My Monthly Progress Report- October '22

A little recap of my wins, realisations, what I want to work on this month, and what I'm looking forward to.

As someone with low self-esteem, I struggle to be proud of anything I have achieved. I have touched on this in previous blogs so I won’t go into it here.

I also struggle with anxiety. This constant fight or flight mindset often prevents me from looking back, because I’m always stressed about what’s next on the list.

Both of the above, fucking suck! It’s torture sometimes, and I fucking hate it. The good news? There’s something I can do about it!

I was talking about it with my mate Benny and it came up in conversation that perhaps setting aside a regular, consistent time to reflect on what has been achieved over a recent period could be beneficial. Just a cute and cuddly little reminder that, hey, you’re doin’ ok, kid.

I proposed the idea to my psychologist and she agreed it was a great idea. So, I set a reminder on my phone for the first of every month to recap the month that was with a little bit of structure that I came across. Actually, Benny sent it to me. Today is the second of November, I know. Some months, depending on what day of the week it is, it might be late. Blokes got a lot of shit to do, got a job ‘n’ kid ‘n’ that, get off me case.

I don’t even know if this will be remotely enjoyable for others to read, but I don’t care. Fuck ya’s! I’m kidding. This one though is for me and my progress out of addiction, into recovery, and ultimately helping me get to a point where I don’t have such low self-worth and maybe one day I could feel a genuine sense of pride in something I have achieved. I think if I concentrate on sad shit too much, It’s going to make… more sad? sader? Sadererer? So, here goes…

Wins

On the 18th of October I… I almost wrote celebrated, but I didn’t. I didn’t do anything different really, but I achieved 6 full, motherfucking, Australian, months of sobriety. Something that until… probably four or five months ago I genuinely did not think was a true possibility. I’ve waffled on about it a lot already, but, writing about it has been a major factor and I truly don’t believe I would have been able to stay sober if not for the support of everyone who reads what I write. It created accountability for me. You give me support and encouragement, I feel obligated to stay sober for the week and come back and let you guys know I’m still sober. You guys might not give a fuck about me being sober, but if I tell myself you do, I stay sober and it works. I just hope that you guys take away even a fraction of what I do, from the process.

I also celebrated… yeah this one I did celebrate, was my first sober birthday in 19 years. I was a little concerned about it initially. I wrote about how I’d always associated birthdays with benders and used them to justify behaviors that didn’t align with my values. But I had a cracker of a day, which you can read about in this week’s Sobering Thoughts. The main takeaway was that for the first time in a long time I was able to just be present and enjoy the experience for what it was, rather than worrying about what I had to do that afternoon or playing on my phone, or getting bored and wanting to leave. It was only for a short period, but progress is progress.

I had a bit of a tantrum about work among other things in my brain dump last week. My boss decided to read it, haha. The only one of my blogs he’s ever read. Sorry, mate. After a stern word followed by a metaphorical cuddle, things are improving at work and at home in general. I kind of realised it’s up to me to make things better for myself. some real White Goodman areas.

Things are settling a bit better at home too. Visitors have left, routine is returning and I even found time to plant my veggie seedlings. I didn’t bother planting any winter veggies this year because I knew I was moving house halfway through the season so there was no point. I didn’t realise just how much I would miss fuckin’ about in the yard with my veggies. Feels good to finally be growing my own food again.

My son is now 10 weeks old. That’s fuckin’ insane. I know parents often carry on about how time flies once you have children, but you really don’t appreciate it until you have a child of your own. He develops further and further each and every day and it’s such a joy to watch. He’s starting to be really responsive. He is the only thing I have that can instantly slow my racing mind. It’s a pretty wild feeling. When I’m stressed or anxious, I know that when I spend time with him, it all just disappears. Nothing else has done that for me since I’ve been sober. I feel like I’m kind of using him in a way. But I don’t want him to have a stressed out dad. I want him to have a present and available dad and I believe that what is best for me is in turn what’s best for him, in this regard anyway. Knowing that no matter the situation, I can grab him, sit down with him and have yarn, get a laugh and a smile out him now, and everything else that I thought mattered just vanishes is so fucking comforting for me. I was so fucking terrified of being a dad, but I’m so fucking lucky to be his dad. He’s the best baby and I truly feel like he has already given me so much more than I will ever be able to give him.

A week and a half ago I ran the Run With The Wind Arthur (half-marathon). I wrote about How I was a little bit worried about it because it was at the old Woodlawn Mine site, where my grandfather was killed in a work accident 37 years ago. I’d never been to the site before and was a little unsure how I would feel about it. From one point of the course you could see a clear view down into the old mine site. I ran past this section twice. Whilst I did feel "something” each time, I didn’t get as emotional as I thought I might have. I think I learned that week the value of writing. I wrote a blog about my concerns about running there and I think airing my concerns prior helped me process a lot of how I felt about the whole ordeal and ultimately prevented me from a possible tantrum. The run it’s self was great. It was a nicely manicured gravel fire trail running around all the giant wind turbines. A pretty unique experience. I woke up a bit rigid and sore that day which was disappointing. I also had to drive 90 minutes to get there which made things worse. in Typical ADHD fashion I wasn’t there as early as I’d planned so didn’t get to warm up or stretch as much as I would have liked so I decided to just plod around and enjoy it for what it was. An all round great day that I reckon I’ll do again.

