Mad Hatter gets HUFFLEBUFF!

[WhiteGhost]

Sunset walk and moonlit swim sounds great.  I could probably use both of those, but I'm not exactly in the right location for it.

 

Any progress in thinking about what you would want to do it you were to no longer work where you are now?

[Mad Hatter]

4 hours ago, annyshay said:

*hugs* Sunset walk and moonlit swim sounds like excellent first steps towards recovery self care. Next task - don't disappear. *hugs*

Thank youuu! I'm fighting this tooth and claw so that it doesn't get worse, which makes disappearing not an option.  I think this is going to be a short one, I actually already feel semi ok. I might take a "mental health day" tomorrow just in case though as I don't want work to trigger me... We'll see.

 

3 hours ago, WhiteGhost said:

Sunset walk and moonlit swim sounds great.  I could probably use both of those, but I'm not exactly in the right location for it.

 

Any progress in thinking about what you would want to do it you were to no longer work where you are now?

It IS great, highly recommended. 

 

Not really. Eventually I think I want to move into a completely different field, but for now I might try to find a job back in medtech or something else that's more sciency. Problem is that those jobs are hard to find as there are significantly fewer of those than of generic software development jobs.

[@mu]

Sometimes you see the signs, you even know the why and how to change it, and yet it is still hard... But that walk to your hobbit spot really sounds like the best thing ever!

[@mu]

I randomly came across this piece from a circus student, it made me smile, @RogueLibrarian and his evil twin might also like it

 

 

 

 

[@mu]

Oops cut & paste the video link with a time config, not sure why. Watch from the beginning!

[Mad Hatter]

3 hours ago, @mu said:

Sometimes you see the signs, you even know the why and how to change it, and yet it is still hard... But that walk to your hobbit spot really sounds like the best thing ever!

True... It still bugs me though.  But my hobbit habits are really helping.

 

That was a super cute act!  

[Mad Hatter]

Yesterday

 

Nerdwarts - That was SUCH a satisfying win against Ravenclaw.  

 

1x15 child pose glute back leg lifts high yoga block

1x10 child pose glute back leg lifts low yoga block

2x15 child pose glute side leg lifts

4x10 pilates ball hamstring curls

3x10 plie squats against wall

10 standing pike side leg lifts

 

+ 30 min of herbology, but my handstands weren't cooperating so I called it quits. Wrists and fingers were tired from climbing slopers, butt and hamstrings tired from quidditch, brain tired from life or something. 

[annyshay]

[RogueLibrarian]

7 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Nerdwarts - That was SUCH a satisfying win against Ravenclaw.  

 

We gave you a good fight! (I will watch the video over lunch, thanks)

[Mad Hatter]

You did indeed! It's going to be an intense final methinks.  

[RogueLibrarian]

Well done, Horkaplorks or whatever it is

[Mad Hatter]

[RogueLibrarian]

11 hours ago, @mu said:

I randomly came across this piece from a circus student, it made me smile, @RogueLibrarian and his evil twin might also like it

 

That was awesome! Both the physical performance and the theme.

[Mad Hatter]

Feeling mostly ok, stayed at home today to recover my brain. I didn't have my laptop with me so I didn't do much work except for writing some emails.
 

Morning movement - It was raining but I still went out for a long barefoot walk in the forest and grabbed a coffee by the beach. 

Nerdwarts - Herbology 70 min. I'm trying very hard to stop my bad habits of balancing by using my feet/knees/core and as a result my kick up consistency and balance is even worse than usual.  It's ok, it will pay off eventually (I hope). For now I'm only trying to focusing on the first two and keeping my legs straight and for some reason my brain refuses to understand what that means. It shouldn't be that hard a cue, but especially my right leg has a life of its own. And when I do manage to keep my legs straight the balance goes straight into my core which makes it really hard to balance. I also did a few sets of wall drills, tuck HS against the wall, straddle negatives and arched straddle HS to straight straddle HS.

[Mike Wazowski]

Glad you were able to take a mental health day - I'm just getting caught up but it sounds like you needed it.

 

Also, I'm torn. On the one hand I want to dish out some trash talk about how we (Ravenclaw) are coming for you, but on the other, I already own a Hufflepuff scarf because I 100% am one in real life so I can't actually trash talk y'all. And that most recent badger pic is my favorite one yet.

[Lara]

On 8/19/2018 at 2:19 PM, annyshay said:

Next task - don't disappear.

