and went outside. I started with juggling 2 tennis balls and 1 slightly larger contact juggling ball that is also slightly heavier than the tennis balls. I think I had sets of 19, and 76 or so. I lost track in the second set. I did 5 x crow pose, just get into position and hold for stability for a moment. I realized after the first 5 that I was holding my breath doing these. I then tried juggling 3 weighted balls. I felt very off. So instead I juggled 1 weighted ball, 1 tennis ball, and 1 contact juggling ball. I counted only throws of the weighted ball. I got a set of 3 and a set of 9. I did 5 more crow pose, establish the pose with control but do not hold breath. I think I only completed 3 without holding my breath, and 2 where I held it. I did one more set of mixed juggling for a set of 10. Then I accepted that I am as tired and as weak as I feel and I gave myself permission to stop. Part of managing my mental health is giving myself less permission not to start, but more permission to stop when I need to. I think this is called behavioral activation or some such. I ate good food earlier today. The thought of cooking again is not sitting well. I need to eat again today. Something has to give.

Way to go on the runs. Epic even.

Tonight's soundtrack provided by Sula Bassana - CV Sessions: Ugh, if I have to fight depression demons tonight because of all the sleep today, then at least as long as I am rational, I can do so with friends. This is a sample of what it is like for me on an average night with depression. It's looking like a long night. I'm prone to introspection. Maybe this is how the demons got in there in the first place. They think they live in my head rent free, and I suppose in some ways they are right. But I train against them daily. I am warrior, assassin, wizard, blade. They are in my realm now, and I feel like hunting.

Week 3 Day 2 Sleep happened. Food happened: burger patty with poached eggs, and onion, mushroom, broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, and tomato all simmered together. Sleep happened. Food happened: salad with baby kale, baby chard, baby spinach, pork something cut smallish, grape tomatoes, mushroom, broccoli, cauliflower, shredded mozzarella, and pasta shells, Sleep happened. I'm detecting rumblings of depression demons in my thoughts. I could fight with them. Or sleep could happen again.

Peek-a-boo. How are you? How is your challenge going?

Pssst. I don't want to interrupt your meditation, but if you have a moment, how has it been going? You are missed and you are welcome. Absolutely choose to update when it works for you. We are here, excited for you, and excited to share in your progress and support you through challenges if you need it.

Week 3 Day 1 Fear of working out. Anxiety, maybe. Week off, maybe. Something else, who cares? Do we let fear stop us? Not by itself. Fear better come with backup to these parts of town. For warm-up, I did extremely basic poi skills. Same direction circles with two hands, and something I think are called reel spins, where you turn your body without changing the direction of travel on the poi. I'm terrible at both. New skills. Go figure. I did two sets of Turkish get-ups, 1 rep each hand, with a 16 kg kettlebell. First set, I started left first. First press from the ground, I lost control of the kettlebell and had to catch it with my right hand. Second try was fine. I believe this was just nerves. The rest of the movement was fairly easy. Right hand, first set, there was a sticking point that I've been anticipating, but hadn't seen until now. I have joint instability in my left foot when the toe is bent (like when standing from a lunge with the left foot back). This hit, almost causing a balk during the right hand stand. The rest of the rep was fairly easy. The second set of TGU, I started right first, because of the instability problem noticed in the first set. I was able to complete the right hand rep, but balked at standing in the lunge three times before completing it. In the left hand rep, I completely failed during my first attempt at standing in the lunge, losing stability in my shoulder, forcing a drop of the kettlebell. Between reps, I was allowing my breathing to slow a little. Between sets, I allowed my breathing to normalize entirely. Conclusion, I'm not quite strong enough for a second set, but I am appreciably stronger than when I started. I am also stronger in my right shoulder than in my left. Take away, I'm not sure yet. Maybe 1.5 sets, or maybe just more time at 1 set. I'll see how it goes. I did one set of max hold crow pose (felt like maybe 10 seconds, but I did not time it), followed by juggling for 25 throws without dropping. I had intended to do 3 sets of this, but my breathing was taking an unusually long time to normalize, and after checking in with my body, I decided stopping was the healthy call. I got a decent amount of cardio going up and down the driveway earlier, and I still have mild residual congestion. I would rather err on the side of letting my body have the resources to heal and get better than push myself further into illness and possibly injury. Fear is not gone. This means it is probably anxiety. I may or may not do something about it later today. Right now, I haven't let it be debilitating yet.

I woke up fairly early this morning. I've had two cups of coffee. I had a decent salad. It was missing a couple things to make it a true Mily salad, but it was good. Since, I've baked cinnamon rolls (grand's cinnabon collab) and purple carrot encrusted broccoli bites. I've also scheduled an every other week morning appointment to check in with an old friend, and told her it was okay to share my email address with her mom who wants to follow up on my youtube comments. Good connections progress as well. I scheduled time at noon to do trash and recycling with my mom. I am always burnt out by 8 pm when she inevitably starts it, and unable to help. Hopefully doing this mid day, I won't be burnt out by cooking, nor burnt out by the day. I am unaccountably terrified of starting to exercise again, so I'll be working on that soon, but perhaps not until after the noon recycling. Regardless of whether I manage to exercise today or not, after last week, today has been a success already.

