‘Yes, it WAS worth it’

Back around the New Year, Enise (uni MH advisor), asked me: ” I wonder, when you look back now, if you think it was worth all the stress and effort?!!”.

I finally had the confidence today to write as a reply: “It’s taken me a while to decide, but I think that it was worth the effort, if not the stress, last year! (sometimes even find myself missing university and the strange landscape architecture studio life!) Thanks again.”

It feels good: It took six months from my last appointment with her, last June, to feel I could reliably thank her for helping me feel more positive and sorted. It’s me taken a further six months to decide that yes, persevering with uni and staying where I was living was all worth it. It may have been a flipping long ‘blip’ (as my friend tried to reassure me it was), but it feels good to look back at the good memories of the last few years and enjoy them, and also know I’ve learnt a lot about what I can do for myself in the future!

When I read Celine’s CBT competion letter to me, I was at first a bit miffed that, despite feeling she got to know me quite well, she’d just sent me a bog standard letter: “continue to work on your new rules for living – getting better balance in your life with work and play, sleeping well and having fun”. Then I re-read it and realised quite simply she was speaking directly to me, referring to my own silly little saying she helped me make:  “Don’t lose heart, Don’t lose sleep, Put fun in wherever I can”. I’m grateful to have discovered that three such simple things (in idea at least) can have such a powerful effect. I haven’t perfected the art of it yet, but seeing how quickly I can slip when I stray from those three things is enough incentive to make a conscious decision to keep trying everyday.

With that, good night x

Putting things in perspective – a year ago

As I sit at my work desk copying up my timesheet for last month, I’m quietly frustrated (a la silent tears and digging fingernails into face) by my obscene slowness. (A task for how to hide away the 9 or 9 ½ hours I can regularly spend each day being so slow when the client will only be billed for 3 or 4 hours max?). However, as much as I hate filling my timesheets at work now, I came across my old time sheet diary things I filled in when I saw Celine last year, and am refreshed and reassured to see the clear change in tone between then and now, and it helps put things in perspective a bit:

This time last year

Last week.

 

‘Scuse me while I get my 9 hours sleep

For the past 366 days I’ve kept a mood and sleep diary (thanks to moodtracker.com). It might have produced some interesting data for a school maths project. But since I’ve obliterated all memory of statistics, here’s a simple graph I’ll keep in mind:

9 hours Good. 2 and 13 hours Bad.

An updated graph: When I looked at that graph last night I thought it wasn’t telling much of the story. (For a start I was surprised the figures were not more positive, after all 22nd March 2011 was after starting mirtazapine. The graph would have been more exciting if I’d kept it in the preceding months!) But averages are averages they’ll make almost any bump look flat.  This graph, which shows all the days, shows the relationship is a little bit more chaotic! Though the trend line did still find the pattern of my first graph:

One thing to conclude is a happier day requires 6+ hours sleep, but sleep on its own won't make that happen. Shucks that's too easy I guess.

Seeing the good: Week in Pictures – 12th-18th March

Pne of Dream Electric’s recent posts, ‘Three Good Things – The Positive Data-Log’ struck a chord with me – it was what Celine (CBT Lady) encouraged me to do back in June last year, and what I aimed to do by starting the challenge of photographing what I did or saw each day! I find have a tendency to automatically see the bad side of things, so challenged myself to end each caption on a positive note, regardless of how it started out. It must be a positive thing to be able to do that (see what  I did there?!)!

Monday, 12th March: I've been keeping an eye on the buds on the shrub by the office door,. Reassuringly they'd sprung open over the weekend.

Tuesday, 13th March. This photo is meant to represent my Tuesday night running activity (our club runs start and finish at this tennis club but). After feeling a bit knocked by one of my bosses telling me my drawings weren't good enough, I appreciated going running and being competently able to put one foot in front of the other!

Wednesday, 14th March - Juicy kiwi berries (basically what it says on the tin: grape sized very sweet kiwis, eaten whole!) were on a sale offer at Budgens today, seemed very exotic in a corner of Suffolk!

Thursday 15th March: My birthday! Went to see The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel at the old fashioned but perfectly decent Riverside theatre. Although at 26 I have to accept that I'm more than a quarter the way through my life, the pensioners in the film made me feel young still!

Friday 16th: Hazy Sunshine. I tried to line the sun up as a light bulb on the mast, but then forgot and missed half of it from the frame! I hope you still get the idea.

