ABC Thought Journal time.
Activating Event
My therapist is wrapping up the zoom call by taking notes. I sit in silence and fiddle with my daily progress chart. I wonder what I’m going to do next int he day.
Beliefs
List all the statements that link A to C. Ask yourself- “What was I thinking?” “What was I saying to myself?” “What was going through my head at the time?”
Find the most distressing (hot) thought and underline it
Rate how much
…
god, what a nasty drop cap those huge letters are. They’re way too big in comparison to the text that follows!
I didn’t finish that thought earlier, and now it’s 3:48PM
I’M TOTALLY FUCKING STRESSING OUT RIGHT NOW
I should lay down or something. My mind is going a MILLION MILES AN HOUR
Ok I napped for about 3 hours and I feel pretty good now. Here’s a CBT thought diary that I re-created in LibreOffice for my future use.
yeah I’m just starting this journal entry over, because I declare a FALSE START!
LOL IDK man. My sales are way down on eBay. I am hurting for cash right now. Maybe I will donate plasma.
Ironmouse would like it if I donated plasma. I could also figure out whether or not I’ve had COVID! Apparently people who have had COVID and beat it get a bonus.
Ugh, I’m so confused as to what I should be doing right now. The rest was great, but now my groove is thrown off!
Oh yeah, I have listed cards that I need to put in boxes. I’m going to go do that now.
11:05 PM Where did the day go?
It feels like friday, but it’s only monday. I think a part of that is because my parents are out of town. I realized that I got a boost in mood because of that, and I felt like celebrating with a big dinner.
Damn, I need to get moved out so I can feel like that all the time!
I had therapy today, did an hour of jodo shinshu sutra chanting, biked 4.8 miles in the 80 degree heat wave, showered and shaved, listed 38 prememo cards on eBay, ate yummy oatmeal (oats, water banana, raisins, walnut pieces, chia seeds, cinnamon)
I did 10 minutes of yoga during a work break. It was over too quickly. I think I’ll try to do 15 tomorrow.
I haven’t read or studied japanese today, but I crossed off socializing because I had a therapy call this morning.
I worked on sbtp-loyalty. I have officially trashed RedwoodJS, as it is too bleeding-edge for my use. I have switched to strapi and gatsby today, and I am already further along in those frameworks than I was while using RedwoodJS for four weeks.
Strapi is a “headless cms” which turns out, is exactly what I’m looking for. It’s got a sleek admin UI which I can use to add products, images, prizes, etc. and it’s got DATA RELATIONS BUILT-IN!
My whole data schema is designed and implemented, and it only took a few minutes.
I still have to scaffold the client side code, which is not something that I can do automatically like I could in RedwoodJS, but the thing about RedwoodJS is that data relations are in flux. The RedwoodJS team doesn’t know what the, “RedwoodJS way” to handle data relations is, because the PrismaJS team isn’t sure how to handle data relations yet!
It doesn’t make sense to work with a framework that is so bleeding edge. I see great promise in RedwoodJS, but I can’t be using it if it takes me four weeks to get a database scheme working.
I’m just one guy, and I don’t have a lot of time to spend on this project. I need rapid prototyping at this point, and I can’t get that with RedwoodJS.
I’m already stuck on Strapi. Something seems outdated with their Gatsby integration tutorial and I’m getting an error from the code which handles fetching data from Strapi.
I’ll figure it out, just not today. Right about now, I am ready for sleep. I ate well, I worked hard, I exercised, I socialized. I learned a new software suite, made rapid progress on my database schema, and now I’m just chillin, writing in my journal and trying to wind down.
I’m probably going to be writing until midnight. I’m only at 730 words. I dislike when I get this META, LOL.
ironmouse streamed tonight. I only watched until she got her game started. She played Yakuza 0 for the first time. She seemed pretty stoked about it. I may watch the vod later, but I think game streams are usually too distracting for me. I like streams where the streamer just talks.
Just Chatting streams keep me company, while allowing me to have enough focus to work on other things.
It’s like having the voice in the background keeps the unhelpful thoughts like anxiety from occurring, and leaves me with just enough brain power to do the thing that is most important.
Maybe what happens is it tricks my beast-mind into thinking that there is another person with me. With a friend near by, I don’t have to be guarding the homestead at all times. I can let down my guard and be calm.
I’m watching the vod from mousey’s tream earlier. She had technical problmes lul. I am surprised she didn’t figure out the game video capturing beforehand. LOL she just said the same thing.
