Journal

I woke up early this morning and spent time just petting and holding Hope. She loves to knead on me. I want to find a nice way to keep her from perforating my exposed skin when she does it on my neck or face. Shorts season approacheth, so I think this problem is going to get better before it gets worse.

I ended up just getting up around 6:30 because I had a telehealth appointment scheduled for 8:00* and I know myself well enough that I can't pretend I'll be able to wake up by 8 if I go back to sleep at 6:30. 

As much as I'm a fan of technology and as much as paper sometimes triggers a fight-or-flight response in my brain, I've found that I can keep up with tracking symptoms best in a paper journal. It's not something I planned at all. I started with this hideous sewage-colored Moleskine Chapters journal I bought on clearance several years ago. I think the fact that it was cheap and ugly made the stakes really low. It didn't need to be perfect and well thought out. I started simple, just the date and then the symptoms. Since that time I've added some stamps that show front and back views of the body and I color in areas or mark specific points of concern. I write down in green ink any medications I take in addition to my regular daily drugs and supplements (I'm not going to waste time writing every day that I took my lyrica, for example.) Negative factors get put down in pink or orange, like the time I accidentally ate gluten-full pizza.

It still irks me that I can't just immediately generate a report of the data collected, but right now I find it more important to just get it down there. And as small a step as this is, I've been able to keep up the habit for several months. I used up the Moleskine and moved on to a Pokémon journal I'd been holding onto. It's got Snorlax on the front and says "Do It Tomorrow." I've almost used that one up, too.

I remember first learning about Bullet Journals and trying to get started with that, but being overwhelmed and intimidated by the Pinterest crowd with all their fancy-ass layouts and ~*design*~ elements. The scrapbooking crew kinda killed my ability to make use of something that was initially supposed to be a great help to people like me. Well, actually, my own perfectionism did that. After all, you can't mess up if you don't make an attempt. It's such a wrong way of thinking about things, and my conscious mind knows that, but the entire rest of me can't just ignore it.

I've always had a fear of doing something wrong. Of being something wrong. I think that having an anxiety disorder and an absence of much I needed to be anxious about as a child made my subconscious extremely good at inventing reasons to worry.

*Actually it turns out they had written "TELEMED" on my appointment card but forgotten to make a similar note on their schedule at the doctor's office, so things didn't kick off until after I called them to make sure they hadn't forgotten about me.