Tag Archives: Recovery

Weekly Plans

Posted on by Gertie

Good Morning, World!!! As I sit here starting this post, I realize that I forgot to do my weekly check-in yesterday. I’m disapointed that I didn’t do it like I said I would however I’ve also been blogging more on the regular basis that you a well aware of what my week was like. So my plans for the week are as follows:

Sunday:

  • Blog which is obvious as this is my third post of the day. I also plan to blog my poem for the intro to poetry course later on today.
  • Art. I plan on doing some painting. I plan on painting something for my case manager.
  • Read. Pretty self explanitory.
  • Clean my apartment
  • Workbook

Monday:

  • Blog. This is the day where not only will posting my poem for the intro to poetry course but start the weekly fictional writing prompt. I’ll be doing the writing prompt every Monday.
  • Attend Knitting Group
  • Attend Art Group
  • See my case manager
  • See temporary therapist, Gilbert
  • Read
  • Workbook

Tuesday:

  • Phone Interview
  • Read
  • Clean apartment
  • Art
  • Blog
  • Workbook

Wednesday:

  • Go to clubhouse
  • See temporary therapist, Gilbert
  • Art
  • Read
  • Clean apartment
  • Blog
  • Workbook

Thursday:

  • Go to social security office
  • Pay bills
  • Clean apartment
  • Blog
  • Art
  • Workbook
  • Read

Friday:

  • See temperary therapist, Gilbert
  • Blog. This particular post will be Fun Facts Friday
  • Art
  • Clean Apartment
  • Read
  • Workbook

Saturday:

  • Blog; Weekly check-in
  • Volunteer
  • Read
  • Workbook
  • Art

Thank you for reading my long boring post about my week to come. As you can tell I’m cleaning my apartment a lot. Its because its a disaster area. I tend to not keep up household chores when my depression gets bad. I plan on spening about 15 minutes a day to clean so I don’t get overwhelmed.

Thank you again for reading my blog. Its apreciated. Peace Out, World!!!

Addicted to Reading, Stuffed Animals & Not Being Able To Sleep

Posted on by Gertie

IMG_0245Good Morning, World!! I am finding myself wide awake just barely after three o’clock in the morning in my neck of the woods. I’m finding myself getting addicted to reading. It’s getting in the way of me sleeping at night.

Actually, I find myself reading when my insomnia is acting up and unable to sleep. The problem comes in is when I get tired and continue reading in bed. I know I should put down my book when I start getting tired however it’s difficult to do so when the book is a good read especially when I’m surrounded by my many stuffed animals.

I love being surrounded by so many stuffed animals because it helps me self-soothe when times become difficult. Difficult enough to need to hold on to one or more of them to help me. Help enough to get back to reading or whatever I might be doing at the moment. That’s why I carry a stuffed animal in my backpack when I go out and about.

Good thing its Sunday and I have nowhere to be today as I’ve been up since eight o’clock yesterday (Saturday) morning. Maybe I should get going and try to go to bed to see if I am able to sleep. If I am unable to do so, I’ll be reading once again. Its time to cuddle up with my stuffed animals. Have a good Sunday. Peace Out, World!!!

Needing Consistency W/My Mental Health Treatment Team

Posted on by Gertie

Good Afternoon, World!!! I’m a little sad as I’m having yet another change in my treatment team. It involves one of my DBT Group leaders is leaving. She was one of the biggest supports I had right after Diana left suddenly due to a life threatening illness. So it came to a shock to me when the female group leader said she was leaving. I am feeling sad. This makes the fourteenth change in my treatment team in as many months. As much as I am sad I know this group leader is going to make sure I have a goodbye with her.

Even though she is not a clinician who works with me a good portion of the time she has worked with me a great deal. That is why she is wanting to have a half an hour goodbye session with her. She say and I quote “You deserve goodbye from me. We have always had a good rapport and you deserve to have a goodbye and proper goodbye” unquote. I’m glad I’m having a goodbye with her.

I just want to have some consistency in my treatment team and not have so many changes in as many months. Realizing I was getting upset with the lack of consistency I decided to do a mindfulness exercise using the Calm app as I was on the bus home. After the mindfulness exercise I listened to music. So more or I used my DBT skills to help me not be so upset and/or angry with the inconsistency in my mental health treatment which helped reduced the urges to self-harm. So I am proud of myself for reducing my anger and self harm urges by using skills.

