Good Advice!

... and Geocaching ... this ABC Wednesday post kind of Grew - lol - so if you don't want to read about psychologists and my mental health (again) - you can scroll down to the * and read the Geocaching stuff)

Earlier this year, I took this photo:

Yes ... it is a diagram thingy that my psychologist drew for me, on a page of his notebook ... and I took the photo of it with my iPad (which I had sort of been trying to take notes on) because I wanted to remember it, and remember to actually DO what it said ...

(in fact I think I kind of Got reminded I needed to do that this week actually, when I realised I was feeling a bit down, and worrying about things, and worrying about how I was worried, and how I felt and ... on and on ... the joys of an Aspie brain that gets stuck on things, I Guess :)

A week or 5 later, I decided it was such Good advice - that I should make it into a quilt (I have not Got around to that yet - been busy with making the ones I just had in the CQ exhibition) ... Yes ... It probably isn't normal to use something your psychologist drew for you as a quilt design ... especially as I also intend to put it in next years Exhibition, and the description will say what it is ... and I am sure most people think it is not normal to write a quilt description about how I was visiting a psychologist - but I am not normal (I even have a bit of paper that says so - lol) 

The bit at the bottom, with slightly illegible writing in a couple of words, says "Stop! Do something enjoyable then come back to the problem"

Isn't it Great to have medical advice that says to Go and do something enjoyable?! :)

What a Great reason to Get out of doing some housework and Go Geocaching ... which is what I did quite a lot of ... and I think it was very Good "therapy" 

What I had forgotten, and realised when I looked what date I had taken that photo ... was that he had drawn that diagram at ... THAT ... visit ... a session that was memorable, not because it was bad, but because it was Good ... it was the one where after a couple of sessions where I was wondering if I was Getting anywhere and if he was actually doing anything to help, he finally seemed to GET me ... and I finally Got the other piece of the puzzle that I had been trying to figure out ... 

I had arrived, in a hurry from having also seen my GP for a review and then had a talk with the case manager who had organised my Graduated return to work (which the review was part of) and I ... thought ... I had some organised notes on my iPad, with some questions I had ... but I got all flustered and forgot what ones they were/where I had put them and kind of had a mini meltdown when I sat down to talk to the psychologist and couldn't find it ... which was not the Good thing I was Going to mention, but it was also another interesting bit of the puzzle that is me ... I had been reading about Aspies having overload and either having meltdowns, or shutting down ... and that is what I think happened then ... but with me i guess it isn't something I Get that often, isnt the total overload/shutdown that some Aspies get, and I don't get it from sensory overload, it seems to be emotional stuff ... and I have since thought of a couple of other weird incidents from the last several years, that I never understood what the heck happened and why, but I now have an explanation for ...

But the main thing about that particular session - the missing puzzle piece I needed -was just after that, when I had got my brain to sort of half work again, and we were talking and I was trying to describe how I was feeling and how I was frightened by how I felt, and how I didn't understand it, and how I felt weird and totally confused and overwhelmed by everything that was going on in my life ... and he suddenly stopped and looked at me, and said something like "I don't know why I didn't pick up on this before ... you feel [cant remember his exact words but he described much the same thing as I just had]? ... I think I said "yes" ... and he said "that's anxiety" ... 

[if this was a cartoon, that would have been the point where a lightbulb appeared above my head and lit up with a ding sound ... I probably just sat there stunned for a few seconds :] 

I have since realised that for me, anxiety doesn't feel like the textbook description I must have read somewhere, and it has been something I have had, to at least some degree, for many years, probably on and off for most of my life ... long enough that I just thought it was normal to feel like that, I guess ... 

The other weird thing is - I wrote in my notes, shortly after that session, that he had told me, sometime near the end, that I was now calmer/more settled than he had ever seen me ... I had forgotten about that ... I know something changed in me as a result of that day/visit ... but I didn't realise it had started to happen that quickly - lol

(within a couple weeks of that visit, I started having people who had not seen me since before then, tell me that I had changed ... calmer, more settled, happier ... Mum even went as far as to say I was the old me, a happier me, who she had not seen for many years ... yet also a new me ... Which I agree with ... the Autism diagnosis' and all this working out what makes me tick ... has been a really positive change ... I am not sure where I read the term, but I now feel more comfortable in my own skin ...

