Monday 20th January 2014

Dear clement, keep faith. Remember that this too will pass.

In solidarity,

Thesis 

bad things are happening.
I slept for like 4 hours on Sat.
I was not really that tired.
I vacillate between zero motivation and miniscule motivation.
The hard drive crashed on my pc. I was already feeling really really bad before that happened.
I feel like the sky is falling.
Intellectually i know that i have experienced a lot of recovery over the last year.
But it has no effect on me now.
I am convinced that i am a total failure and will never succeed.
When i consider doing a task, i am almost sure i will fail, so there seems to be no point.
I feel like i'm having a mental break down. But i know they say if you think you're having one, then you're not over the cliff cuz you still recognize it as not healthy, not normal.
So i guess that's one good thing.

I dont know what i'm going to do.
I have no confidence that i will get anything done today.
I expect that i will not have the motivation to start anything.
It's a miracle that i even came here.
So i guess i do have miracles to hope in. Not of myself, but somehow outside forces.
I remember thinking earlier that i can go on pa, and who knows maybe some good will result. I couldnt imagine that happening, or how it might happen, but i thot there was an outside shot.
We'll see. I am here.
This journaling might help. who knows. it does feel good to express it, but i dont see anything positive yet.

I remember i used to have a task list, and i used to check it every day.
I used to select the MITs for that day.
I remember stress at the 100 other things that i did not do that day, but i remember knowing that it was healthy to at least have done at least 1 MIT. I remember that was recovery, even if partial.
Right now i can't imagine even looking at my to do list.
I know that i had 2 days where i worked 0 hours one day, and 1 hour the next day.
When i was healthy, i would have taken comfort from knowing that at least i time-logged those hours and i knew. Even THAT was recovery, even tho partial. But i knew then that time-logging was better than not time logging. I could have had a day where i worked 0hours and also did not time log. I have had PLENTY of days like that over my 25 years of procrastination.
But now, the idea that time-logging a 0-hour day is better than not time-logging does nothing for me. It has no effect. zero.

hmmm. maybe....

I just got a soda.
i remember feeling this way back in july of 2013. let me see if i have journal entries from then.

Since my laptop hard drive crashed, i'm on a different laptop now and it doesnt have my journals. However i am very FORTUNATE to have all backups. Most people dont. That should help to make me feel better, but it actually does nothing for me. I dont know why. I guess i AM grateful that i still know that there's something wrong. If i was further far gone i would lose the ability to see that there was a problem.

Anyway, my backups are on a network drive. I had trouble mounting that drive on this laptop. That's because i had restarted the computer serving the network drive because...of other problems that are getting me down.

That is an old XP machine with a PCI card that provides eSATA ports. eSATA is supposed to be hot-swappable, meaning you dont have to turn on and of your pc to plug and unplug devices into it. But it was hard to find an eSATA card and it's not from a reliable manufacturer so it could have bugs. And i was having problems with the hot-swapping so i turned off and on my computer to remove a device. I removed one and added one. But the one i added was not mounted even tho the pc powered up with it attached. FRUSTRATING. and then i tried to unplug and re-plug it, and it worked, so this time the rebooting DIDNT work and the hot-swapping DID. Very frustrating and a moving target.

But the point is these little frustrations get the best of me. Then sap all my motivation and send me right into paralysis. Paralysis mixed with high stress, headaches, nauseousness, and great fear that it's always going to be this way and i'm never going to succeed.

This is important stuff. If i can't work enuf hours at my business we will be forced to sell our house. I'm not even sure we'd qualify for a new mortgage. My kids would have to change high schools. It would be extremely disruptive to our family. My kids in college would not be able to return to the home they grew up in. It's survivable, i guess, but it's pretty major.

So i bear all that weight and pretty much dont see how i'm going to get out of it. It's pretty hopeless and sad and stressful and paralyzing.

...

Journaling...

I just re-read what i wrote "I am convinced that i am a total failure and will never succeed."

it was extremely easy to write that. No hesitation. It was exactly what i was feeling. And it seemed the most reasonable thing to feel, when i was in the mist of feeling it and writing it.

