Day 0! Hello World!

Hello lovelies!

My name is Xander and welcome! Welcome to my first post on my mental health journey! This is my scream into the void one might say, however this particular scream is me sharing my goals and progress(and steps backwards) while also creating a space for others to also share their goals, journey, and whatever else their heart so desires. I hope for others to read and find comfort in whatever I do write and hopefully find some encouragement in themselves.

As a 24 queer person diagnosed with bipolar, depression and anxiety, I must say the cards do feel stacked against me sometimes… however! Do I give up? No! And the main reason I don’t feel so horrendously stacked up against(sometimes) is I read the stories of other people with bipolar, depression, etc. and see that through the episodes and problems many have been able to find their normal and work on their personal goals. So that’s the main goal! Let’s find my normal and work on my goals. And this blog is to showcase how I’m doing with my goals. So let’s discuss what my three main goals are.

Mental Health

That means actually keeping up with my meds and going to therapy and discussing my trauma and stressors even when I’m feeling great mentally!

Brain Cognition

So many of us feel that our brains have slowed down and that we are working on only 2 or 3 cells max sometimes. So I did some research and here are some of the things I’m working on to exercise and strengthen my brain.

Learn an instrument(piano in my case)

Read one book monthly(length doesn’t matter and reading level doesn’t matter. Just want to start somewhere.)

I eventually want to add a third task/skill, but one must be realistic and the more things I add the more overwhelmed I will be and less likely to complete any task.

Physical Health

Being healthy! Right now I want to focus on being more active in general. So the two forms of exercise I want to start out with are yoga and walking.

All of these things can be done relatively at home or within a budget. Books from libraries, yoga videos on YouTube etc. Which is important to me at the moment. I want it to be as accessible as possible for myself.

So how am I keeping track of all of this you may ask. I’m using a journal and a habit tracking app that helps keep track of my goals and tasks. I won’t go into detail about which one I’m using, but I’ll update ya’ll if I genuinely find some that work for me. I am quite disorganized in general so this within itself is going to be a challenge for me. As I’m sure it is with most of us.

Below I will put a mock up of my week and how I plan to do my tasks/goals. There will be no specific time in the day it must be done. Right now I’m just focused on doing the thing on the day I say I want to do it. The

My mini schedule!

Piano- 20 Minutes

Exercise: This will only be 20 minutes and will consist of yoga or the treadmill or walking around my neighborhood. I am aiming to build my endurance in general. 1 hour a week is my goal and so slowly build that up to 30/40 minutes per session.

Reading: 20 minutes or longer of reading a book. I’m starting with Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-Zǐ. Feel free to read along with me. I plan to make a post about my thoughts on the book as well.

Piano: 20 minutes or an hour weekly. Currently learning to play Waterfall from Undertale. Listen to the song, it's so pretty!

So above is my very simple schedule for my week, I kept it basic because I want to make it achievable. If ya’ll have any goals you’re working on right now let me know too! My mental health goals are hard to measure as it’s personal to each and every one of us. So what I might feel is progress may be something you do easily. So right now my goal is to just take my meds everyday and miss less than 2 days a week.

To wrap up this first blog post lovelies, I hope we can inspire each other to be the best version of ourselves and understand that life comes in waves, and that we’ll make progress and growth and find ourselves a few steps back sometimes. So to say, give yourself grace this week. You can do this!

Sincerely,

Xander. <3

Ps. Count this as day 0, before week 1. Also I plan to share videos and snippets of my journal so ya’ll can see hehe.