Danni's Blog

(For an explanation of the title, read The Spoon Theory on this site: http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/the_spoon_theory/ (pdf download).)

Things I should be doing:
Playing at camp in Second Life on Danni Ohara
Tidying up the flat a bit
Washing dishes
Putting away washing
Brushing my hair
Playing World of Warcraft
Reading emails
Replying to outstanding emails
Cleaning the bathroom
Writing letter to try and sort out my housing benefit/local housing allowance
Sorting out several websites.

What I am doing:
Writing a list of the things I should be doing.

I managed to have a bath today. This is good, as I was getting rather sweaty. However, this has used up the majority of my spoons. It is complicated because I took the skin off part of my face, so I was having to be mindful of not letting anything getting into the sore bit. I’ve covered it with a dressing again now, and in a few days it should be okay without.

I’m so stupidly tired. I know some of that is medication (Crazy Meds recommends against combining trazodone and quetiapine for exactly this reason, but I’m grateful for being able to sleep again), and some of this is the complete messedupness of my sleeping patterns (for various reasons), but other than that it’s just I’m so drained, and everything seems to take so much energy. I was unable to cook the chicken we had because there were too many steps involved (there was washing up to be done before it could be cooked, and it was the combination of two tasks I struggle with that made it near impossible for me to do it). Johan cooked it (and very well) but it’s just so frustrating that there are so many tasks that I want to get done, stuff that I really like doing, and I just don’t have the energy and ability to do most of them.

My ability in general is very variable. There are some tasks I can do some days but not others, some that I can do fine so long as that’s the only thing I have to do that day, some that I can do if I’ve got someone to help but can’t do alone, and others which are near impossible even with help, even if everything else is fine. Of course, my brain doesn’t work right so I don’t always know what category each thing falls into (there are some tasks that I may be able to do with help, but I don’t know that yet because I’ve never had help to do them before).

The other thing is that certain tasks take more out of me than others. Writing this blog post isn’t really using much energy, as I’m already thinking about this stuff and typing it up doesn’t use that much energy. I was in Second Life earlier, but realised it was too much as people were talking in there and I couldn’t keep up, even though I wasn’t doing anything else at the time. Reading emails is very hard right now, but reading blog posts on my reader is a lot easier. Not entirely sure why- maybe because I’m less worried about forgetting stuff from the blogs than from emails?

Despite all the whining above, I’m still mostly happy these days. Yes, I get frustrated, angry and upset sometimes when I can’t do the stuff I want or need to do, but it is getting easier to accept that I have some difficulties and that I need help, and this doesn’t make me a bad person. I may also be getting some help, but that’s not confirmed yet. Sometimes I decide to use what energy I do have to do something else, like helping my sister. I’m learning to not feel so guilty about stuff, and that not having the energy to do something does not make me lazy. I’m getting there.