It has been quite some time since I made a new post on here. I have shied away from a lot of online communication in recent months. I haven’t posted on Facebook in months, and my art page has been without updates for quite some time. I barely use Messenger, and I’ve withdrawn from using Discord as much. I wouldn’t say this has had an overtly negative impact on how I’ve been feeling. If anything – spending less time on social media has been a good thing.
It’s day 93 of no caffeine and day 459 of no weed or alcohol. In recent weeks I’ve started addressing my diet as well. From no caffeine came a natural increase in drinking water. Thankfully I don’t really drink soda anymore, so I didn’t replace binging on coffee and tea with soda. With regards to my diet – for most of my adult life I was constantly snacking on junk food and sweets.
From my teens through to my late 20’s I was always 11.5 stone. Being 6’4” this made me very slender. It wasn’t until I started taking anti-depressants and drinking alcohol that I started to gain some weight. An increase of 2 stone doesn’t seem like a great deal at my height, and my Body Mass Index is still well within the range of a health weight. Still – it wasn’t a healthy feeling: being slim and constantly fidgeting and staffing through my 20’s meant I had a six pack. With pills and booze that gradually faded away into a small gut.
All is not lost – in fact I can clearly see the abs under the fat, but I’d been meaning to address my diet for a long time, as I want to go back to how I used to look. The most obvious starting point was the chocolate, cakes and junk food. I’ve stopped eating all of those. I replaced binging on chocolate and cakes with healthier alternatives – 2 pieces of dark chocolate a day, 1 oat/nut snack bar with pieces of fruit in it, as well as a couple of handfuls of seeds, nuts and dried fruit. Breakfast has been changed – a bowl of porridge oats (unheated), with coconut milk, and a couple of handfuls of seeds, dried fruit and sultanas. It reminds me of museli, but unlike the boxed brands, I’m not skimping on the fruit (which was always my favourite part). I used to do overnight oats, but I’m impatient. In fact – making this and eating it right away has a nicer texture in my opinion to overnight oats. There’s more of a crunch, and it doesn’t feel gloopy, like overnight oats do.
Lunches tend to be sandwiches – brown bread with a healthy(ish) filling. Usually tuna and sweetcorn or chicken and sweetcorn. Dinners are what I need to address at a later stage, as these remain things like frozen oven meals. Pizzas, chicken, chips etc. But simply addressing the snacking alone has had a profound effect. I’ve lost 9 pounds in just over 2 weeks. I’ve been staffing a lot more regularly as well. On my lunch breaks at work I walk to the park and staff for 40 minutes. Alternatively, I walk for the full hour and cover over 3 and a half miles in that time. On the 3 days I work from home I’m going to the park each day to staff as well.
Next time I go shopping I’m going to start making my smoothies again. It used to be a bit of a mish mash, and whenever my partner tried them, she said they were vile. But I found them nice. It’d usually be kale, spinach, beetroot, carrot, banana and grapes, oats and seeds. It was an odd flavour – earthy and sweet. But it helps me get my greens. I’d often experiment and mix up the ingredients. But, even back when I was a drunk – whenever I had these smoothies, I’d feel really invigorated afterwards. A litre of that – talk about a rush of nutrients. I’d be buzzing.
I rang the doctors today – as it’s been nearly a year since my referral letter for my autism assessment. As luck would have it, the place which deals with these assessments has just re-opened this week. It’d been closed since the first lockdown last March. So my calling was perfect timing, they said they’d chase up my referral today.
Work continues to be a stressor – but I’ve been reading more books with regards to mental health. Specifically around healing childhood trauma and learning how it affects the present self. Through reading these books I’ve been delving further into introspection and uncovering past memories and events and seeing them from a new perspective. One of my current books is called Complex PTSD From Surviving to Thriving. In this book, the author explains that a lot of people with diagnosis such as autism, depression, anxiety, bi-polar etc. are often suffering from CPTSD from childhood traumas such as abuse or emotional neglect.
I began reading the book after seeing a description of the Fawn Response, which was something I could relate to very strongly. Further investigation found the excerpt from the aforementioned book and I started to read it. My concentration has never been great, and whilst I often fantasize about happily spending all day reading books – this doesn’t materialise. Still, I have been reading a lot more – in fact, I’ve been reading almost every day for an hour for the past 2 months. This is a huge difference to how I used to be. Even whilst studying English Literature in school, college and university – I struggled completing any books. I’d just skim read, and focus on chapters which exams and coursework would focus on. I guess it makes sense – studying a subject I had no passion for, I coasted along doing the bare minimum.
Therapy isn’t really doable right now, so these books will suffice. Their wisdom and my introspection is helping me learn and heal new aspects of myself.
I’ve also finally been tackling my spending habits. Always being an impulse buyer – something that has had me in and out of debt all my adult life. Spending outside your means might provide a buzz, but it leaves you with months or years of repayments. In the past 3 months I’ve saved £800. I’ve been very strict with myself, as soon as that money goes into my saving account, I never take any back out again. I guess it’s better late than never – I’ve never once been able to save my money, and it only took me until I was 34.
One of the key points in the book I’m reading is about shrinking the inner-critic. Until I’d read this book I had rarely considered just how much of a negative and overbearing impact my inner-critic had on my life. In fact, I’ve just reached a section which highlights 14 common inner critic attacks and how to counter them:
Ed
It’s day 93 of no caffeine and day 459 of no weed or alcohol. In recent weeks I’ve started addressing my diet as well. From no caffeine came a natural increase in drinking water. Thankfully I don’t really drink soda anymore, so I didn’t replace binging on coffee and tea with soda. With regards to my diet – for most of my adult life I was constantly snacking on junk food and sweets.
