Latest Posts by sundove - Page 3
look. i don’t think my stretch marks are beautiful. i don’t think they’re tiger stripes or natural tattooos. i don’t think my acne is beautiful. i don’t think the bags under my eyes are beautiful. i just think they’re human. and i don’t think i have to be beautiful all of the time in order to be accepted and loved and sucessful. i don’t think every small detail of my outer appearence needs to be translated into prettiness.
How to stay sane during quarantine
I have chronic depression and executive dysfunction. I’ve also been working from home for a good few years now. I’ve learned a lot, so I think I have some advice to help all of the people that are now stuck at home for long periods of time.
1. Shower, change your clothes, brush your hair, brush your teeth, shave. Anything that you would normally do first thing in the morning to prep for school/work, you still need to do it. Our minds crave the routine, and your body doesn’t suddenly stop needing to be clean because no one is seeing it dirty.
2. Do everything in your mortal power to keep the same sleep schedule you had before. For the absolute love of god. Set an alarm and stick to it as if your life depended on it. Fucking with your circadian rhythm is the #1 to make you feel like dog shit.
3. Keep a journal or at least a calendar. It helps the days matter. If you don’t have something concrete to look at each morning or night to remember the day and the date, everything starts to meld together. It fucks with your soul. And besides, you’re living through a historical event. If any time was the time to start documenting your life, it’s now.
4. Stay in touch with your friends. It doesn’t matter how, as long as you do. Discord is a go-to. Even Facebook works. There’s also Watch2Gether, where you can watch videos online with friends.
5. If you’re religious, continue practicing your faith within the comfort of your home. Your God doesn’t care where you pray. They get it. It’s cool. This is especially important if religious gatherings were a part of your normal life. Right now, everything is scary. Find comfort where you can.
6. Pets are important. Take care of them well if you have them. Walk them or let them get exercise. Play with them. Cuddle them. You both are made healthier with the contact.
7. Pick up a hobby you’ve always wanted to but never had the time or energy. It’ll let you feel productive and give you the feeling of accomplishment that school and work might. And it’ll keep your mind engaged.
8. It’s tempting, but don’t binge watch or play. Don’t watch the entire SVU franchise back to back, or spend 12 hours playing Morrowind. You shouldn’t do anything for such a prolonged period of time. It turns something that should be a reward into the emotional and mental equivalent to junk food. If you have to, at lest cycle what you’re watching/playing.
9. Work out. You’re going to gain weight, that’s normal. It’s a drastic change to… well, everything, but especially your body. This is twice as likely if you eat when you’re emotional/bored.
10. Fuck me, stop watching the damn news so much. Social media counts, too. Maybe check once a day, once every other day. You’re freaking yourself out for no good reason. The numbers aren’t so important that you need to know it every hour of the day. You don’t need to see what stupid things someone said or did. Our brains weren’t meant for this.
11. If you have the luxury, go outside. This is maybe one of the most important ones. If you live far enough from others, take a walk. Maybe bike. If you can’t, go in your yard and relax. If all else fails, open every window in the house. Homes can constrict you if you stay there for to long. It starts to feel like a prison, and you go stir crazy. No home should feel like a prison.
12. If you have one, your therapist very likely offers online visits. Most state insurances that cover therapy/counseling also include online visits as an accessibility feature. Even if you don’t normally attend therapy, you may need it to combat situational anxiety and depression, which is just as important as their chronic cousins.
Uh. Hope I helped. I’ve always sucked at concluding statements.
When I was training to be a battered women’s advocate, my supervisor said something that really blew my mind:
“You can always assume one thing about your clients; and that is that they are doing their best. Always assume everyone is doing their best. And if they’re having a day where their best just isn’t that great, or their best doesn’t look like your best, you have to be okay with that.”
Any now whenever anyone in my life, either a friend or a client, frustrates me, disappoints me, or pisses me off, I just tell myself They are doing their best. Their best isn’t that great today, but I have days where my best isn’t that great either.
Self-Discipline Isn’t Always the Answer
So I wasn’t really taught to brush my teeth every day as a kid. So I didn’t. I got to be an adult and realized “hmm teeth are expensive I need to start brushing them” and brushing my teeth twice a day has been on my actual to do list every single day of my college career. It’s a habit I needed to build.