Thank you for reading about my not so good news. I am truly proud of myself for using my DBT skills. Peace Out, World!!!

Poetry; Day Two: Faces

Posted on by Gertie

Monster’s Eyes Within The Face

by Gertie

Face’s amongst us.

Look at their face and you can not tell.

Look into their eyes.

Look deep into their eyes and you can tell there is a monster within them.

A monster that may have hurt me but helped me.

Helped me by making me stronger despite them trying to make me weak.

 

Wide Awake

Posted on by Gertie

Good Morning, World!!! I should really try to get back to sleep however I am not really sure if I will be able to do so. The reason why I say this is because I fell asleep early and now a I am wide awake.

Since, I’m wide awake I’ve been reading. Reading Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb. I am really enjoying the book. A book that I am surprised to be liking due to the fact it took the first two chapters to finally get into. If you like the genres of Sci Fi and Fantasy you would like this book. I hope to be doing a book review at the end of the book. It’s the first book of the Liveships Trader trilogy.

I love reading book series. I love series due to the fact I end up really connecting with the characters. Connecting enough to where I don’t want the story to end. In fact I’ve had folks tell me I should read The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. People of suggested this series because it has a total of fourteen books. I though about reading it however I think it might be a wee bit long for me. It’s something to think about. If I do start to read it, I know I wouldn’t be bored for a while.

I should get going to I can get back to reading. Thank you for reading my blog. I plan on writing my next poem for my next assignment for the course I am taking with WordPress later on today. I hope everyone enjoys their Friday. Peace Out, World!!!

Holding On To Hope Like My Life Depends On It

Posted on by Gertie

Good Afternoon, World!!! I’m sitting here at my laptop realizing that due to the lack of structure I’ve had today is making the symptoms of my depression increase. Even though its ever so slightly. Depression sucks shit yet I’m still holding on to the hope that I finally got back. Holding on to it like my life depends on it because it does.

Something that helps me with hope is music. So most of today, I’ve been listening music. If I wasn’t listening to it, I was playing my flute or harmonica. For some reason I needed to depend on music to help me through.

Listening to music helped get into a creative mindset to where I did some art. I did some collaging and coloring. I also did some painting. It appears with all the collaging, coloring and painting I’ve been doing I can create my own art gallery in my apartment. The picture below is the most recent painting I did today.

IMG_0217

After doing some art I read Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb. If you’re a Science Fiction or Fantasy genre fan I truly believe you will like this book. Its the first book in The Liveships Trader’s Trilogy. I read several chapters today and needed to take a break from it for a few moments.

Those few moments of breaking from reading turned in a couple of hours. A couple of hours updating my resume’ and cover letter so I could apply for jobs. I did in fact apply for jobs. I even got a response back today to have a phone interview on Tuesday. Its hard to believe I have an interview for Tuesday.

After updating my cover letter and resume’ I realized I wanted to look at some educational opportunities. So, I emailed and called a few folks about the educational opportunities and still waiting to hear back.

Thank you for reading. I hope everyone has a good rest of their day. Peace Out, World.

 

Choosing To Not Worry

Posted on by Gertie

Good Morning (again), World!!! As, I told you briefly in my last post I was going to see my dermatologist today which I did. He is concerned about a couple of moles on my back. He removed them and sending them out for an biopsy. Yes, I am a lil fearful about the biopsy as skin cancer runs in my family however I am hopeful about it as well. I am hopeful because I have had other moles biopsied before and there was no hint of cancer. So right now, I’m going to choose to not worry about the biopsy until I get the results and even then there is a high chance I won’t have to worry.

I’ve decided that I’m going to start doing the Intro To Poetry course the WordPress puts on. This is to help me stay focused on blogging. For me staying focused on my blogging helps me have the structure I need and desire. I’m going to post my first poem for the course this evening.

I hope everyone as a good rest of the day and Peace Out, World!!!

 

Another Post About Blogging Sh*t

Posted on by Gertie

Good Morning, World!!! I’ve been thinking about my blog a lot lately. Maybe because I’ve been posting more as of lately and getting my support system to finally follow through on the guest post they will do every other week. It is my hope that I can create a regular schedule on when I will have regular post as well the usual way of how I am already doing thing as posting whenever I feel like it. So the schedule I plan to have is as follows:

Sunday: Weekly Plans. This seems pretty self explanatory. It’s where I plan to tell you what I have planned for the week.

