Stories Plus

There’s a lot I want to accomplish in a day. I don’t necessarily need to feel like I’ve climbed a mountain at the end of each day, but it would be nice to know I was taking the right steps to care for myself. Mental health is a difficult battle that never really ends. All I can hope for is finding ways to manage my mental health issues so I can function day to day. It’s a difficult balance of finding what I need to stay motivated and on top of things while not burning out and falling into the never ending cycle of ups and downs.

I take a walk almost every day with the kid I work with. It’s important for her to get some exercise but it’s also just a part of her routine. We walk for about a mile on the days I work at her home. There are only two days a week I’m not at her home. I do feel good about getting some steps in, but I need to do much more to maintain my health and achieve a healthier weight. My girlfriend recently found a stationary bike while thrifting for $15 and it doesn’t take up a lot of space. I enjoy biking but it’s hard sometimes to drag myself out of bed before work to actually exercise.

My girlfriend and I both have ADHD, which means our apartment is almost always a mess. We also both struggle to deal with our mental health so it’s hard to find the executive function to even make ourselves food much less clean up. I want to be able to at least maintain the kitchen since I don’t spend a lot of time in the living room. Even if it means completing some small steps each day, anything to prevent dishes taking over the sinks and keep the counters useable. My girlfriend recently made a list of tasks we should focus on to reclaim our home. While I do have some good days where it feels easy doing a lot at once without burning out, it doesn’t happen that often.

There are a lot of smaller steps needed to take care of my physical health: showering, brushing my teeth, brushing my hair, washing my face, eating, doing laundry, etc. It’s a lot of small tasks that build up in my mind like a whole to do list. Most people don’t even think of the individual tasks it takes to maintain themselves or get ready for the day. But as I’ve said before: once you stop caring about something, you stop taking care of it. Sometimes all I can manage is to crawl out of bed five minutes before I have to leave for work and get dressed, use the bathroom, and leave. It does bother me a lot that I feel like such a mess. My hair gets all tangled and almost impossible to brush. My breath ends up smelling gross and my gums start swelling. I get very shaky and dizzy from not eating. Overall, it doesn’t feel good. I want to take care of myself. I really do, but it’s hard enough finding the time to just shower and do laundry.

Overall, I know my daily routine needs a lot of work. I’ve started taking small steps to work toward a healthier me. Today I managed to brush my teeth and my hair. I got out of bed before noon. I did some dishes. I even ate breakfast! My goal isn’t to fix everything at once. It’s to take small steps toward the greater goal. The first step is just fixing my sleep schedule. I’ve been going to bed pretty consistently around 1:30 in the morning. My alarm goes off at 10:30. It still takes me a bit to get out of bed, but being able to wake up fully and get out of bed before noon is still a huge improvement for me. It’s given me time to come back to my blog and start taking care of myself again. I’m dressed and ready for work hours before I have to leave and I even have time to do laundry or shower first.

It isn’t a lot, but it’s a step. That’s all it really takes. Small steps forward. Am I still going to be kind of gross and unhealthy for a while? Probably, yeah. But I’ll be a little less gross every day. I’ll start to look more put together. I’ll start to get a little bit healthier. There’s a lot I need to work on to build my willpower, but I’m getting better. And that’s all that really matters.