Progress Report

Yesterday marked 3 months since my husband and I relocated to Indiana and began our last year together. 3 months of the 12 months I have to achieve independence, gone. That was a little frightening, and disheartening.

I had to remind myself that I’m not being lazy. Living life requires an intense amount of effort and energy from me right now, and I’m still operating on a 16 year sleep deficit and current, continuing sleep deprivation. Keeping myself stable and alive is a big part of achieving independence.

I found the post from earlier in July where I’d written a list of priorities for my upcoming year:

Priorities:

Sleep (regular, long enough, restful)

Environment (uncluttered and clean enough)

Social life (hobbies I enjoy where I can meet people and hopefully make friends, plus meeting people I know face-to-face)

Employment (wardrobe, make-up, managing anxiety, training/certification, pays enough)

Exploration (getting out of the house & seeing new places, exercise)

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So how am I doing on this?

Sleep: it’s going poorly, but not through lack of effort on my part. I continue to practice good sleep hygiene as much as possible.

Environment: this one has received the least attention, but I have been doing better about making sure my own things are taken care of and my laundry is put away and such.

Social life: I’m making sure to see H and M at least once a month, and I’ve been arranging at least one trip per month to meet other friends that live close enough. In September I met M (from TN), and R, and this month I’ll be meeting C, and next month meeting a different M (bringing me up to 3 Ms, I should have come up with a better system than first initials!). I’ve also exerted myself and gone to a couple of meet-ups.

Employment: I’ve worked on adding to my wardrobe, did some preliminary work with make-up (before discovering my skin is extremely sensitive), have definitely been trying to manage anxiety, and I’m about to start my Word training workshop after having completed Excel and Powerpoint already.

Exploration: I’ve visited multiple parks, from Potter’s Bridge in Noblesville to Garfield Park & Conservatory in downtown Indianapolis. I’ve visited Canal Walk, Pogue’s Run, the historic district on Meridian street, and visited a cemetery or two in search of tree stump gravestones. I also take regular walks, often daily.

In addition to all of that, I’ve got a volunteer opportunity (not the one that required an application) starting next month.

I can’t recover from 16 years of severe stress, depression, anxiety & sleep deprivation and become independent in 3 months. That would be incredibly unrealistic. I have, however, been working hard on my recovery and taking necessary steps towards independence, and I still have 9 months left.

9 months may seem like a very short amount of time, but I also expect it will feel like I’ve lived 9 lifetimes in those 9 months if the last 3 months are any indication.