Making Progress
Sorry for the lack of blog posts, I’ve been in a sort of self-imposed hell and accidentally lost the draft of this post that I had been cooking up for the past couple of months. I’m kinda annoyed about the draft because it felt perfectly laid out and had a couple of parts that I only felt in the moment and have no recollection of so…
First things first, I decided not to switch schools like I was thinking in my last post. Switching would be a headache with financial aid. The good news is that I’ve been trying to create my own schedule in Google Calendar to help me stop procrastinating, which kinda works. Besides that, I’ve been struggling with making progress. Last semester I failed two classes, I haven’t made any reading progress, my sleep schedule is garbage, and I’m barely eating. I’m also kind of worried about my long-term physical and mental health these days. I’ve been resorting to my old ways of playing video games and watching YouTube/Instagram Reels.
My Health
Physical
I’ve been disabled all my life but lately I’ve been worried about my future. Even though my cerebral palsy isn’t progressive, the toll it puts on my body adds up. When I was younger, I was in Speech, OT, and PT, but I “grew out of them.” I’ve also used walkers and AFOs/braces. I haven’t used any of these things in years, mostly because, annoyingly, this condition is seen as a pediatric issue, and we get left behind as adults. Don’t even get me started on the lack of research on cerebral palsy despite how common it actually is. Technically, I should be able to go to physical therapy but its quite costly for how often I’m recommended to have it and someone who specializes in neurology is hard to find where I’m from.
I’m a part of an online community of people with cerebral palsy, and a big thing is slowly losing our ability to walk (for those who are ambulatory) in our 20s-30s, post-impairment syndrome, and freezing of gait. I can already sense myself slowing down. I even had a fall recently, which was the first one in a long while. To be honest, I don’t exercise regularly and do stretches like it’s recommended for me and I need to start taking care of myself before it’s too late. I’ve gotten an Oura ring for passively tracking my health, and will be using an Apple Watch for workouts and activity. I haven’t used an Apple Watch in like a year and was actually wearing a Casio because I felt like the notifications were distracting, but as of now I have them turned off. If I still end up distracted I’ll go back to analog and only use it when exercising.
As of right now I have been going to bed around 2am instead of 4-6am, which has helped me gain a bit more normalcy. Because of this, I have time for 2 meals a day instead of one. I do want to get back to eating three times a day because breakfast food is my favorite, but the way my life is set up makes it kinda impossible. Eating more also goes hand in hand with two other things. First, I’m borderline underweight and want to get up to my goal weight of around 110-115 pounds (49.8-52 kgs), and I can’t do that by eating the bare minimum. Secondly, I want to have an active lifestyle. Like I’ve said I haven’t exercised regularly in like 2 years. I want to get back into mobility exercises and cardio, specifically walking and running. When I was in my best shape, it felt great to move constantly without feeling awful afterward. Plus it really does wonders for my mental health.
Mental
Mental health is such an interesting thing for me, I know that because of my disability, I am more susceptible to depression, and I like to think that I do a great job at not getting to that point, but at the same time, I'm not sure. Most of the time I’m quite content, but occasionally I get the down-in-the-dumps feeling like right now. I kinda get mad at the world about how I feel at a disadvantage and wonder what my life would be like if I were “normal”. I see all the things I miss out on because it's not possible or because accommodations are so pricey, and I can’t help but feel upset. It feels like I’m grieving. I think back on my dreams as a kid and realize it’s gonna be a long time before I can accomplish those things. Sometimes it motivates me, I know that if I get my degree and somehow get a job, I could afford to be independent with pretty much all the accommodations I could think of. The motivation doesn’t last long though, I have to work 2x harder in uni just to keep up and I get stuck in an endless loop of “idk what I’m doing, do I even like this, is it even worth it?” which only makes it worse because then I feel useless. Other times I think about my past and feel an othered feeling; glances because I walk weird, old people saying they want to pray for me (thankfully hasn’t happened to me in a couple years), the weird “oh” whenever I say I can’t do something that’s a normal thing for others, and countless other things that sadden me.
But I try to keep my head up, even though the circumstances aren’t great; if I can work well despite it, I can keep my head above the water. I have things that make me happy as well. I have friends I try to keep in contact with, games I play, stuff I watch, people I look up to, and bits of independence. Even when I’m struggling to find myself, dreams, or feeling behind, I have to remember that I have so much time to figure it out. I know it’s not impossible, just really hard. Plus, I can't forget all the hard work I put in just to get this far.
Overall
I feel like if can get my physical health in check, my mental health will follow. And if I can stop procrastinating and stay on top of my classes and get back to reading, journaling, and my other stuff I would have such a better grip on my life. I realized I do have hobbies, I just need to actually do them and stop letting executive dysfunction get in the way. I could write another blog post on my hobbies and other stuff I want to do. Anyways, this blog post doesn't make sense the way I wanted it to, but I rewrote it over the span of a month, so it's gonna get published. I still put some effort into it and that's progress.