Saturday 17th: Came back from three hours of rowing to find I'd 'locked' my bike like this! Though I was thoroughly frustrated with myself for being so inoompetient, I did sort of persuade myself to see the funny side of it (my post on FB got quite a few '*likes*) and to be grateful that I live in a fairly civilized town with an undesirable 10pound granny bike.

Sunday 18th: I visited the Beth Chatto Gardens in Essex. It's a quiet time of year for the gardens, but the woodland bulbs and scree garden sempervirens were worth the logistics of 3 trains and a cycle ride to get there!

Weekend in Pictures

I’ve got to admit I surprised myself with an impressively full, for me, weekend! After several slumpish weeks I decided I needed to do something to change things, so on Tuesday, before the middle of the week crawl hit, I planned a weekend of activities in London. Though there were a few times when I tempted just to stay at home and hibernate (but knowing I’d berate myself again for being a useless hermit) – my aunt aptly described the logistics of organising my friends: ‘like herding cats’ – everything fitted together nicely like a jigsaw.

I travelled to London on Friday night.

By their nature I think rail stations are pretty grim places, so I appreciated this cheerful little touch in Ipswich station as I made my way to London.

Spotting this on one of the trains in London made me smile. Almost made up for the fact I'd jumped on the wrong train!

On Saturday morning I took my Granny out for a wheelchair walk along the Thames. We watched these scullers by Hampton Court. She later reported she had a very nice visit from her daughter-in-law. I guess she got it close enough, though I'm interested to know who she thinks her son is!

In the afternoon I visited Wisley. Though my friend thought it would be a washout to the point of not bothering to come, I still found a rainbow of colours and lots of textures. I also hope my company’s clients have generous budgets when I get to design their planting plans, I have made long lists of plants I’d love to include!

Colours and textures at Wisley

Saturday evening I met up with friends at an Iranian restaurant. Pomegranite and walnut sauce stew highly recommended!

Sunday morning went to see the Wildlife Photography exhibition at the Natural History Museum. I had lots of favourite photographs, though none of them were the winners actually selected by the judges!

Tern Style by Ilkka Rasanen. In a children's category no less! I would say it is well worth visiting, but Sunday was its last day! I think it will be touring the UK now, so in fact not too late to see it. It has inspired me to plan more photography focused outings, as well as just carrying my camera around for opportunistic snaps.

One of my own much more boring photos:

Exhibition Road, by the Natural History Museum, V&A, Royal Geographic Society and close to the Royal Albert Hall, has recently undergone a makeover, turning it into 'shared space'. With reduced road markings and no pavements, it is meant to be more pedestrian friendly and less car orientated. Its had mixed reviews, but considering that I was with two other landscape architect friends and none of us could agree on the 'rules of the road' in this scheme, I don't blame the general public for being a bit confused too! General consensus is that, unless its a very quiet Sunday afternoon, as it was, it is probably still best that pedestrians don't cross the road with a blind fold on!

We came across a nice Lebanese restuarant where we were talked into ordering far too many, but equally delicious, mezze dishes. I must have been inspired by Middle Eastern cuisine weekend (by chance I’d bought a carrot-coriander-houmous sandwich at Wisley too!) as I absent mindedly stocked up on houmous today in the supermarket.

Feeling well stuffed, had time just to dash back to pick up my stuff and start my mission of a journey to get home on Sunday night (thanks Greater Anglia, your rail ‘improvements’ had better be worth it!)

One other positive thing from last week:

7th March: Leaving work in the daylight for the first time this year!

Lots of knits

On the one hand I feel like I dropped off the face of the Earth these past few weeks. On the other hand I have quite a bit of knitting to prove my presence!

I first learnt to knit at an afterschool club at my school when I was about 7 years old. That just served to irritate me, so it wasn’t til I was living/volunteering in Peru after I left school that I was inspired again to try. Often shop keepers would be furtively knitting away with their hands beneath the table. It wasn’t uncommon to drive past girls walking along the road in the middle of nowhere, spinning wool. Most interesting was on Taquile Island, where the knitters were the boys and men. I figured if they could do it, so could I, so I spent quite a bit of time watching and examining the insides of sweaters. The friendly wool shop señora thought it was hilarious selling to a Gringa, though I’m sure I wasn’t the first!

Taquile Knitters and Spinners

These are the things I’ve made from the past three months (ones against blue are past three weeks)…I’m impressed by how long it’s kept my interest this time round!

Booties

For strange reasons I hate having my bedroom door shut, this cover stops the latch clicking, and the door from banging. The pattern was meant to be of snowflakes!

