This is Legwork and Life, where I track the legwork and opportunities in my career as an autistic advocate, and also describe parts of my adult autistic life, including my perspectives on everyday problems and situations.
Anxiety is probably the word for this week. I'm scrambling to meet various deadlines. It is not enjoyable. I'm good on this blog at least 'til the end of the week, but no decent research articles have presented themselves for next Monday. That's... worrisome. Either something will turn up on my RSS feeds, or I'll have to go looking specifically for something... or I'll miss a day. And I haven't missed a day since I established a schedule. That's something like 2-3 years. It'd be upsetting to me if I missed a day.
Friday also marks when the next round of reviews for the research applications go live... and I'll only have a couple days to manage that before I'm off to DC. Whereupon I'll be expected to socialize heavily in between long stretches of socializing. I really need a buffer to handle the burnout I'm likely to suffer, but I don't have one. Ugh.
Also on Friday, I need to be done with that fiction review. My first draft came back with some potentially major requested revisions. I kind of feel like I'm in school again. I'm not used to such serious, in-depth critiques of my writing any more. While I know in my head that every author, no matter how successful, could probably improve their writing somehow (and I am hardly a highly successful writer), it's still a bit of a shock to receive feedback that might well involve rewriting a sizable chunk of the review.
I'm in the phase of "highly stressed and anxious" where everything is just going haphazardly and I avoid all my stressors as much as I can, then latch onto anything solid that seems like work I can handle. I had one of these situations in my freshman year of college, and I handled it by putting up a whiteboard with all my projects and their due dates. Then I broke those projects into doable chunks, prioritized them, and did them one tiny chunk at a time. My current projects don't seem so "break-into-chunks"-able.
I'd say "this too shall pass" to comfort myself, but it really feels, at the moment, that when "this too" passes, I'm going to not have done my best and disappointed myself and others as a bonus. And I still have October, Month of All Birthdays, to look forward to (/sarcasm)!
Other news: the new supplement (Hista-Eze) I mentioned last Friday seems to have some extra effects. My skin has been getting bumpy and scratchable at random spots, which is a phenomenon I used to have a lot more often. It's why my arms are sheets of tiny scars. It started with my forehead, though, which is odd. Also, I seem extra gassy, so it's perhaps doing something to my gut flora as well. Finally, I seem... extra hungry, I guess? I had a perfectly acceptable breakfast and lunch today, but it's only been a couple hours and I'm hungry again. So possibly my metabolism has been affected.
I seem to have lost a small amount of weight (yay!) as well, though that could be simply the extra exercise I worked into last week's schedule. I'm planning to try to add jogging into my schedule as a regular thing... or I'm going to try, at least. It's really good exercise, and if only my muscles make me miserable while I do it, that's way more tolerable. Especially if it's a nice day and I can get some sun.
Weird and myriad side effects aside, I haven't taken any anti-histamines or vitamin C since starting the Hista-Eze. I have yet to try jogging or intensive biking again, but I did 30 minutes on a higher difficulty than usual for my cardio on Monday without ill effects. Well, other than demonstrating that I inherited my Dad's ability to sweat copiously from the scalp and forehead.
This makes me wonder two things. First, perhaps I needn't take extra vitamin C when I go exercising. I'll try jogging without vitamin C or antihistamines today, if I feel up to it, and see how it compares to last week. Second, perhaps the dosage of the Hista-Eze supplement is too high, if I'm experiencing all these weird side effects. Or I could just be allergic to something in the supplement.
I'm really hoping that's not it, though; it does seem to be doing its job, these side effects aside...
Anxiety is probably the word for this week. I'm scrambling to meet various deadlines. It is not enjoyable. I'm good on this blog at least 'til the end of the week, but no decent research articles have presented themselves for next Monday. That's... worrisome. Either something will turn up on my RSS feeds, or I'll have to go looking specifically for something... or I'll miss a day. And I haven't missed a day since I established a schedule. That's something like 2-3 years. It'd be upsetting to me if I missed a day.
Friday also marks when the next round of reviews for the research applications go live... and I'll only have a couple days to manage that before I'm off to DC. Whereupon I'll be expected to socialize heavily in between long stretches of socializing. I really need a buffer to handle the burnout I'm likely to suffer, but I don't have one. Ugh.
Also on Friday, I need to be done with that fiction review. My first draft came back with some potentially major requested revisions. I kind of feel like I'm in school again. I'm not used to such serious, in-depth critiques of my writing any more. While I know in my head that every author, no matter how successful, could probably improve their writing somehow (and I am hardly a highly successful writer), it's still a bit of a shock to receive feedback that might well involve rewriting a sizable chunk of the review.
I'm in the phase of "highly stressed and anxious" where everything is just going haphazardly and I avoid all my stressors as much as I can, then latch onto anything solid that seems like work I can handle. I had one of these situations in my freshman year of college, and I handled it by putting up a whiteboard with all my projects and their due dates. Then I broke those projects into doable chunks, prioritized them, and did them one tiny chunk at a time. My current projects don't seem so "break-into-chunks"-able.
I'd say "this too shall pass" to comfort myself, but it really feels, at the moment, that when "this too" passes, I'm going to not have done my best and disappointed myself and others as a bonus. And I still have October, Month of All Birthdays, to look forward to (/sarcasm)!
Other news: the new supplement (Hista-Eze) I mentioned last Friday seems to have some extra effects. My skin has been getting bumpy and scratchable at random spots, which is a phenomenon I used to have a lot more often. It's why my arms are sheets of tiny scars. It started with my forehead, though, which is odd. Also, I seem extra gassy, so it's perhaps doing something to my gut flora as well. Finally, I seem... extra hungry, I guess? I had a perfectly acceptable breakfast and lunch today, but it's only been a couple hours and I'm hungry again. So possibly my metabolism has been affected.
I seem to have lost a small amount of weight (yay!) as well, though that could be simply the extra exercise I worked into last week's schedule. I'm planning to try to add jogging into my schedule as a regular thing... or I'm going to try, at least. It's really good exercise, and if only my muscles make me miserable while I do it, that's way more tolerable. Especially if it's a nice day and I can get some sun.
Weird and myriad side effects aside, I haven't taken any anti-histamines or vitamin C since starting the Hista-Eze. I have yet to try jogging or intensive biking again, but I did 30 minutes on a higher difficulty than usual for my cardio on Monday without ill effects. Well, other than demonstrating that I inherited my Dad's ability to sweat copiously from the scalp and forehead.
This makes me wonder two things. First, perhaps I needn't take extra vitamin C when I go exercising. I'll try jogging without vitamin C or antihistamines today, if I feel up to it, and see how it compares to last week. Second, perhaps the dosage of the Hista-Eze supplement is too high, if I'm experiencing all these weird side effects. Or I could just be allergic to something in the supplement.
I'm really hoping that's not it, though; it does seem to be doing its job, these side effects aside...
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