new routine for mornings and bedtime

I've had in increase in some of my meds, and also made big changes to my morning routine. I now have specific times when I am allowed to use my phone, and while I'm getting ready in the morning isn't one of them. I have morning time to myself, and a scheduled time to eat, which I have to do before I can take my morning medications. I have a specific time I go to my room for bed every night, and a specific "phone down" curfew.  

This has helped a lot. 

It's also hard for R to enforce, so even though he set the rules and times for when each of the things happen, if I don't do them, I don't get punished, except through it making my whole day harder overall. 

I need my time in the morning before I respond to text messages and have to engage with people. When I don't have that time, I find the rest of the day to be a huge hurdle emotionally. I break down more quickly and get very overwhelmed and feel like everything is impossible. I've been feeling like that regularly lately, and this routine helps me cope. I'm still struggling, and honestly still struggling a lot. I feel like I'm not enough. Not efficient enough, not fast enough, not productive enough, not respectful enough.... All the time. 

I've been getting angry so easily the past few days. I'm constantly on the edge of being angry, and he often feels like it's for no reason, because it's always triggered by some small thing that usually wouldn't even make me blink. Now, I hit my elbow on a corner and I'm ready to scream or break a dish. I don't break things, but it's what my mind pushes me toward. I feel incredibly guilty for those urges, as if I've done the thing instead of just thought about it. I think it's because I've seen my mom be in that place emotionally, and I've seen her throw things, hit things, break things. So I feel like it's a part of me that is just waiting to take over. And I feel like if I give in, I lose. It's a HARD LINE for me, and it's one of the things that made her so scary when I was a kid. I don't ever ever want to be like that. I don't want to be out of control. I don't want to scare the people I love. I don't want someone I love to change how they act because they are afraid of me or what I might say or do. 

Routine is as follows. 

9AM - Out of bed, no phone.

10:30 AM - should be making breakfast by this time

eat breakfast

Walk dogs, begin talking to N 

1 PM wake R unless he's specified otherwise. 

10 PM In my room for the night

12 AM Midnight - Phone down. 

(I have alarms set for 7 AM and 8 AM, and will play on my phone until 9AM if I wake up early, sometimes making myself tea or getting up and un/loading the dishwasher during these times)

I usually start walking the dogs for the night and making dinner around 7:30 PM, and by the time that is done I need to start getting ready for bed to be in my room by 10PM. (I usually finish up any last minute chores, get water, take a shower, take my pills, and pick up any dirty clothes or dishes in my room)

Something has to change

It takes me hours to get ready for the day in the mornings. I have more than one list to go over to make sure I do all the stuff I'm supposed to do every day. 

I have 3 different "sets" of morning pills to take, I have to unbraid, brush, and re-braid my hair, put on all my jewelry, get dressed, do some bathroom stuff. I often try to make myself tea in the mornings. If I finish making it, it is cold before I take a sip (it's too hot and if I set it down, it's too cold the next time I remember it). 

Then I walk both the dogs (90 minutes if I don't take a break in between) 

Then I make coffee and wake up my Master (1 PM is the goal most days) and bring his pills and orange juice. 

Then it's time for us to eat, and usually I'm exhausted and we might end up skipping food, (and if we skip food, he will feel sick by 4 pm) 

My morning is the worst. It's impossible to get myself up and moving, and "doing the things". I will sleep through my first few alarms, which I set at 9,10, and 11 AM. Then I push the blinds open so the sun is up, turn on my heater, and music to try and wake myself up. 

I might start out ok. I will get up and try to push through my tasks, take my first dose of meds etc, and wash my face, but at some point I have to use the bathroom, and I always pick up my phone. And the moment I pick up my phone, I am just completely unable to put it down. I can't disengage from it to get the other shit done. So I will spend 20 minutes between each of the 100 tasks I have on my phone trying to get through the games I am playing (on both of them) and also to talk to N, because she only really talks to me from 10AM-3PM or so.  

If she is around and talking, I can't do ANYTHING else. She types very fast, and asks questions a lot, and if I don't answer quickly, she will sometimes ask if I'm upset with her. And my phone is having issues giving notifications, so if I put my phone down, I might forget to answer, and then she gets very upset because she is afraid I'm angry.   I want to talk to her, but I also feel like I HAVE TO talk to her.   When she is talking to me, I can't even play hearthstone. 