Monday: Weekly Writing prompts. This is where I can write both fiction and nonfiction stories. More or less I hope to be creative in this post as it is my hope for it to be fiction versus nonfiction as I usually write about my own personal experiences.

Tuesday: To Be Determined (TBD)

Wednesday: Guest Post. This is the day where my support system will write what its like to deal with a loved one who has lived experience. The primary guest bloggers will be Junior and Mama Bear. Junior and Mama Bear worked it out to where Junior will post on the first and third Wednesdays of the month and Mama Bear will post on the second and fourth Wednesdays of the month. As for the rare fifth Wednesday, I’ll get a special guest. Hopefully, someone who has been an inspiration to me, the peer community or the blogging community.

Thursday: To Be Determined (TBD)

Friday: Fun Facts. Fun Facts will include weird and/or random facts about things around the world as well as about me.

Saturday: Weekly Check-in. This is where I inform you how my week went and what I did. It’s more or less a post about how my week went.

As you can tell I have high hopes regarding keeping a regular schedule with blogging. I don’t want to not post and lose you as reader yet I don’t want to overwhelm you feed or email with too many post. I’m attempting to find a happy medium with blogging.

Something else I am going to do is take free courses that WordPress does. I’ll being doing everything from poetry to photography to inspired writing. I’m doing this in hopes to keep myself interested in blogging as well as you interested in reading my blog.

In fact keeping you my reader interested is why I am creating a schedule as well as having special guest and weekly writing prompts that hopefully will be fictional along with weekly plans and check-ins. Having a blogging schedule will also give me the structure I so desperately need and desire.

Thanks for reading about my blogging woes once again. I need to get going and get ready for the day as I have a doctors appointment with my dermatologist. I hope everyone has a great day and enjoys life. Peace Out, World

Things I’m Learning From The Queer & Transgender Resilience Workbook; Chapter 1

Posted on by Gertie

Good Evening, World!!! It’s been a long day for me. I started of the day having breakfast at place called Biscuit Bitch with former colleagues who I have become close friends with. Food and friends is always a good thing even if its at 7:30 in the morning. I, then went to Day Treatment today and saw my temporary therapist Gilbert. Todays session with Gilbert was more difficult than it usually is. I might talk about the session in a later post.

If you been reading my blogging regularly as of lately, you will know that I started a workbook called The Queer & Transgender Resilience Workbook by Anneliese Singh. I’m going to make every effort to tell you what I have learned after each chapter.

CHAPTER 1; GETTING REAL: DEFINING YOUR LGBTQ SELF IN A WOLD THAT DEMANDS COMFORMITY:

As the title of the chapter states, it has you define your LGBTQ self in the world around us. The chapter starts off asking how one identifies their sexual orientation and their gender identity. As it continues it starts asking about what you’re comfortable with sharing. This is the part where it started getting challenging for me as I think it depends on the situation I may be in.

Another part of chapter one that was difficult was searching within myself about affirmations I have toward myself and not just as an LGBTQ individual. This was difficult because I have very low self esteem and some if it is because of my gender identity and sexual orientation and some of it is not. Affirmations is something I need to work on and Gilbert agrees. He wants me to acknowledge that I have great affirmations and say them out loud.

Affirmations which I will say eventually. Maybe even after the end of this post. I should go and eat. Peace Out, World!!!

The Start of a Good Day

Posted on by Gertie

Good Morning, World!!! Good News is that I got a relatively good nights sleep no matter how little I did sleep. I’m grateful that I got some good sleep.

Not only am I starting off the day with some good sleep, I’m going to be having breakfast with some former colleagues at Biscuit Bitch. Biscuit Bitch is near my old employer and people who work where I worked get a discount there. Biscuit Bitch serves biscuits and gravy. Their biscuits and gravy some of the best I’ve had especially since it reminds me when lived in Nashville for a year in my early twenties. Southern food such as biscuits and gravy seems to be yummy. Well all of it except grits.

As much as I am looking forward to breakfast with former colleagues, I’m hoping to hear back from potential employers. I’ve been applying to Peer Specialist jobs as well as similar jobs so I can hopefully go back to work. I don’t know if I’m 100% ready to go back to work especially full time but its worth a shot to at least get an interview or two.

I’m realizing what the time is and should start getting ready to go as I don’t want to be late meeting up wit former colleagues before they start work. I hope everyone has a great day at work. Peace Out, World!!!