A good week?!

Wow, so this week has been a strange one for me. As in, I think it's been good?! What the hell is good?! It's really freaky to be honest. I've felt productive, I've woken up before 9 am and not been completely exhausted, I'm generally in a good mood. 

I've been house sitting for the past ten days, only to finish yesterday. So this has definitely lifted my mood. Let me breakdown how this is good for me:

• Being in a house by myself (happiness ++)

• Three cats, 2 of which like me, and one of those I have chosen to be my cat girlfriend many years ago <3 (happiness +, social +)

• Three chickens, one of which used to be my chicken (happiness +, social +)

• Dishwasher (happiness +, comfort +)

• Spacey kitchen (happiness +, mental health +) room to cook nice meals (happiness +, physical health +)

• heating (happiness +, physical health +, comfort +)

• desk space and monitor to work comfortably from home (mental health +, comfort +, health +)

• access to Netflix, allowing me to watch season 2 of a series I first watched in 2020 (happiness +)

• pillow that is more comfortable than my own (physical health +), this means less migraine symptoms (comfort +) - I need to buy one of these, it sort of looks like the image below.

But more has happened that has also likely influenced my mood.

I was unable to meet with my uni counsellor the other week when I was very bad. So I contacted the psychologist that my family has worked with before to see if they had time. I have met up with my counsellor just over a week ago, which kind of helped, but I have also met up with the psychologist this Monday as well. I pretty much spoke to them both about the same thing that was my last post, fairly cat focused. However, after going over it again on Monday with someone else, I have been feeling good. Lets break down why this might be the case.

• talking through my problems yet again, getting more validation and acknowledgement about my life situation
• Psychologist is private, not uni associated. The session could be about whatever I wanted with no mention of uni work if I so desired. 
• Less time to travel getting the psychologist than the uni
• They have worked with members of my family for more than 5 years at least, so they know a lot of what my life involves already
• they are male, and I always get on better with males than females
• I feel easily very comfortable with them, its like chatting with a friend 

= Psychologist (mental health ++, social +)

I know they cannot be my "friend" per say, they are a health professional and I am their client. We have similar interests as well, which also can blur the lines a little sometimes. I have been aware of this for a while and it's the reason why I was not seeing them already. I quite self-aware that I could be projecting a relationship that did not exist, so I was avoiding one on one sessions with them for a while. I brought this up on Monday too, and they totally get it. It feels good to have brought it up and have yet more feelings acknowledged and validated. 

One last thing, my supervisor is away for a month, so I feel less pressured with my PhD :)

So overall:

happiness = 9+

social = 3+

comfort = 3+

health = 7+

Now how do I keep getting these positives in my life? What happens now I am back home and the negatives are loitering just around the corner? 

I'm not going to spend too much time on those thoughts, I have the motivation to do other important things, like my PhD, so let's just ride the motivation train for now?

Fieldtrip but not in the field

 It's been a little while since I've posted. That doesn't mean everything is going great or that everything is going horribly, it just means I've been very busy and I haven't had the time of motivation to write here even though it can help me deal with what's going on.

I'm on a field trip right now. It's nice to be out in the field, but for me, this trip also involves going to town to the local university to work in the lab some days. Currently, I've spent more time at a university than out in the rainforest which is not the best for my mental health. When I am away from home, being out in nature is what keeps me sane and happy. At the moment it feels like I am doing the same thing I would be at home, just in a different location and without my usual support network (especially animals). I always miss my animals, but this trip is probably the first field trip where I am noticing how their absence is affecting my demeanour.

Don't get me wrong, it is nice to have a break from the usual stressors of my home life, and it's a lovely little place we are staying in (it has the same number of rooms as my house with the added bonus of a fireplace :)). The people I am on the trip with are also nice, but they are just not the same social therapy that animals provide me. Animals definitely recharge my batteries and help me to keep going, Nothofagus trees are also a good thing to help me keep going. 

Here's an example of how I am responding to the situation I am currently in:

I went to bed at 9.30pm, and I must have become unconscious by 10.30 pm at the latest as I did not see the messages my partner sent around then until this morning. I did not awaken until 8.30 am when someone came and knocked on my door. Albeit I forgot to set my phone alarms and only had my watch alarms (only vibrates), by society's standards should I really be sleeping 10 hours without disturbance straight? My body thinks so, in fact, my body would probably have stayed unconscious for at least another hour. 

So I get up and start to get ready as my trip-mates head off to the lovely rainforest I get to look forward to another day in the lab on a university campus. I enjoy having independence from my trip-mates, but I would rather be out in nature. Then, instead of heading off to uni as soon as possible to get my work done so I can go to the field tomorrow, I start to dawdle and feel really unwell. Not like nausea, just mentally bogged down, on the verge of crying (a rarity for me), with a heavy feeling in my chest, and still quite tired. No one is here, so my automatic mask of being functional is gone and I am left to my own devices. It's almost 10am now, and I will head off soon, but I needed to share how crappy I am feeling right now in the hopes that typing it out will alleviate some of the stress and general 'yuck' feelings I am experiencing.

On a good note, I am relatively headache-free right now, with only a few short attacks yesterday!