Re-reading what i wrote, it seems extremely harsh extremely unlikely to be true.

I mean, "total" failure? "never" succeed. Re-reading those they seem almost certain to be false. There's GOT to be SOMETHING i can do. SOME progress that can be made. I mean, maybe it's not enuf, but certainly it doesnt have to be exactly ZERO.

so this journaling has let me see myself in the 3rd person. that has helped. dont know how much yet.

...

re-read some more

"I have no confidence that i will get anything done today."
There's another one of those all or nothing statements that seemed so perfectly reasonable when i wrote it, but seems so extreme looking back on it. And i only wrote it 10 min ago!!!!
This process is really helping me get some perspective. :)
(yes that was a smiley)

"I expect that i will not have the motivation to start anything."
Now this statement. This one seems as reasonable now as it did when i wrote it.
There is a very high possibility that i will not have the motivation to start.

But, now, after writing and then re-reading my journal here today, i feel better. I dont feel hopeless. I feel like i have a huge mountain to climb, yes, but i now feel like if i'm going to die on this hill, i'd like to die climbing it, even if i dont ever climb that high, rather than pining away at the base and dieing there.

Maybe that's not a lot of hope, but it is a little. I think it's enuf to get out my box of tools and start using them.

God, thank you!

11:30 to 1 pm

Call Dr. T

Contact Bell re account

Call Acd of Learning

Check DVW

answer emails

PIC membership

Sort TNO files

Organize dining room table

1 to 4

Business taxes 2009, 2010

call JH at JLP office

email Stefan

late lunch

4 to 6

Business taxes

Wash dishes

6 to 10 

Bring stuff to sister

TNO class outline

Read ESL library books

Dinner

TNO class outline

10 to 12

Read newspapers

Put clothes away 

Maint. basics, exer, plan, follow through, use tools that work     good starter jal-

I'm having one of my obsessive organising phases, this one is really fun :) I'm giving numbers to all the things I want to do, then using a random number generator and doing 10 mins of whichever number comes up.

I've got 30 numbers and decided to give 10 to work and 4 each to breaks, self-care activities, spiritual time, Project C, and personal admin. Aiming to have a bit of housework, a bit of social stuff (replying to emails etc) and a bit of something else in the personal section most days.

1-4 - Break :)

5 - Affirmations

6 - Exercise

7 - Shower

8 - Shiva Nata

9-12 - Spiritual time :)

13-16 - Project C :)

Personal:

17 - Housework: Hoover, wash up

18 - Social: Email Wendy, catch up w/Megan :)

19 - Akashic record ppl :)

20 - R notes

Work:

21-22 - Ebay :)

23-25 - Article

26-30 - Transcribing :)

Other stuff:

Netty 9am :)

Print paperwork before doctor apt :)

Doctor 6.10 :)

Parents call 7.45 :)

Set 2nd alarm :)

Use the 3Ts method :)

--
The ’3Ts’ aka ’Timed Task Tomorrow’ method - 3 questions before doing something online:
Is it Timed (set a timer)? Is it a Task? If it's a sudden impulse, can I act on it Tomorrow?

Thanks Jalla for starting today's thread - much appreciated.

I admit that I am powerless over my procrastination and debt and that my life had become unmanageable.  I came to believe that a Power greater than myself could restore me to sanity and I made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God. I humbly ask God to remove my shortcomings. I pray constantly and unceasingly only for knowledge of God's will for me today and the power to carry that out.  

Its not about the tasks - its about listening to the moment and going with the flow of the spirit - today and NOW.

Its not about the money, its about listening to the simplicity of need and contentment - today ao

____________

Got on the scales this morning and confirmed my estimate - about 12kg have 'crept' on in 3 years - I've been using the excuse of shift work, travel/no routine for too long.

So a daily habit of some form of exercise and quality food is to be a focus until I can get back into healthy habits.

___________

Today:

get up early

swim

healthy bfast

chores

devotion

email A.M

email rosters

email re: address

print out medi from

book B apt

coffee w T 430

Main aim today: focus on timed study sessions - pharm today

 Max 20min naps as still jet lagged...

Thanks for listening.