From my teens through to my late 20’s I was always 11.5 stone. Being 6’4” this made me very slender. It wasn’t until I started taking anti-depressants and drinking alcohol that I started to gain some weight. An increase of 2 stone doesn’t seem like a great deal at my height, and my Body Mass Index is still well within the range of a health weight. Still – it wasn’t a healthy feeling: being slim and constantly fidgeting and staffing through my 20’s meant I had a six pack. With pills and booze that gradually faded away into a small gut.
All is not lost – in fact I can clearly see the abs under the fat, but I’d been meaning to address my diet for a long time, as I want to go back to how I used to look. The most obvious starting point was the chocolate, cakes and junk food. I’ve stopped eating all of those. I replaced binging on chocolate and cakes with healthier alternatives – 2 pieces of dark chocolate a day, 1 oat/nut snack bar with pieces of fruit in it, as well as a couple of handfuls of seeds, nuts and dried fruit. Breakfast has been changed – a bowl of porridge oats (unheated), with coconut milk, and a couple of handfuls of seeds, dried fruit and sultanas. It reminds me of museli, but unlike the boxed brands, I’m not skimping on the fruit (which was always my favourite part). I used to do overnight oats, but I’m impatient. In fact – making this and eating it right away has a nicer texture in my opinion to overnight oats. There’s more of a crunch, and it doesn’t feel gloopy, like overnight oats do.
Lunches tend to be sandwiches – brown bread with a healthy(ish) filling. Usually tuna and sweetcorn or chicken and sweetcorn. Dinners are what I need to address at a later stage, as these remain things like frozen oven meals. Pizzas, chicken, chips etc. But simply addressing the snacking alone has had a profound effect. I’ve lost 9 pounds in just over 2 weeks. I’ve been staffing a lot more regularly as well. On my lunch breaks at work I walk to the park and staff for 40 minutes. Alternatively, I walk for the full hour and cover over 3 and a half miles in that time. On the 3 days I work from home I’m going to the park each day to staff as well.
Next time I go shopping I’m going to start making my smoothies again. It used to be a bit of a mish mash, and whenever my partner tried them, she said they were vile. But I found them nice. It’d usually be kale, spinach, beetroot, carrot, banana and grapes, oats and seeds. It was an odd flavour – earthy and sweet. But it helps me get my greens. I’d often experiment and mix up the ingredients. But, even back when I was a drunk – whenever I had these smoothies, I’d feel really invigorated afterwards. A litre of that – talk about a rush of nutrients. I’d be buzzing.
I rang the doctors today – as it’s been nearly a year since my referral letter for my autism assessment. As luck would have it, the place which deals with these assessments has just re-opened this week. It’d been closed since the first lockdown last March. So my calling was perfect timing, they said they’d chase up my referral today.
Work continues to be a stressor – but I’ve been reading more books with regards to mental health. Specifically around healing childhood trauma and learning how it affects the present self. Through reading these books I’ve been delving further into introspection and uncovering past memories and events and seeing them from a new perspective. One of my current books is called Complex PTSD From Surviving to Thriving. In this book, the author explains that a lot of people with diagnosis such as autism, depression, anxiety, bi-polar etc. are often suffering from CPTSD from childhood traumas such as abuse or emotional neglect.
I began reading the book after seeing a description of the Fawn Response, which was something I could relate to very strongly. Further investigation found the excerpt from the aforementioned book and I started to read it. My concentration has never been great, and whilst I often fantasize about happily spending all day reading books – this doesn’t materialise. Still, I have been reading a lot more – in fact, I’ve been reading almost every day for an hour for the past 2 months. This is a huge difference to how I used to be. Even whilst studying English Literature in school, college and university – I struggled completing any books. I’d just skim read, and focus on chapters which exams and coursework would focus on. I guess it makes sense – studying a subject I had no passion for, I coasted along doing the bare minimum.
Therapy isn’t really doable right now, so these books will suffice. Their wisdom and my introspection is helping me learn and heal new aspects of myself.
I’ve also finally been tackling my spending habits. Always being an impulse buyer – something that has had me in and out of debt all my adult life. Spending outside your means might provide a buzz, but it leaves you with months or years of repayments. In the past 3 months I’ve saved £800. I’ve been very strict with myself, as soon as that money goes into my saving account, I never take any back out again. I guess it’s better late than never – I’ve never once been able to save my money, and it only took me until I was 34.
One of the key points in the book I’m reading is about shrinking the inner-critic. Until I’d read this book I had rarely considered just how much of a negative and overbearing impact my inner-critic had on my life. In fact, I’ve just reached a section which highlights 14 common inner critic attacks and how to counter them:
- Perfectionism.
- All-or-none, and black and white thinking.
- Self-hate, self-disgust and toxic shame.
- Micromanagement, worrying, obsessing, looping and over-futurizing.
- Unfair/devaluing comparisons to others, or to your most perfect moments.
- Guilt.
- “Shoulding” (replacing “want to” with “should”).
- Over-productivity, workaholism.
- Harsh judgements of self & others, name calling.
- Drasticizing, catastrophizing and hypochondriasizing.
- Negative focus.
- Time urgency.
- Disabling performance anxiety.
- Perseverating about being attacked.
Ed
