An Attempt at Bravery
Jan. 15th, 2021 02:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soc_puppetThat post about how mental illness can interfere with personal hygiene finally came through my Tumblr queue, so I'm going to take a few moments to talk about my own struggles with cleanliness.
For a long time, I didn't brush my teeth even once a day. I still don't typically manage twice, but these days, except in the event of absolute disaster, I at least brush before I go to bed. For that I credit the app Habitica.
Even though Habitica helped me be a regular tooth-brusher, I still struggled with flossing; I managed it reasonably well, but I would skip it more often than brushing. It took switching from regular floss to floss picks, and forgiving myself the extra tiny impact they have on the environment, for flossing to become a regular and neutral habit. (I cannot do anything about the environment if I die of an infected dental nerve, after all.)
Showering I still struggled with. Habitica didn't help me, and even listening to podcasts or music could only bring me up to a shower every other day at my best, and I frequently went three or four days without a shower. I lucked out incredibly both in having fairly inoffensive body odor and in working a job where I'm surrounded by overpoweringly good smells almost constantly, but it was still a problem.
A combination of![[tumblr.com profile]](https://www.tumblr.com/favicon.ico)
dnd-apothecary's soap and a feeling of social responsibility from Covid is what finally tipped the scales for me into showering every day, and it was only running out of the soap that made me realize how much I had come to rely on it in order to complete my daily ablutions: Without a soap that smelled nice (and I wasn't allergic to) and, preferably, had some object inside that I could work towards "unearthing", showering became considerably more of a chore, and one that I tried more frequently to avoid.
I'm fairly certain that I can keep up daily, or at least near-daily showering when the greatest part of Covid is finally at bay, though I worry about when work starts up in earnest again; I typically bathe before sleeping (so I don't have to be conscious while my hair dries out), and work tends to wring me out, so how often will I feel too tired to shower? How often will I allow myself that excuse? Should I hope that lingering trauma from Covid keeps me showering regularly? What does it mean that I almost hope to be traumatized if that will help me keep clean?
Keeping my hair short might also help a great deal with my showering, but that takes Work and Social Interaction (and Covid was no help with any of those). In many ways, long hair has just been easier.
My room is a mess, and I especially have trouble washing and changing my bedding. How I have my bed set up definitely doesn't help with the latter. I want to get better at both of these, but I haven't found my tricks for them yet. I hope I do someday.
Content note: Animal death, mistreatment.
What I haven't dared post anywhere, and especially not Tumblr, is that I was a neglectful pet owner. After the last of my pet rats died, I swore to myself I wouldn't have any other pets at all until I was sure I would be able to take care of them properly and consistently, and that includes, at minimum, me having a clean space t keep them. That day is still a long ways away.
I can take care of Chester if I need to, at least at the moment, but even the two weeks I did so while my mom's shoulder was healing were something of a struggle; I doubt I would be able to when working my usual schedule, let alone if I ever made it to full time.
Maybe, maybe, I will be able to have cats someday. I will still have to watch myself closely. I will definitely have to figure out how to keep my yarn safely contained.
For a long time, I didn't brush my teeth even once a day. I still don't typically manage twice, but these days, except in the event of absolute disaster, I at least brush before I go to bed. For that I credit the app Habitica.
Even though Habitica helped me be a regular tooth-brusher, I still struggled with flossing; I managed it reasonably well, but I would skip it more often than brushing. It took switching from regular floss to floss picks, and forgiving myself the extra tiny impact they have on the environment, for flossing to become a regular and neutral habit. (I cannot do anything about the environment if I die of an infected dental nerve, after all.)
Showering I still struggled with. Habitica didn't help me, and even listening to podcasts or music could only bring me up to a shower every other day at my best, and I frequently went three or four days without a shower. I lucked out incredibly both in having fairly inoffensive body odor and in working a job where I'm surrounded by overpoweringly good smells almost constantly, but it was still a problem.