The first time since the first time I tried knitting cables.

( The result here was rather tidier than my early attempt [which incidently was almost 6 years ago to the day. Gah it doesn’t feel that long ago!], though having proper needles helped a lot!)

The last time I knitted, a few years ago, the phase ended when I attempted knitting in the round. This time though I managed it, and made these sock!

I finally bought some more wool!

My little chill pill

Using up the scrappy bits of pink and green wool left over from my first projects. I thought it would also make a decent holder for tampons to keep in my bag. Unfortunately that's the only thing I can think of that would fit in it, so it's a bit of a give away!

Neck thingie

More socks. These are all in ribbing and the wool is a mix of real wool and acrylic, so a bit warmer, and fit better, than the first pair I made.

I tried following directions for spiral ribbing on socks. Unfortunately though the straight ribbed cuff was tight, the rest of the sock was getting really baggie. Before I faffed with the heel I decided it would make a very good cover for my spare camera lens. Possibly the degree of protection it give is giving me a false sense of security!

Trying a spiral again, this time in normal stocking stitch and just using colour to give the effect of a spiral. This is going to be a birthday present for my aunt (promise I'm just trying it on for size here!). She asked for store-bought navy blue socks. I can't think of a more dull present to give or receive, but I feel a bit better about it if I'm giving hand knitted socks with a dash of pink!

Back online and eventually all is good!

After more than three weeks of no internet, I haz it!

Well nearly no internet, I was able to snatch glimpses of my emails at work, but even during my lunch time or after work I felt awkward enough pulling up Gmail or BBC webpages, let alone Facebook or blogs.

I should be re-christened Bag Lady

I moved into my own little rented place the last weekend in January and finally everything feels set up and me more or less settled in.

It’s the first time I’ve ever lived on my own, previously I’ve either been at home with my parents or at university sharing with friends/others. Then the past few months I’ve been staying temporarily with my aunt and then her friend. While I’ve really appreciated being able to stay with them while settling into new jobs, I’m pleased to feel a bit more permanently in a place I’m renting myself, and, touch wood, seem to be coping with it too! It’s seriously helped me that the place is furnished  and nearly all the bills are included. All except for the internet, which has taken several weeks to sort out. I’m just glad it wasn’t the heating I was having to sort myself! I am so spoilt here with the heating, although so far I’ve only needed the heaters on at 2 or 3 (on a dial of 10). It makes such a difference coming home to a warm house. I can actually look forward to coming home, rather than putting it off to the last minute, dashing in under the covers, sleeping and leaving for uni again, which is what I had to do rather than the freezing hole of the place I was in the last two years. I always said ‘it was so cold I could see my breath inside’, but in reality I could see my breath there even before it was properly cold! Student life was strange…

It’s been an odd, slightly topsy turvy three weeks without internet.

First I was excited at the prospect of a weekend liberated from the interwebs. Then reality hit and I the slight irony of needing the internet to get the internet, but not having internet to get the internet to get the internet! I did manage to access the BT Open Zone wifi signal, which tantalised me with a  page selling internet, but I could only catch a hazy signal while scrunched up in the corning of the living room (/hall/breakfast room/TV room/storage room/kitchen), and it was too cold to wander out into the street to get it stronger. In the end I enlisted the help of my parents out in the Atlantic to set broadband up for me back in England. It felt quite ridiculous having to go the longest route round for something supposedly as modern as the internet! I might have laughed if I wasn’t feeling sorry for my tech ineptitude when I was then given a date 25 days later in February for an engineer to come round, on a week day when I should be at work. So much for the high tech age!

That first week was quite hard, I missed not having my blog or Twitter as an outlet to say how I was feeling. Simple ‘how are you?’ questions from co-workers had me in tears as I knew I couldn’t say how I felt (lost, loser, incapable, idiot etc the usual stuff). They didn’t comment on me dashing out of the room frequently, either they didn’t know what to say, or maybe they just think I have a very small bladder! Actually most likely they didn’t notice and didn’t give it a second thought. In reality I probably wouldn’t have gone onto Twitter or written anything, but the option would have been there. There wasn’t even the possibility of bottling up til I got home to tell someone, as I didn’t have a way to tell anyone at home! Perhaps it was that feeling more than the lack of internet that was bothering me, but at least internet would have been a compromise.