This, please. I love your threads.

I'm sorry about the hard times. But as mu said, sometimes you see the signs and anyway you don't get to do what you need, it's not that easy (and yet you got out of the appartment and did things that were nice to yourself, brava!)

 

About the climbing, how much do you actually enjoy the activity itself? Aside the social aspects, I mean. You seem to have mixed feelings about it and, always from my outside point of view, it looks like you face it like a fight. I know you said it's not the climbing itself but your brain, but you don't seem to have the same sensations/patterns with other activities you've done, or at least they don't drive you so close to a breaking point. Maybe what I'm saying is not at all how you see it, I don't know, it is difficult to understand how you're actually feeling from only reading messages and I don't pretend to say I know you, but I think there is something very specific about this activity that pushes you too far. A breakdown has a complex development, of course, but for you, climbing seems to be some sort of catalyst.

I may just be saying silly things that you don't feel can apply to your situation, in that case just dismiss what I said. I don't mean to annoy you or anything. I just wanted to say something because it makes me sad to see you suffering like that when these things happen.

[mkdutch]

Depression and anxiety are a bag of dicks, and it seems like it has been going around something fierce lately. You hit the bottom though. It feels cold and lonely, but the only way left to go is up. So keep looking after yourself and being amazing. ❤❤❤

[raptron]

19 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Feeling mostly ok, stayed at home today to recover my brain. I didn't have my laptop with me so I didn't do much work except for writing some emails.
 

Morning movement - It was raining but I still went out for a long barefoot walk in the forest and grabbed a coffee by the beach. 

Nerdwarts - Herbology 70 min. I'm trying very hard to stop my bad habits of balancing by using my feet/knees/core and as a result my kick up consistency and balance is even worse than usual.  It's ok, it will pay off eventually (I hope). For now I'm only trying to focusing on the first two and keeping my legs straight and for some reason my brain refuses to understand what that means. It shouldn't be that hard a cue, but especially my right leg has a life of its own. And when I do manage to keep my legs straight the balance goes straight into my core which makes it really hard to balance. I also did a few sets of wall drills, tuck HS against the wall, straddle negatives and arched straddle HS to straight straddle HS.

You are focusing on handssss then? Instead of all the upstream stuff? So hard. Do you have blocks or anything? Sometimes that can jumpstart the whole "THINK ABOUT YOUR DANG HANDS" aspect.

 

Glad you got a mental health day in! <3 

[Mad Hatter]

14 hours ago, MikeW said:

Also, I'm torn. On the one hand I want to dish out some trash talk about how we (Ravenclaw) are coming for you, but on the other, I already own a Hufflepuff scarf because I 100% am one in real life so I can't actually trash talk y'all. And that most recent badger pic is my favorite one yet.

Haha it's ok, I always get sorted into Ravenclaw.  But I have to admit that I want to be a lot more Hufflepuff!

 

8 hours ago, zenLara said:

This, please. I love your threads.

I'm sorry about the hard times. But as mu said, sometimes you see the signs and anyway you don't get to do what you need, it's not that easy (and yet you got out of the appartment and did things that were nice to yourself, brava!)

  

About the climbing, how much do you actually enjoy the activity itself? Aside the social aspects, I mean. You seem to have mixed feelings about it and, always from my outside point of view, it looks like you face it like a fight. I know you said it's not the climbing itself but your brain, but you don't seem to have the same sensations/patterns with other activities you've done, or at least they don't drive you so close to a breaking point. Maybe what I'm saying is not at all how you see it, I don't know, it is difficult to understand how you're actually feeling from only reading messages and I don't pretend to say I know you, but I think there is something very specific about this activity that pushes you too far. A breakdown has a complex development, of course, but for you, climbing seems to be some sort of catalyst.

 I may just be saying silly things that you don't feel can apply to your situation, in that case just dismiss what I said. I don't mean to annoy you or anything. I just wanted to say something because it makes me sad to see you suffering like that when these things happen.