A combination of
I'm fairly certain that I can keep up daily, or at least near-daily showering when the greatest part of Covid is finally at bay, though I worry about when work starts up in earnest again; I typically bathe before sleeping (so I don't have to be conscious while my hair dries out), and work tends to wring me out, so how often will I feel too tired to shower? How often will I allow myself that excuse? Should I hope that lingering trauma from Covid keeps me showering regularly? What does it mean that I almost hope to be traumatized if that will help me keep clean?
Keeping my hair short might also help a great deal with my showering, but that takes Work and Social Interaction (and Covid was no help with any of those). In many ways, long hair has just been easier.
My room is a mess, and I especially have trouble washing and changing my bedding. How I have my bed set up definitely doesn't help with the latter. I want to get better at both of these, but I haven't found my tricks for them yet. I hope I do someday.
Content note: Animal death, mistreatment.
What I haven't dared post anywhere, and especially not Tumblr, is that I was a neglectful pet owner. After the last of my pet rats died, I swore to myself I wouldn't have any other pets at all until I was sure I would be able to take care of them properly and consistently, and that includes, at minimum, me having a clean space t keep them. That day is still a long ways away.
I can take care of Chester if I need to, at least at the moment, but even the two weeks I did so while my mom's shoulder was healing were something of a struggle; I doubt I would be able to when working my usual schedule, let alone if I ever made it to full time.
Maybe, maybe, I will be able to have cats someday. I will still have to watch myself closely. I will definitely have to figure out how to keep my yarn safely contained.
icon picked for general attitude, i'm not in any contests
Date: 2021-01-16 07:39 pm (UTC)I found the thing that helped me most was actually getting a shower chair that's up to my weight; i have screenshots of my discord in which i demanded of the friend who bought me the chair, 'IS THIS ALLOWED? IS SHOWERING SUPPOSED TO BE EASY AND NOT HURT? IS THIS ALLOWED?' which, nuff said. and yet it's still kind of hard to shower more than once a week. Fortunately i am a work from home hermit and was for years BEFORE covid.
i SO hear you on the flosspicks--i keep them in a jar on my bathroom counter within reach of the toilet, because i can use them while doing my business so i'm not costing myself standing spoons and it gets two things over with at once.
with tooth-brushing, i'm on one of those executive function discords, and so most days i report my morning toothbrushing at the same time as my morning exercise bike session--i've managed to tie them together to avoid the 'but it's hard enough eating breakfast after taking blood sugar without everything tasting of mint', because if i brush teeth and then go bike then by the time i'm done biking the mint is usually gone and then i just get on with things. Evening toothbrushing generally gets reported in the morning as well, often in the same message. I've been relatively constant since November! it's amazing!
So many hugs on the pets front.
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Date: 2021-01-17 03:27 am (UTC)we are technically in possession of a shower chair, it has been in our backyard for months, but somebody has to scrub off all the "you don't know where it's been" before we put it to work.
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Date: 2021-01-17 04:55 am (UTC)Floss picks are so great! No more feeling of the floss digging into the sides of my fingers! No needing to use both hands! The bliss, the freedom!
I indulged in a good cry over the pet thing after writing about it. It was really hard to write, but I still felt it was important to do, to include a clearer picture of the situation at least for my future self.
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Date: 2021-01-17 05:02 am (UTC)Okay, I just measured my shower; it's a little over 31"/78cm on a side, not counting the attached horizontal hand rails on two sides that eat into the space. If there's such thing as a shower stool, that would probably fit? But then I still have things like the lack of detachable shower head to contend with, and honestly I don't do too well with seats that don't have a back I can lean against anyway. Shower chairs are probably out for me until/unless I get a larger bathroom in general.
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Date: 2021-01-17 05:55 am (UTC)And I was always so bad at judging how much floss to pull. Now it's just. Right there! On the pick! And I don't end up cutting my gums so bad bc i have less leverage!
*more hugs*
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Date: 2021-01-17 09:48 am (UTC)Yes! I do sometimes get a bad angle with the picks, but not very often; it's more than worth the trade-off for me.
😌😘
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Date: 2021-01-25 03:02 pm (UTC)*sigh*
I just look functional on the outside.
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Date: 2021-01-26 10:12 am (UTC)I can pass as functional if I need to, but boy howdy is it a lot of work!