The next week I spent some of it working in the London office, helping out with deadlines there. While I was sorry I didn’t get a chance to meet up with friends there, it also meant there wasn’t time to miss not having the internet, or even give much thought to my feelings! Then when I was back home, my lack of internet made a reasonably legitimate excuse for not trying to be sociable over the weekend, when what I really needed was to catch up on sleep and continue to ignore feelings.

By the third week, perhaps the ‘fake it til you feel it’ is finally starting to have some truth in it. After being upset that I didn’t have anywhere to say how I felt, I began to ignore how I felt. I wouldn’t normally be convinced that that would really mean that I feel ok, or that ignorance is a sustainable tack to take, but if I’ve been relatively calmer this last week than the first week, then maybe there is some truth to it. I like not being constantly on edge or having days of frequently having to dash out of the room.

And now I have internet! I can say admit how I feel, I don’t need to bottle it up! What’s better still is, after watching myself these past few weeks, I’m pleasantly surprised to find I can say I’m honestly fine (and not FINE either!). I’ve managed to cope with a fairly big deadline and a couple of smaller ones at work, fingers crossed I’ve got the standing order all set up for my rent, with a family team effort I have the internet, and I haven’t been sulking around at home too much by myself, or staying too late at work. Last night even I was out til after 11 with the running club and its AGM, and then tonight I was home by 6 and I’ve enjoyed relaxing, poking through the internet, catching up on blogs, news and shizz, I’ve got as far as the first week of February on my Google reader! Happily it sounds like lots of you have good news too, hope the rest of February is kind to all. xx

Homemaking

Overcoming Depression: Thoughts and Feelings

I’m rather too familiar with the inner workings of vicious circles of doom, so skipped on to the bit in the book, Overcoming Depression, about what to do about them.

On this, Prof Gilbert has to say: “Another way you might break the circle is to say, ‘Even though I’m not achieving much right now, this doesn’t make me a worthless human being’”.

Meh. The upside is that within the same paragraph, he writes:  “Now if you are depressed, don’t be surprised if these arguments don’t impress you”.

Good we might yet be in the same solar system.

—

I didn’t have much luck the last time I tried thought diaries. But this book gives quite good explanations, so maybe it would be worth tracking and challenging my thoughts. Also, I’ve noticed that, while earlier last year my mind felt like a mix of festering soup stains or sticky spagetti, as I think I variously tried described it, now my thoughts are more like piercing icy gusts through my mind. I suppose the clarity is a bit of an improvement at least.

Still, looking at my written down list of thoughts that have upset me the past couple of days, (all in the context of people asking me, probably innocently, how work it going, or else when I’ve been in a group of people, at work or at the rowing club, but not feeling comfortable enough to talk), no wonder I was feeling mentally exhausted this weekend!

I’m going to see if avoiding writing down the ‘evidence for’ these thoughts helps me – I know from experience that the more things I think up as ‘proof’, the more things I give myself to worry about! I’m trying my best at shielding myself from new worries on top of what I’m already thinking about!

I’ll also try to accept my thought and not try to trash them altogether, which wouldn’t be believable to me.

Here are some of them, and alternative kinder thoughts and things to change:

I can’t cope, look after myself, organise things, without help

Alternatives:

• it’s ok to need help.
• Second opinions are always good, not a weakness that I ask for someone else’s thoughts on something big like what house or flat would suit me best.
• Most people would involve their partners in decisions, and make a joint decisions. Just because I’m single doesn’t mean I have to, or should, do everything single handedly.
• People who live closer to home would naturally pop home once in a while for a meal see friends, family. Just because I’m living 1,000’s miles from home doesn’t mean it’s weak to wish I could do that too.
• People are willing to help because they can, not because I’m useless and couldn’t do it myself. Other people might be better at certain things, like arguing over the phone with internet companies. If someone’s offering to deal with them for me, I should accept gratefully and not see it as yet more proof I couldn’t do it myself. If I were good at something and they asked me to do it, I’d be chuffed they asked and not see it as a weakness on their part. So I should think the same towards me.

I don’t know how to ask for help with a question.

Alternative: That is true. But could be solved by being more aware of how I ask for help. Try not to make it sound like a comment to myself that I’m expecting to be ignored. Try to make a specific question to a specific person, so that they can’t shrug it off.

I am so slow with work

Alternative: I haven’t got much experience yet, and everyone around me knows that. I won’t have any possibility to get faster if I give up now, so might as well keep practicing.

I am incompetent, but saying so, with the expectation of help, only confirms that I am.

