Thinkin about how as kids parents told us to clean our rooms without having ever shown us how to themselves, taught us any organizational skills, spatial management, or any other knowledge necessary to know how to efficiently tackle a mess without getting overwhelmed and then got exasperated when we as ten year olds didn’t just……figure it out
This is not a dunk on my parents for the record. I had wonderful parents growing up and still have an amazing mom. I think this is just one of those smaller and common things of parenthood that I think addressing would be monumental in reducing a very common household stressor. If parents led their children in cleanups and helped them reason out plans to manage their time and stuff, especially neurodivergent kids, the entire household would be a lot more calm, streamlined, and overall happy I think!!!
I don’t know if it’s the context itself, Joker’s fucking smile before it happens, the complete lack of captions, that you only see Batman’s fist. But it’s the funniest fucking thing I have ever seen, and it cracks me up every single time.
Therapist says that when normal coping mechanisms stop working it’s usually a sign that you’ve either recovered or relapsed significantly and that therefore you need to change strategies. I’m hoping that “As I’ve had more to be stressed about” is used here in the positive sense- that you’ve taken on more responsibilities and are able to do more of the things you want, which while awesome, handling more stress also means, well higher stress levels.
Since Doing A Productive isn’t helping you anymore, we’re gonna Marie Kondo that strategy, thank it for it’s help, and let it go (for now. If this is a relapse issue we can always come back to it later).
Some other strategies that might help Under the cut becuase this got kinda long:
People talk about ‘acting like you own the place’ but one thing I find useful when I’m anxious in a new place is pretending that it’s familiar to me. Pretending like I’ve been there before and acting like I’m remembering it.
And really every new place becomes just a place you’ve already been, eventually. We’re only nervous because we’re stuck viewing it from the wrong side of time.