So... Not only do I have ADHD and get distracted very easily, I am also unable to put my phone away to get the things I need to do accomplished, because I have someone who relies on me to be available for her- which means when she isn't talking to me, I go back to my phone games and find it very difficult to put the phone down and do any of the things I have to do before I can have my actual day. 

Ideally, I would walk the dogs three times a day, eat breakfast and play hearthstone while drinking my tea after walking them in the early morning. Write out my to do list for the day. Work on leather, or writing, or painting.... something.. and also get some housework done. All before I wake up Relly for the day.   But I can't make myself get out of bed. I can't keep from picking up the phones. I have "urgent but not important" phone games to do. And even if I don't enjoy them, I feel obligated to DO them. and its what I settle into when I sit down, too. If I'm "taking a break" I'm actually on two phones trying to play two games at a time on each. It's really not relaxing and I never feel like I'm done with it. But I don't know how to fix it. I feel like I have to play, because our friend Alex is the guildmaster. and Relly never plays anymore so I am trying to finish events on both accounts and meet minimum bounty requirements (Shop Titans) and also do officer stuff that Alex wants "everyone" to do, like calling out good things people do in the guild like investing etc. And taking screenshots and posting them of event ranking in the guild.  It's a fucking ton. And I am also trying to do Pokemon Go, too. And keep N and R up to date on events and complete times quests and .... 

And I'm in the Vine program which is amazing but getting all the reviews in has been really difficult lately. 

Depressed.

 I told my mom a few days ago that I was depressed. I never really talk to her much, we are low contact. I don't talk on the phone, and she doesn't text well, and I don't check my messages to see if she has texted often. 

It's always a mistake to open up to her. Every time I am vulnerable and she asks what's wrong, if I tell her it immediately becomes ammunition for the next time she's upset with me. So I very rarely tell her anything about me anymore. I very rarely am real with her. I checked my phone and she had sent me a message asking how I am a few days ago.  I answered and told her that I'm depressed. It's been since before christmas of last year, maybe even may last year that I visited her or the rest of my family. They're out of state, and it takes a big day trip to go visit and The last time we went, the house was so bad I didn't want to go inside. And she didn't want us to come in, either.  The bathroom smelled so badly of urine that I was trying not to gag when I had to go in there to pee.  Since then, my brother says my mom has started smoking INSIDE the house. I'm really allergic, and so is my brother and my dad (who lives there). So it just seems like there's no logistical way to visit, because I can't go inside without getting sick, and she doesn't really ever leave the house, and Honey can't go into most places. 

My grandparents are both 90+ years old (my dad's parents) and living on their own. They are both very hard of hearing, and I don't know how to spend time with them without being really anxious because I don't know how to have a conversation if I can't talk to them. But they want me around. But I don't know what to do or talk about. Or how to communicate. 

All of that, added together with my ADHD and anxiety and depression being really bad, has kept me from being able to even think about visiting. I always paint canvases for Christmas presents. I didn't paint for Christmas, and haven't painted since. 

It's not just that I don't have time, which I always feel like I don't, it's also that I don't even feel the urge to paint.

So I told my mom I'm depressed, and that I wanted to visit but haven't even wanted to get out of bed lately. 

The next day there was a bunch of walmart bags on the front porch. Candy, toys, notebooks, paints, permanent markers, bubbles, sidewalk chalk, seeds to plant sunflowers in my garden. 

As soon as I realized it was from my mom (The paint), I burst into tears and ran back inside. I just sat on the floor sobbing for about 10 minutes. I never cry like that. I wasn't... happy. I felt just completely broken.  For the first time in years, I felt like she loves me. I don't know why, but it fucking hurt.  I guess because I wanted for so long to feel like she cared, and that for it to surprise me, I had to admit that I didn't think she actually loved me or cared about me at all. 

To make it worse, I'd been trying to play it off kind of. I had been telling myself and my Master that I just didn't have time. I just couldn't focus. 

(He told my psychiatrist that I'm depressed again, and I almost started to cry there- My voice cracked, and I couldn't compose myself to really explain. Now she's talking about starting me on antidepressants next month. I didn't know that he thought I was depressed, and that was really the first it had even been on my own radar.)

So I was still kind of in denial about it, but during a really low moment, I was honest with my mother. It meant I couldn't hide it any more. How could I, when she'd sent all this silly kid stuff to our house? So I cried the whole time we took everything out of the bags and looked at things and I wondered how she could love me at all. How she could be capable of something selfless and thoughtful like this.