In the same blog about the run above I spoke about my piece of shit, asshole, back. It’s been giving me grief for months and months as I’ve been trying to up the ante a little bit with my running. Essentially, whenever I ran, it would go all tight and seize up. Sometimes it would take longer to seize than others, but it almost certainly would happen eventually, every single time. I made a whole lot of adjustments which I spoke about in this weeks blog and finally I seem to have some significant relief. It was almost overnight and I have no idea how the fuck it happened or what in particular helped, but I feel as though I’m able to run at somewhere around 85% at the moment which is so fucking pleasing because I was on the verge of a full blown dummy spit. I learned that I need to be patient, that I’m getting old and if I wanna do this stupid fucking running bullshit, I am going to have to take my recovery seriously. Dynamic stretching and a slow run to warm up. A walk and some static stretches to cool down. Massage gun wherever it hurts the most when I’m sitting around at home.

Realisations

This month I have realised, again, that running truly is the best exercise for my mental health. I kind of already knew it. But last year I obsessed with metrics to a point where I didn’t want to run anymore. I’ve learned that I need to run for the physical and mental health benefits primarily and then if I want to set some targets or whatever I can do it for fun but ultimately they mean fuck all. I’m 34, built like a fridge, never going to be a professional athlete, so who gives a fuck. When it comes to exercise I think I need to just do what I enjoy the most because that’s where I’m going to find the most consistency.

A massive one for me this month was around panic attacks. I had a couple of moments where I felt this physical presence rise up from my feet through my body. I felt my body temperature rise, I started to shake and sweat. The pleasing thing for me was that I realised what was happening, didn’t freak out, well, I did, but not as much as I probably would have in the past, and knew what I needed to do to bring myself back down. I didn’t snap and go crazy! I realised I have more control over these things than I thought. Another couple of callus’ on the mind.

November Focus

This month there’s a couple of things I want to work on and the kind of interlock.

The first one is around negative thoughts. When I was younger I digested a lot of literature around dismissing negative thoughts but I realise now that I think I conveniantly left a step out. I think I need to acknowledge that these negative thoughts exist, tell myself that it’s ok to have them, then decide to dismiss them. Imagine your thoughts as a bucket of tennis balls. Every ball has a thought written on it. Someone is lobbing the balls at you. I think what I should be doing is catching the ball, reading the words, considering the message, then choosing to throw the ball away if I don’t like the message. But I think what I have been doing is getting the flashest tennis racket anyone has ever seen and belt the little fuckers over the fence and into oblivion. When I used this anology to my psych she said that when you try my technique they hit an elastic wall and come back at you even faster. I need to practice being calm, let the thoughts come, acknowledge what they are, then choose what to do with them. If I belt the piss out of every single ball out of fear of feeling a negative thought, I’m also going to miss out on the positive ones too.

I still need to work on setting time aside to actively do nothing. When you have ADHD you kind of make yourself busy. I’m bad for hyper-fixating on things and convincing myself they are more important than they are. I think this is an avoidance strategy. It kind of ties in with the above. I’m not a hard worker, by choice anyway. I’m trying to stay busy to avoid being stuck with my thoughts. I spoke about it at some point this week but I need to block out some time each week where I do nothing important. No house work, no work work, no exercise, no blogs, just hang out. I think the habits I’ve ingrained over time are the reason I struggle so much to be present. I hate when I don’t feel present. It’s kind of like I’m watching the world go by through a TV screen and I have no control over what I’m watching. I think it all stems around feeling things. Sadly, you can’t pick and choose what you feel. If I want to feel the positive things, I have to feel the negative things. The trade off is pretty simple, if I want to feel present and appreciate the little things in life for what they are, I need to work on being present for all of my thoughts and feelings. I don’t think you can have one without the other. Negative feelings aren’t bad. They’re necessary, and while I don’t think we should dwell on them, I need to develop a healthy mechanism where I can acknowledge their presence and at least be ok with it. Being busy or a hard worker, in my case at least, isn’t admirable at all, it’s because I am scared. Only when I get past that will I be able to enjoy all the amazing things in my life to their fullest capacity.

I also want to bring an old healthy habit back this month. I have an accountability board that I used to fill out each day. I haven’t really been doing it much since I moved down here, but I want to get back to filling it out daily just to check off that I’m doing the right Things. I know if I tick more boxes than I don’t I should be feeling pretty good

I don’t think people should weight themselves every day. I think scale weight is a dangerous and inaccurate metric when used exclusively. This board actually makes me feel better about my weight. I know that if I’m ticking more of these boxes than I’m not, my weight doesn’t matter. I can trust it and know that i am doing the right thing. But Sam, doesn’t this just tell you all the same shit your watch does? Yep. Sure does. But i don’t look at the data from my watch as much as I should. Taking the data off my phone screen, reading it, writing it, reading it again, makes me actually consider the data. Maybe it’s a little crazy, it’s certainly not for everyone, but it works for me.

What I’m Excited About

I see no reason why this can’t be a great month. The weather is getting warmer, so the veggies should keep thriving!

My son is developing more and more every day, I refuse to wish time away, but I’m excited for him to interact more. Now I have a taste of it I just want more and more. He’s just about starting to talk to me, in his own language of course.

I’m exited to run more now that I can. I’m going to transition from probably 70/30 weight/running split to something closer to 50/50. I should get a little lighter by doing this and feel a little more agile and mobile in my day to day life. I’m excited to try to get close to as fit as I was 12 months ago. It feels so good feeling fit, only this time I should be a little bit stronger and a lot healthier now I’m sober.

It’s odd to associate excited to this but I am excited to just keep chipping away. I’m making progress. Some days it’s really fucking hard. Some psychology sessions are really fucking hard. But I am making progress and it’s exciting and I want more of it. The hard work is paying off. I’ve come too far now to turn around and go back the other way. My life is already infinitely better than it was seven months. Just because it’s challenging doesn’t mean it' can’t be better. But I want more of it. I want as much of it as I can get. I don’t think that’s greedy, I think you’re fuckin’ mad if you don’t want the same.

The good shit is waiting for us, just outside the comfort zone.

Cheers Wankers.

X.

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