I've been percolating on your running issues specifically with regards to Couch to 5k, and reflecting on my past experiences with related programs and apps. I seem to recall that the original Couch to 5k program had some easily missed advice specifically around pacing of runs. Now, take this with a shaker of salt. This is totally from my memory and that is not such a reliable thing, but what I recall is it saying that speed is much less important than that the run speed is greater than the walk speed. Especially when first switching to a new run duration, a very slow run is absolutely fine as long as it is faster than your walking speed. I even remember this being emphasized with the Zombies, Run! version of the Couch to 5k program. They even recommended starting with a walk, and fast walk if that is where you are at. And somewhere, I think I saw going through the program more than once, first with a slower run pace, and then again with a faster run pace if you want to be faster. I'm mostly with Mad Hatter though, I usually hate having an app tell me when to go and when to stop.

Smoke is keeping me indoors today. My regular challenge content should be resuming Sunday with a little luck. In the meantime, a challenge throwback, on connections. One of the ways I know when I'm on the right path is that serendipity starts playing a more active role in my life. There has been so much serendipity in my life in the last 24 to 48 hours. Youtube deigned to show me a video post from a friend. I subscribe to her. I have all notifications turned on. It turns out youtube has not shown me her last 15 posts or so, so I thought she hadn't been posting. Anyway, this led to me rejoining her discord channel as one of the places I've found healthy community in the past. There, I found another friend whose community and friendship was one I intended to seek out. Speaking to her, she tells me of her mom's videos (the playlist from yesterday). I watch all of those. I comment on all of those. I share them with others. Youtube notices and FINALLY tweaks my feed a bit and shows me a different slice of content than the pigeon hole it has buried me in for the last couple years. And I come across this gem of a video. Friends, I have been struggling with an existential level fear of fellow man, of myself, of the world, because the actions of the people around me have been incomprehensible to me. The fear of people immune to reason, the fear that I might wake up one day become one of them (if I can't understand the cause, I can't fight it or prevent it), the fear that my mental illness might make me susceptible to what is happening, and the utter hopelessness I have felt to change the outcome of a collective descent into madness has been debilitating. This video gives me a chance to understand, a place for compassion, an understanding of why I am not prone to this immunity to reason, and ideas for action to help affect the outcome. This is a game changer. It is potentially a life changer.

Every day you can recognize your wins are wins is a better day than it could have been if you weren't paying attention. Well done for recognizing success where it is.

A wise druid I know has been seen to write koans, All suffering is a deficit of love. and, There is no fight. You have no enemies. I want to make a smart or snarky comment here. I'm just not sure I've learned this much sense yet. I find it becomes a question of which will hurt more, me or the wall. If the wall is unlikely to notice, then I probably haven't gained that much sense yet. Does this mean I get to keep feeling young?

Today, I feel compelled to share two videos*. First, this woman knows her stuff! She only has 6 videos, so far, less than 35 minutes of content total, and every one is worth watching. There are a lot worse things you could do for yourself today than to watch these: Second, stop and think about this for a moment. Your lived experience for your entire life, every single moment, is going to be that this is the end of all your lived experience. Sure, you expect there to be more, but until this moment, this is the end of the road. As we live with this experience for longer and longer, the weight of the end where the future stops feels heavier as so much prior lived experience builds up to stop right here, where we are. It does not have to limit us, but perhaps it can help to inform us that it can feel too late to change, but that could be no more writ into stone than this being the end is writ into our future. * Okay a playlist and 1 video, so 7 videos. I really believe you will think it was worth it though.

If crises are mountains, I have summited and am on my way back down. Enough poison has left my mind that I can communicate with compassion and reason with clarity. Leaving my room is still a major struggle that leaves me feeling like a field mouse under the intense stare of a thousand hungry owls. Additionally, my sinuses are now like a 3/4 full balloon that sloshes when I turn my head, and drains in trickles, runs, and drips that try to encrust my beard, and leave me nauseated. The only safe position is staring at the ceiling and not engaging with computer or screen. I am not yet ready to return to my normally scheduled goals, but I'm through the worst of the mess. Thank you for your support. I may not be able to express it when I need the support the most but it really does mean the world to me. And it helps to fight the demon shouting, "no one would even notice if you were gone," in my head, just one of the resident depression demons I live with like Naruto's nine tailed fox.

I haven't left my room except to use the bathroom since Sunday morning. I have not talked to anyone, seen anyone, or communicated with anyone. I've tried a couple times to reach out to specific people unsuccessfully. Most of my symptoms are still high. Anxiety is still high. Depression is still high. I am not doing well at this, but I don't think I'm in a condition that needs to be hospitalized. At least I've been hydrating well and taking meds.

We eat with our eyes first. Colorful pasta is immediately more visually appealing with such bright colors and contrasts.

Major depression has hit combined with major anxiety combined with significant neurological symptoms. All goals are currently on hold. I have procured a supply of food to my room which should last at least a couple days. I've brought in my kettlebell, but don't have room for anything like TGUs or swings. I've also brought in the tennis balls. I am not committing to any activity at all. I may or may not be posting. I am in deep isolation, fighting unreasonable thoughts, spontaneous images best left undescribed, high levels of background fear, and erratic patterns of sleep. I cannot interact with anyone in person, possibly not online. I will be back when I am back. This is where I am at.

The tub is not large enough to help with the kind of symptoms I've been experiencing lately. I need a much larger volume of water. Pool minimum, river, lake, or ocean preferred.