Alternative: that’s just a negative assumption. I won’t get anywhere without at least trying something myself first and then asking for help if I’m still stuck. I could ask for help on something and test out what their reactions are. I could also follow my notes I’ve already written for myself here.

I’m not a fun person to be around, I don’t contribute to company

Blah. Still a major sticking point for me. Smile, (pretend) eye contact. Worrying isn’t helping me be a better person either. Try to move conversation on to something else or onto the person I’m talking too. Except…

I don’t know what to say to people, how to break into a conversation or start one

Make up lists of easy things to ask people about themselves or what they’ve done recently. Ask others who I’m comfortable with on conversation topic ideas, which could be a topic of conversation in itself.

I don’t have anything interesting to say. I don’t know how to show I’m interested in people. I don’t know how or what to say or write to people

Alternatives: 

• Blah again. Make list of conversation topics to refer to, as above.
• Actually I haven’t been totally mute. I can think of a couple of things I’ve chatted to people about. (eg about a co-worker’s prize guinea pigs, another co-worker’s son’s A-level choices, and today I asked after another’s baby who’s been ill, also talked about the type of stone Bermuda is made of,  and found out where the local running club meets)
• Although mostly that was in December and I can probably count the number of conversations I’ve had my fingers I have been able to chat to people, so I can do it.
• At least I’ve got myself into the situation where I could be talking to people. That must be better than sitting in my room totally alone.

—

Well jury’s out if that exercise will have helped me, and I probably have the wrong end of the stick over all it this, but I guess I should keep it up and not ignore it as a one-off.

Overcoming Depression: Learning to Cope, Initial Steps

I’ve been slowly poking through Prof Gilbert’s ‘Overcoming Depression’ book, and now trying to copy out my scrawled notes and all the bits I’ve underlined, circled and spiralled round.

Right now I’m following the suggested exercize for the chapter, Learning to Cope: Initial Steps, by identifying the suggestions that I can relate to and could find useful.

There are lots of fairly generic suggestions, and nothing totally new to me. On the one hand I had vaguely hoped for something earth shattering and amazing (dreaming on…!) but on the other hand, the generic-ness of the suggestions also means I’m bound to identify with at least some of these solutions. I suppose it is also a good thing that it’s backing up and reinforcing everything I’ve heard before, from Enise (uni mental health advisor), SG & Celine (IAPT CBTherapists), Living Life to the Full cCBT course and various other self-help types book-on-prescriptions:

• Changing your behaviour
• Breaking down large problems into smaller problems
• Planning positive activities
• Coping with boredom, increasing activity and distraction
• Creating ‘personal space’
• Knowing your limits
• Dealing with sleep difficulties.

I’m pleased to find that since I’ve been making a real effort to help myself, I actually recognise that I’m already quite a lot of the suggestions already. (Though if I weren’t then that might offer more of a possibility to improve my feelings, which aren’t totally great at the moment!):

• The reason I’m bothering to read this book is because I’m clinging to the idea I can change my behaviour to help myself.
• I know that when I see something big, it automatically turns my mind into sticky spaghetti. So I know it helps me to break things into smaller steps, or identifying specific options to then weight up. It’s just that it’s a lot easier when the small steps are obvious. I’ve had success doing that on a few notable occasions, but it’s quite hard to do for a lot of things that are just mush from the start!
• Planning positive activities: This is something I’ve made a point of doing, and have found it valuable. Remembering the activities is as important as planning them, I’ve found. Although it was hard at first trying to make plans and do them, to feel something more than simply going through the motions, by persevering, I definitely have started to find myself actually enjoying what I’m doing more, since the summer. It’s helped making a point of taking photos of things I’m doing or visiting, to remind myself at the end of the week that I have done something interesting, and even occasionally taking a photo that I’m pleased with as a bonus! I’ve even surprised myself a couple of times where I think I’ve had a blurry monotonous week to then see photos I’ve taken and remember I smiled that day, if only at a flower or a wave.
• I could have done with putting the ‘increase activity and distraction’ under Enise’s nose: “Sometimes, when people feel very depressed or unptight, they can also feel agitated. At these times, trying to relax does not work so well…anything that involves physical activity can be helpful” – Too true! Despite me fitting that description, Enise still pushed for yoga and beauty treatments…urggh. Although I’m not  a complete convert either: As I said before, while I appreciate keeping active while ill helps, for me it’s not a cure, and is merely useful as keeping something going that can be enjoyed again when not quite as ill. However it is still true that doing something unhelpful, such as trying to relax when it’s impossible, is only making problems worse and magnified.
• Knowing your limits: This is the one I think I really need to work on. “Various patients of mine have become exhausted from overwork and then couldn’t cope with the demands placed upond them. They noticed that they are failing and becoming overwhelmed, felt ashamed about their failings and then became depressed”. I recognise that pattern a bit too familiarly. I suppose it’s meant to be reassuring that I’m not alone in feeling like that, but that’s not much comfort. I try to tell myself I’m improving and being kinder to myself by going home from work not too late and simply saying to people sometimes, ‘I’m really sorry but I just can’t’. But that can’t be a solution for everything either! It makes me feel horrible in myself that I’m just giving up on things, and doubly horrible when I’m then annoying to others for letting them down when I don’t do what they asked or what I said I could do initially.

