I took myself out on the town for some practical retail therapy. After I committed to the necessary change I talked about, I realized I had a bit of cash and a ton of things that I needed. Not “needed,” but there’s a lot of stuff out there that would make my life a whole lot easier if I had them.

I immediately paid off three months of rent. I then set aside $1500 for bills/unexpected things and $500 for some clothes for work (which I will get all of that when I get a job, not before, just in case the dress code is weird — and that’s way more than enough for a week’s worth). I reserved tickets to an anime convention in April (will commit after I find out if my sister can go), I got a new computer setup (I talked about that in a different post), and today, I upgraded the cleaning supplies in my tiny apartment.

Now, instead of having a gnarly-looking rag mop, I have a proper Swiffer Power Mop for my wood flooring, which is most of the flat. Instead of having a ton of old and unusable cleaners for things I don’t even have (like stone/granite cleaner, pool cover cleaner (what even is that?), and things people gave me “just in case” when I moved in, which has led to a lot of anxiety in regards to throwing away), I now have cleaners specific to my flat’s needs — no more, no less. Like I am ready to make my house look amazing. I even got some essential oils and Lysol sprays to round out the setup. The only thing I could not find was a better litter box and a trash can that I found appealing. I was also hoping to find a fountain style water dispenser for Tommie (since she loves to drink straight from the tap), but I did not see anything. Actually, I think I found this one, and will go look at it tomorrow morning.

So I have this silly idea to set myself up and not leave the house for a week or so (besides meetings), and just focus on cleaning the house and getting rid of things I literally do not use anymore. Spring cleaning, basically — it is March, after all.

And it would be some nice fodder for the site and my new social media endeavours to show how my apartment’s changes as I clean it. I’ve kicked off my Instagram profile for the site, and have reserved the name on bsky, but … well, I really want to give the domain handle on bsky to a shiny new profile and re-establish a handle for myself. One of the domain companies did me a massive dirty with three of my domains, trying to charge almost $500 for all three at the same time, though they are due 3 months apart and I pay monthly. So despite owning the domains, I cannot use them for now. And since I do not aim to outright monetize my blog (unless I get a book finished), I don’t want to spend some astronomical price for my domains.

Anyway, I’ve made sure this domain is secure, because I actually like this one for a website name, and I gotta do what I can to make sure that I have stuff to talk about…like cleaning my house. I do have some musicians who fit the bill in a wonderful way, and there are a couple of games that I want to write about that fit the bill.

It’s just…the biggest hurdle in writing for the main site is that I want to be of sound mind. There is this constant battle between my two diagnoses and not allowing one illness to trigger the other. If I have any kind of bipolar activity, the cptsd can be triggered, because as a child, my manias and depressive episodes were usually met with me getting punished until I calmed down, and I didn’t have the ability to calm down. Which is why it is so damned important to stay on top of my moods as best as I can. If I can do that, then at least I have a chance to take ownership before my brain decides to fly off. And I’m so insistent about writing the main site in a positive mood that I’ve been taking notes and not actually writing. I have some really good ideas, too, just not … not ready.

And in that state, it’s hard to focus on anything other than the fact that people aren’t available, that I’m bad at (name something), or that I suck at therapy because “obviously it’s not working” when therapy actually is working, and I’m just having a downswing that’s leading into a retraumatization. If I’m not careful, it really does go into ideations, and that’s overwhelming, too. And the next thing you know, you’re in Stage 1 DBT and it’s a nasty place to be, mentally.

But I did manage to get myself to stop thinking about how bad I am and buy some really kick-ass cleaning products for my house. Really nice things, and also practical.

Tommie approves!

But I can’t wait to sink my teeth into a really good house cleaning. I honestly think just having a good deep cleaning session will help my mood a lot.

Oh fine, I’ll explain what my adhd ass did that also probably didn’t help at all with last week’s episode:

So I cleaned my bathroom hardcore. I dumped the cabinets out, removed literally everything from the bathroom that wasn’t permanent, and did a deep cleaning. Except I didn’t have any of the correct products for it. I had glass cleaner and bowl cleaner and that was it. (toilet bowl cleaner, not smoking bowl cleaner hahahahaha *ahem*)

I sorted all of the 4.5 tons of toiletries in the bedroom, but that move overwhelmed the surfaces of my bedroom. I felt swamped. Instant energy drain to zero. After finally realizing I have way too much stuff (again, mostly hand-me-downs from well-meaning folks), and would probably never use it, I tossed it, and still needed a few things to actually be set up properly.

Somewhere in the overwhelm, I started just chunking stuff into the living area, which I literally had just opened up to be a nice calm safe spot for myself. Suddenly, my open area was a miniature replica of the trash compactor scene from Star Wars IV: A New Hope. And that’s when I realized I didn’t even have the right stuff to sort it all. I didn’t even have laundry detergent for the pile of dirty clothes.

So add that to the list of things that was dogpiling on me, and yeah, inner child me was really fighting the urge to reach out and just ask for help or a shoulder or a hand or anything that would give encouragement. I just didn’t handle it all right.

I lost track of what I was doing because I ran out of spoons to actually do anything.

But yeah, like I said, I was able to pull myself out of the pit enough to get some stuff that will actually help (I did go buy more trash bags, too), and I can finally start getting sorted tomorrow. I hate when I get that far down. It’s because I can’t translate truth from trauma in that state. That, and that whole snowball effect of feeling like I’m failing recovery, etc etc…when the truth is, I’m actually doing better than I believe, and one muck up in quite a long time isn’t at all indicative of failure, it’s a sign that I missed a spot. Anyway, it’s almost 2am. I’m going to bed. Here’s to a good recoup process. Hopefully, I can catch it next time.