For a day that started off with a slightly stressful GP review, and turned into a bit of a shambles for a bit ... It actually ended up being a very Good day ... 

And ended up with me almost unintentionally taking that Good advice ... This was the day I think I blogged about a while ago, where I went to a public lecture/free lunch just after the psychologist session, then went wandering up a hill to find a Geocache, and sat and did some Mindfulness meditation under a tree while I was up there (mindfulness probably also deserves some of the credit for the Good progress I was making mental health wise at the time), then I went to an art exhibition opening, and then went shopping ... and on the way back I decided to Go and look for the new Geocache in the car park ... and met another Geocacher, who was waiting for 2 others and we all went and had a Good time climbing trees in the dark, to find the Geocaches up there :)

And Good Grief! ... I just noticed I had spelled "unintentionally" as "unintensionally" ... oh dear ... I guess I was talking about stress, so maybe that is why it came out with the word "tension" in there - although that is probably just a typo/not thinking about spelling ... and my Aspie brain now noticing weird wordplay and connections between things - LOL

*

I wrote most of this blog post a few days before I intend to post it ... It is now the next day, and yes, I am still going to wait a couple more days and post it for ABC Wednesday (as you may have Guessed - this week is the letter G :)

Today (Saturday :) I went and took that Good advice ... In the morning I went for a fun walk (along part of the Canberra Centenary Trail, and up a hill) with a group of people, and then most of us went for coffee ... (I had an iced coffee and lunch :) and then I decided to go find some Geocaches ... I stopped to find one just down the road, before heading out elsewhere ... but I never got out to the elsewhere because that first one was at an interesting place to explore ... actually a dog park (fenced area to exercise dogs off leash), which I didn't know was there - probably only a few locals who do - it was deserted the whole time I was there, and rather overgrown ... and quite a pretty patch of bush - so I might take my dog out there tomorrow :)

So what did I spend a couple of hours doing in a dog park without a dog? 

Took a few dozen photos ... many of which were selfies - lol

A few of them were OK ... This one is probably Good enough to Go in here:

[oops, was trying to decide and must have selected 2 - lol]

I also found a nice spot to not only take a few more silly selfies, but to sit and do a mindfulness meditation thing, the ones that I mentioned at the beginning of this post, which I had kind of stopped getting around to doing lately ... I should keep doing it actually ... 

Here is another silly selfie, or 2, that I took in that nice spot:

... and, because it was a nice spot' and there was only one Geocache inside the fence (the one I found) and one other outside the fence (which I had already found another day) I decided to look and see if there was room to hide my own Geocache over the other side ... yes there was ... picked out a possible spot ... and then walked a bit further, and I found a tree ... a pine tree, in a corner ... one I could climb ... Yes - of course I climbed it ...

I actually had a ready to hide Geocache with me (one I had tried to hide in a not so good spot, then gone back and removed when it wasn't approved) ... so ... it is now up the tree ... no, you can't go find it yet - I have to finish doing the listing for it and submit it before it is published (if it is actually approved)

I decided it was getting too late to go out and get the other Geocaches I had planned to drive a few km to find (but they will be perfect for one day after work, when I need to wind down), and so headed home ... but I stopped and found another Geocache on my way ... and found another tree ... lol

(I didn't have another cache to hide, but I have a weird idea for a biggish one I can hide up there ... maybe even a multi ... where to find it you have to go somewhere and collect information and then use it in some way to calculate/figure out where to go and look for the cache ... trouble is - I now have to figure out the figuring out bit that people will have to do for it - lol

... by the time I Got home and headed out to take the dog for his walk, it was Getting late, and it Got Dark while we were out walking - lol

Also, by the time I cooked a Good dinner and did a few things ... It has Got late ... Where has my evening Gone?

Ok ... now it IS Wednesday ... am just about to hit "publish" on this ... and a duplicate version on Wordpress - at aykayem.wordpress.com/2017/08/23/good-advice/