Thursday, April 9, 2020

10%

I've been trying to download Catalina on my MacBook but it refuses to. I've done everything the troubleshooting page told me to, I've made sure my Wi-Fi and Internet connection are working, I've cleared storage space, I've shut down and rebooted my laptop, I've tried multiple sources but it won't start. Today, I realized the reason I can't do push-ups is 'cos everything I've done so far has only trained my biceps, and my triceps have had no work. So, I started doing tricep-building exercises, so with any luck, I will come out of quarantine as someone able to do... a couple of real push-ups. I wonder if the government knows that some people need space for their mental health. I might get a little paranoid if I stay cooped up all the time, as it is, I tend to go into overdrive. Can you imagine me being in the same apartment as six other people, most of whom don't even validate my feminist atheist existence? I might spontaneously combust. When I moved back here from Lucas' rented apartment, I did not foresee Singapore going into a strict lockdown. Nobody foresaw COVID-19, and yet here we are. My therapist has introduced me to a method called drop-anchor. Basically when I have an emotion I would usually get wrapped up in that one singular emotion, like say sadness or anger, and focus only on that one thing. When you drop an anchor, similar to a ship in a thunderstorm, you have to ground yourself to everything else that's happening outside the sea or storm. It's like the layers of an onion. I have to first observe my feelings, then be aware of perhaps how I'm feeling physically and observe those, then go a step further and observe the layer around those, like my surroundings and what I can see and hear etc in the environment. It helps, because then I realize that my feelings are not all there is, that I exist and my feelings exist, but that's not all there is. When she taught me this method, I told her it reminded me of when a young child is feeling anger, and when their parents tell them to count to ten, to give them time to process their new feelings. Please have conversations with me, I could try my darndest to read all I can, and exercise indoors, and distract myself with all the lessons in the world, but y'all know I'm a highly social creature, and I need help in the form of conversation. It's only day three here, and already I'm beginning to question how time works.