<3

 

I think you're asking great questions. I honestly have a really hard time understanding why climbing has become so closely intertwined with my mental health and not any other activity. To answer your first much easier question - I really do love climbing, even without the social element.  Sure sometimes it's less fun, when I'm tired or broken or my head is going crazy, but that's not the climbing, that's any activity. Climbing is perhaps just more frustrating because it's 90% falling.  Admittedly so are for example handstands, but that feels more like an impossibly long slog with no end in sight, while climbing is more like I have a problem to solve here and now if that makes sense? There's also a huuuge mental component to climbing, not just technical and physical, and perhaps that makes things worse? It's also something that I've stuck to the longest so perhaps it's getting mentally harder because I have to push more to get better, it's not quite enough to just show up. Usually I just switch activities every 3-6 months (and then complain that I suck at all of them). And maybe a bit of FOMO? I don't know, it could be so many things!

 

The community aspect also goes both ways. When I do other activities I can just hide or not go to class or not do it at all when I don't feel like it, with climbing I still almost always show up. It both helps because I love hanging out with my friends and the routine of seeing my friends all the time is such a positive one for my mental health. But when my head starts breaking part of me wants to isolate myself from them but I can't and then I get into a weird spiral of emotions until my brain breaks. I'm incredibly grateful for them though, I can be completely honest about what's going on and even though I find my meltdowns kiiiinda embarrassing they don't judge, they just give me hugs and ask how they can help. <3 

 

tl;dr I've no idea.  Except that climbing is fun. And my brain is weird.

 

5 hours ago, mkdutch said:

Depression and anxiety are a bag of dicks, and it seems like it has been going around something fierce lately. You hit the bottom though. It feels cold and lonely, but the only way left to go is up. So keep looking after yourself and being amazing. ❤❤❤

<3 Thank you! 

 

4 hours ago, raptron said:

You are focusing on handssss then? Instead of all the upstream stuff? So hard. Do you have blocks or anything? Sometimes that can jumpstart the whole "THINK ABOUT YOUR DANG HANDS" aspect.

 

Glad you got a mental health day in! <3 

Kinda the opposite, I'm focusing on keeping my top half steady. My fingers know what to do, and they do it when they have to, i.e. when I've run out of options like balancing with every other part of my body.  I'm also practicing tuck and straddle HS as that removes some body parts from the equation, but not as much as I should. It's interesting what you say about blocks though, I've only used them once, or rather tried to use them, but at the time they just sketched me out. If I ever get to a more stable point in my handstands I will definitely consider introducing them, but right now I feel like I'm dealing with a lot more basic stuff. Like not balancing by flexing and pointing my right foot. 

[Mad Hatter]

So this turned out to be the shortest meltdown yet!  Yay! I feel AWESOME again today, I love the feeling of all the happy hormones rushing back! Climbing was fun again and I even managed another 6C, with a burly brute force move that's completely out of my comfort zone so that was cool.

 

Morning movement - Handstands, plus forest walk and swim

Nerdwarts - Quidditch 80 pts, herbology 55 min and flyyyying 150 min

 

 

[RogueLibrarian]

9 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

So this turned out to be the shortest meltdown yet!  Yay! I feel AWESOME again today, I love the feeling of all the happy hormones rushing back! Climbing was fun again and I even managed another 6C, with a burly brute force move that's completely out of my comfort zone so that was cool.

 

Fantastic!

 

You know a lot of people around the world think you're awesome and care how you're doing. You're my climbing inspiration!

[@mu]

Ditto! I'm so glad you're feeling better!

 

Ladies and gentlemen and inbetweenies, badger on the runway! Give way! Take off in progress!

 

[WhiteGhost]

Woohoo!  So glad to hear that your mood has turned around    Go get some shinies  

[mkdutch]

[Lara]

17 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

while climbing is more like I have a problem to solve here and now if that makes sense?

It makes total sense, because it kind of makes it personal, to solve it or not.

 

17 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

It's also something that I've stuck to the longest so perhaps it's getting mentally harder because I have to push more to get better, it's not quite enough to just show up.

Mmmm. I'm developing a bit of this attitude with self-defence. I also tend to switch activities (euphemism for what I actually do, flutter around the flowers like a bee), and this is my first time sticking to something for a long time (I would have never suspected the activity I was less interested in would be the one hooking me on), and I've started to feel like I should be doing more, catching things faster, solving problems like timing and distance more easily, and that all adds a lot of pressure. So, saving the differences in the activities (I don't know a shit about climbing) I think I can understand the feeling. It's like, hey, I've been doing this for a while now, why am I not better at it, like them? Why is it that one day I catch things off the bat and the following day I'm an idiot that can't use hands independently?

 

17 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

So this turned out to be the shortest meltdown yet!  

gRrrEaT!