She’s so cute. I really like her high pitched voice, her singing, her usage of, “konyo” and how she’s so chaotic and free in what she speaks about and how she says it.
She’s got a super cute avatar. Apparently she has a new avatar model which she’s going to start using as soon as she can get used to VR without getting sick.
Bruh I’m crashing. I want to go to sleep rite NAO!
Or later. I don’t care. That’s not true, I care. I want to finish writing 2000 words because IT’S WHAT I DO
Man, I wanna play Yakuza now. This game looks like GTA which is a game that I really enjoyed playing. It’s a crazy violent game, but there are so many things I can do in the game that I would love to do away from keyboard, but I can’t because they’re illegal or dangerous or unethical or whatever.
It’s this virtual playground to live out violent, sexual, and other low-brow fantasies.
Speaking of sex fantasies…
What the fuck is wrong with the USA that simulating kicking someone in the head until they die is JUST FINE to look at as an observer, but simulating HAVING SEX and observing is not? Twitch bans such games with explicit sex, and so many streamers have to watch themselves on what they say or what they show.
“Oh my god can I fuck in this game?”
ironmouse 2020
Goddamn, I think I’m in love.
I already knew I was in love with ironmousey like the first or second time she said, “I love you” to her viewers. She’s so nice and loving, yet she’s so good at dropping F-bombs and I love it!
I took a 5 minute break to lay on my accupressure mat and try to dissolve some of the tension in my butt and legs. That accupressure mat is so helpful to me and I’m really greatful for it.
I think I have to pause the ironmouse vod because it’s too damn distracting! The yakuza world is getting introduced and there are sexy ladies dancing in tiny outfits at a nightclub. Then there’s mousey giving her commentary which is simultaneously precious and hilarious.
25 minutes of pure FOCUS!
Actually it’s 11:45, which means I have only 15 before this blog is INVALID.
So meta.
When I was relaxing on my accupressure mat, I thought about something I would like to talk about.
This morning during therapy, I shame spiraled at the end of the session. That’s what I was trying to write about at the start of this post, but I gave up or let myself be distracted or something.
My therapist was writing her note as she does near the end of the session, and I was figuratively twiddling my thumbs. When K. (or is it C.?? I can’t reember) finished writing the note, she shifted her focus back to me. She asked me if I had written down the homework she had assigned me, at which point I said yes.
I kept my response so quick and short. I think the feeling I was experience was shame, because it’s always shame. LOL.
It’s not always shame, but it’s often shame, and I labelled this instance as a “shame spiral” already, because that’s what it was.
ABC
I think the Belief was
- I need to keep my responses short
- I need to avoid starting a conversation so K. can go
- My thoughts are no longer important because my time is almost up
That’s gotta be what the belief is, and I think I need to challenge that belief.
I think what I was feeling was boredom. I was bored just sitting there pretending to do stuff. I wanted to end the call and move on to other things.
My thoughts are always important. I can speak about things freely and it’s K.’s responsibility to end the call on time, so she can get to her next client or whatever she has to do next.
It’s okay to keep talking about things. It’s also okay for me to wrap things up.
I didn’t say, “thank you” today, because I was so stuck on the thought that I need to shut the fuck up because my importance has expired.
I wanted to say thank you, but I didn’t. I felt obligated to stay silent.
Who would I be without that thought?
I think I would have been looser. I wouldn’t have been shame spiralling and thinking, “If I say this or that, it might spark up a new conversation.”
I wouldn’t be playing scenarios out in my head when I could be relaxed and open to a conversation, should it start.
I think that’s all I have to talk about on that subject.
It’s 1980 in Yakuza. There’s pay phones in the streets and pagers LOL. Ironmouse is as shocked as I am!
Is that a beeper?
Ironmouse 2020
I like this game and it’s not just because of all the penis
Ironmouse 2020
ok welp, it’s 11:57PM. I’m going to end this post now and go to bed.
But first, gratitude and affirmations!
I’m grateful for the infinitely entertaining ironmouse, who is both lovely and crude and I love her for it.
I’m grateful for my bicycle which is a joy to ride.
I’m grateful for the vegetables that I received from my mom’s garden. This evening I had a fantastic meal made from some mushrooms she gave me, as well as a onion, and some leftover rice and zucchini.
FANTASTIC MEAL. I would eat it again and again if I could. It was very flavorful and I didn’t add any seasonings whatsoever.
31. I am special; I will not change myself for anyone.
32. I choose hope.
33. The answer is right before me, even if I do not see it now.
Excelsior!