Have I successfully done it? Absolutely not. I’m pretty good about doing it at least once a day, but some days it just doesn’t happen. It’s not that I forget usually, I just had some aversion I couldn’t figure out, until last week.
I’m at the grocery store, in the toothpaste aisle with my roommate, and I complain about how much I hate mint. I FUCKING HATE THE TASTE OF MINT. The taste and the smell, any kind of minty thing in any form, I HATE IT. But literally every “adult” toothpaste in the aisle was some type of minty disgusting nonsense. And my roommate was like “you know you could like get kids’ toothpaste? You like bubblegum right?”
And y’all, it was like the clouds parted. I got some strawberry bubblegum kids’ toothpaste. I brushed my teeth with it and it was a whole new experience. I have successfully brushed twice a day every day since, because the mental block I had towards it is gone!
I thought my lack of brushing was just a moral failing on my part; I was too lazy, too undisciplined, to build a good habit. But really? I just hate the taste of mint so much I didn’t want to brush my teeth.
This made me realize that when presented with a change you want to make, a habit you want to build, if you’re encountering resistance in yourself, you should lean into that resistance and really investigate what’s causing it, then work on accommodating that.
Say you hate washing dishes so they pile up and then you’re overwhelmed by how many you have to do. Why do you hate it? Deep down, what about it do you dislike? Is touching wet food super gross for you? Try thick rubber gloves while you’re washing. Does the sound of dishing clanking together grate your nerves? Do them with headphones in and turned up loud. Do you hate the smell? Light some candles, spray some air freshener.
Do these things instead of gritting your teeth and forcing yourself, then ultimately failing and getting discouraged by your “lack of self-discipline”
TL;DR: When a task is consistently hard for you, relying on self-discipline, forcing yourself, and gritting through doesn’t always work. Lean in and listen to your discomfort, and find what makes the task hard, then try to accommodate that. Also, mint toothpaste is gross.
“humanity is inherently selfish and bad” bbbrrrghuhjfkg. humanity is seeing a stranger’s grocery bag break open on the sidewalk and harvesting fruits and veggies from the branch-like cracks of the asphalt for them, just because you can. humanity is helping a lost child find their mother on a crowded beach, looking for the ladybug-patterned parasol with their hummingbird-small hand in yours. it’s an elder’s fingers wrapped around your arm as you help them up the stairs because the elevator is broken, and feeling like you’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to be doing, like this is what you would’ve been doing had you been alive centuries or even millennia ago. there will always be a heavily pregnant woman who will smile at your when you give up your seat, a nice blind man in the fruit aisle who will ask you to please pick the riper plantain for him, a tired cashier whose face will light up when you compliment their tattoo sleeve. humanity is connection
fucked up how cooking and baking from scratch is viewed as a luxury…..like baking a loaf of bread or whatever is seen as something that only people with money/time can do. I’m not sure why capitalism decided to sell us the idea that we can’t make our own damn food bc it’s a special expensive thing that’s exclusive to wealthy retirees but it’s stupid as hell and it makes me angry
in this terrifying world you continuously have the power to offer someone else a little relief . why would you withhold that. do you remember what a little relief feels like? it feels like a lot
art is so beautiful. fashion, music, film, literature. it’s so personal and incredible and i want to dedicate my life to it
“good morning!” the bird says to you. “good morning!” the bird’s friend says to you. “good morning!” “good morning!” “good morning!” they are all so happy you are awake and alive!
we are not born to die!! what are you talking about!! do you think a book begins just to finish? do you think a song opens with a beautiful chord just for it to end? you don’t read the book to finish it, you read the book to eat up the excitement and the emotions it evokes!! to learn and to digest and to fall in love and be heartbroken!! you listen to the song to dance and dance and sing your throat raw!!! to cry and smile and swell with the harmonies!! yes, we are born with the inevitable fate of death, we are mortal after all, but that is merely the finale of the play!! the final act, the closing of the curtains - we are not born to take a bow and exit stage left!! we are born to love and be joyous and yell and move and learn and cry and feelfeelfeel!!! we are not born to die, silly, we’re born to live!!!
things that make people feel loved:
making them a playlist
baking them cookies
giving them flowers
creating art for them
random reminders that they are loved
writing them a poem
complimenting them on their talents
asking how their day was
sending them links to things you think they will like
random hugs
“This made me think of you”