Arggh, back to the whole ‘Good enough is good enough’ dilemma. What is good, what is enough, and who gets to say?? Gilbert goes on to try to say reassuringly: “All of us vary on this. Although some may seem to be able to cope with anything and everything, this does not mean that we should.” All I can ask though is, really? What is the alternative? Why shouldn’t I be able to do as well as the person next to me? Isn’t it a depressing thought in itself to accept that? Physical disability or cognitive deficits may be one thing, but as far as I can see, the only thing really stopping me is tiredness. And that, after all, is supposedly only a symptom of depression in the first place…

Obviously this is something I need to work on, to find a balance between over doing things and not doing enough: something where both me and others are happy with what I manage….I hope that I’ll find somewhere in this book some ideas on identifying suitable levels of ‘enoughness’.

• Finally, sleep difficulties is the last that Gilbert mentions as something to tackle. I’ve not really concluded whether this is a problem for me. Certainly I’ve noticed that less sleep=bad. But I’ve never had a problem with the sleep itself. Rather it is the letting myself sleep. Lavender oil and hot milky drinks won’t help that! The other half of the problem is that now that I’m making sure I get a decent amount of sleep, when I get a bit less than that, I suddenly suffer majorly. I haven’t worked out if that is because I’m more used to sleep now and need more of it to maintain the same baseline mood, or if my idea of a ‘baseline’ mood is lower when I have less sleep, so I don’t notice a bad mood  like I do when it is a blip in otherwise better moods?

The ‘initial steps’ section also goes on to talk about identifying if there are physical or biological causes of depression. I have thoughts on that too, and lots of scribbles on the page, but I’m making the executive decision that re-writing those notes are not worth losing sleep over right now!

Formulating plans

Someone mentioned in my office today that 5th January is the day that people most commonly break their New Year’s Resolutions. I suppose it’s a good thing then I haven’t properly formulated a plan yet for mine, at least I can’t have messed it up yet!

Anyway, my resolution was to trust myself. However beyond crossing my fingers and toes, I haven’t come up with a good way to achieve that (plus recently I’ve also done too many stupid things, or forgotten them altogether, to realise I can’t trust my subconscious to take care of things anyway).  I realise that I need to put in a bit more effort than simply hoping for the best if I want to be able to trust myself. So without totally throwing that aim totally away, I think it needs to morph into resolving to be more capable. To keep things realistic, I don’t expect to become Capability Zee by the end of the year, but at least enough to get things done and for me and others to be happy with what I do.

My plan so far…

• Write things down. No one’s memory (except my mother’s) is perfect, so no point trying to force it as that will never make me reliable. In the same vein, write notes of what I want to ask before talking to someone, and make notes as I talk to someone on the phone. (Also find out how to work the phone at work so I’m not flustered before I even begin)
• Try three easy ways to solve things. If that doesn’t work, ask for help. If I need help, explain what I tried to do myself – hopefully that will make people see I’m not helpless, and show myself I’m not 100% useless.
• Thank people every time for anything they’ve done (as well as being genuinely thankful, hopefully that will convince them and me that they did it out of the goodness of their heart and not because I was so useless that their action was necessary. Also will remind me not to assume others know I’m grateful)
• Don’t assume or guess, or second guess either. Ask what I need to know, say what I know.
• Tell myself I can be capable. (I think I can…I think I can…I think I can…I think I can…)

I guess this is a combination of being prepared, asking for help, and telling myself that I can do it. None of it is new, but if this serves as a reminder to me to do it (and now it’s written down too-I can check the first off my list!), then it’s a good thing.

This hasn’t solved the idiot stuff I do when I’m not concentrating, or what to do when things go wrong (maybe that’s a time to ask for help?). Those can be for next year.