For those of us who spend a large amount of time sitting on
the floor staring into space (or laying facedown on the stairs crying), it is
important to try to get a little bit done in each day, just so you don’t piss
your whole life away being miserable. Just because you’re too miserable to
focus, doesn’t mean you have to be totally useless – wasting your life feeling
terrible only makes you feel worse anyway. Sometimes taking your mind off of
things doesn’t work (sometimes the meds don’t work either), so you have to have
a strategy to still manage to be productive when functioning is difficult.
Pause for a moment, and ask yourself, “Are my hands moving?”
and if the answer is no, grab the nearest brainless task and get your hands
started. You don’t need to move quickly, just keep moving steadily. Many small
actions add up eventually, and if you pick something mindless, you can zone
out, or cry, or whatever
Develop a strategy where you do the mindful, creative,
involved tasks when you are having your good days, and specifically save the
mindless, repetitive tasks for the bad days. You're not always able to take your mind off of your issue, so just get your body started, then go ahead and wallow away in misery!
For Example, I do all my sketching on my good days, and the
mindless inking on the bad. (Not so great if you're crying...ruins paper and ink) I do all the preparatory layers of paint on my
canvases on my poor days and paint the pictures on my better days. Repetitive music lessons are good - this is and excellent time to just get your body started and repeat what you are doing. (Listening to music, or expressing yourself through music at these points may do more harm than good, since music can really manipulate emotions - best to stick to neutral stuff like lessons when you are feeling excessively grim)
Repetitive cleaning tasks are good (like folding laundry or
cutting up cardboard for recycling) - imagine you are tidying up your mind while you tidy your surroundings! Or weed your garden, or something like that.
Pick something repetitive so you don't have to keep thinking of something new to do.
Just keep those hands moving!
You'll have at least something minimal to show for your time, and just be glad you managed to accomplish anything at all!
Why wait for just one day of each year to dress up in a fun (or sleazy, if that's where you like to go with it) costume?
Poo And Mouse Bones
