Sucess Journalling

For a multitude of reasons life has been rather rough lately to say the least. I'm trying to get my mental health back on track so I thought I would try success journalling, something I've heard and read a lot about over the last couple of years as being beneficial.

Success journalling is exactly what it sounds like: at the end of each day you reflect and write down what you consider to be successful or positive about your day. It can be anything from the smallest thing to the larger, the idea is to remind you that despite the fact we can have a tendency to dwell on the negative, positive things do occur in our lives.Things like spent time with friends or family, knitted or crocheted, wrote, cooked, made an awesome cup of tea, didn't eat all the chocolate raisins (wait, is that just me?), anything at all during our day that is good or positive.

I've seen different numbers bandied about as the ideal list number, but after thinking about it carefully I settled on a minimum of six things. It's a big enough number to make a positive impression, but not too big that it's going to make me feel worse on bad days for not being able to come up with more.

It's also a good reason to break out one of the notebooks from my stash. (Not that I really need one.) This one in particular is purple with shiny owls, and it practically screamed my name the second I saw it in Paperchase. I look forward to writing in it every night (especially with a purple pen that is a nice writer), and that can only be a good habit builder.

My words have gone awondering...

It's been a hard couple of weeks for me, both physically and mentally, and as a result my words seem to have dried up completely outside essential situations such as the day job.

I've finally managed to start taking baby steps again though, and one of those has been going over to the park across from us and talking to the dog as she has her after-dinner sniff about. It's light enough now that I can see where my feet are and close enough to home that it isn't too taxing for me. I can still really only go out on my days off, but baby steps are still steps and who can resist that cute face? 

What I've finished reading
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. I loved it, and was completely invested in all the characters. I did feel it lost a little momentum towards the end when it became one viewpoint, but that wasn't enough to put me off, and I found it a little easier to read (less brain required).  Looking forward to the next one.
  
Volume three of Saga by Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples.  Repeat what I said for the first two volumes. Absolutely loved it!!

Cross and Burn by Val McDermid. I actually enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would, and not just because of my lowered expectations either. I do think this is a better book than The Retribution - it didn't feel like plotlines were competing for space on the page, and the character reactions felt a lot more natural this time around. I am quite looking forward to the next in the series now.

Night Broken by Patricia Briggs. I ended up with a physical copy and I couldn't help rereading it. I loved it just as much second time around

What I'm reading
I'm reading Trading in Danger by Elizabeth Moon. I am enjoying it, but I'm kind of blah on a lot of things at the moment so it's not getting the full attention it deserves.

Heaven's Queen by Rachel Bach arrived for me yesterday. I've read the first couple of chapters already, but I think I am going to leave it to this coming long weekend so it doesn't suffer from the blah effect. Which is incredibly hard, but I know I will enjoy it more (especially as the blahs are starting to fade a little).

What I'm reading next
I want to get Trading in Danger finished, as well as picking up Knife Sworn by Marzarkis Williams again. I've also borrowed How to be a Productivity Ninja by Graham Allcott in the hope it jump starts something.

A long wait - Rare Disease Day 2014

I’m a day late, but this week has been rather momentous for me: three days ago I finally received a diagnosis that explains all of my symptoms.

It’s been seventeen years since I first starting having nerve problems.

I'm not going to go into specifics right now, but it doesn't really matter what the disease is as so many people with rare illnesses face the same problems.

That long wait is typical of having a rare disease, and in many ways I’m lucky. There are those who have waited fifty years to get a diagnosis, and during those long years they are constantly told they are imagining all their symptoms, that nothing is really wrong, to basically shut up and put up. I have been told all of the above, but I’ve also got family who believe me fighting in my corner, and a couple of great specialists who also believe me and want answers nearly as much as I do.

Why the long wait? Well, there is only one specialist in my condition in Scotland, and only a couple more in the UK. There's a two year wait to see that specialist, who as it turns out has had to close the waiting list because he is retiring in less than two years from now. It's not going to get any better: the hospital management refuse to let someone take over the clinic even though it is so oversubscribed, and it will be closing when the specialist retires.

It's not just the wait to see the right specialist: it’s being bounced from doctor to doctor because I'm not an easy case, the lack of joined up services that don't look at the whole picture, that essentially wash their hands of you as soon as you don't fit in their special little box. And then there is the lack of information, instead you have to go hunting for every little scrap there is (not a lot because it's only in the last five or so years that studies have actually been conducted), often so that you are more knowledgeable than a lot of the doctors attempting to treat you. It's all those little things that leave you feeling less than worthless, alone and like you are never going to get proper answers or treated with respect.

Before it sounds like I'm ragging on the NHS, (okay I am a little but no big organisation is perfect), I would like to say that I would not have got so far without it, and there are a great many people inside (and outside) the NHS that are working to change the information out there and to join up and improve services. It's just as it's a rare disease, it's not 'cool' enough to warrant a lot of notice or research.

Hopefully that awareness will change, and a generation from now, people won't have to wait as nearly as long. In the meantime, I'm going to join the fantastic charity that has provided me with so much information and made me feel a lot less alone - HMSA.