I know I’m not doing well when my dinner is spaghetti and red sauce from a jar. It would be thin spaghetti or angel hair, since it cooks faster. Self-care is of utmost importance for anyone with PTSD. A mentally healthy person can get away with not eating from being super busy, or staying up late and waking up early. But the mind of one with PTSD is too fragile. It can flip in an instant and make a person suicidal or hypervigilant or violent. If you notice someone not taking care of himself/herself, his/her trajectory for healing is low or aimed at the ground.
The previous paragraph was written April 24, 2017. It was during three weeks of poor mental clarity. Today, it’s May 24. While I’ve been doing well mentally since May 2, I find my memory still sucks.
Today I had an appointment with a SCORE mentor. The appointment was for 1pm. At the end of a 10:30am meeting that went a bit longer than expected, I looked at the time and thought, “Great, I have enough time for lunch.” At that moment I thought my appointment was at 2pm. Needless to say, I missed my appointment and left the generous volunteer waiting. I felt horrible.
I must have looked at my calendar seeing the end time of 2pm and thought that was the start time. Whatever it was, Apple sucks for constantly changing how apps look on iPhone. I look forward to my two-year contract expiring so that I can use something else like an Android phone. I miss my Palm Treo. I need simple. I still have it. Not sure I can switch back and still get data. Anyway, I didn’t remember that the appointment time was 1pm even though I got a text reminder yesterday. How did that character in the movie Memento get by? How does anyone with memory problems get by?
To get back to the topic of Food and PTSD, these days I’m busy building a charity. It’s called Care For Us and there’s a fundraiser for it on Generosity.com. The fundraiser is for a modest amount of income for me so that I can work on this project full time. It’s a project I’m fully invested in, financially, mentally, and emotionally. It’s also more than full-time work. I find myself fixing a bowl of pasta if there are no leftovers in the fridge, except now I don’t use sauce in a jar. Instead I dress the pasta with ingredients like sun-dried tomatoes and olives. Doing well this week except my memory.