Another day, limped through. What I’m noticing recently is that I’m getting so frustrated w/ myself. My brain works properly for a v small window of time & then I just can’t seem to think. I forget my kids names (although honestly, that’s nothing new). By afternoon I’m useless!

I’m beating myself up for not doing my job properly, for not homeschooling properly (*laughs hysterically*). I am SO clumsy! Okay fine, I’m always clumsy. But this is worse. I’m so damn distractable. And let’s be honest, there are so many distractions around.
I want to be myself. I want to focus and feel like I can recite the alphabet without wandering off halfway through because I’ve spotted something shiny.
HOWEVER (you knew this was coming, didn’t you?), psychological science, as it so often does, has something to offer. We have been living under conditions of extreme stress for a long, LONG time. We are officially chronically stressed.
And chronic stress is not overly kind to our brains. It uses an awful lot if our resources, to begin with. We are currently more focused on basic survival than on writing the great British novel (sorry, @fpathak!). Creativity relies on our prefrontal cortex. Our prefrontal cortex
However, does not like stress. At all. We CAN be creative when we are under pressure, but it will take a whole hell of a lot more cognitive energy than it would normally. So likely you will be MUCH more tired in the aftermath.
Chronic stress does a couple of other things too. It compromises the way in which your working memory works, so you find it harder to recall things. We aren’t as good at making decisions, struggling to balance rewards against risks.
There is also research indicating that it affects our spatial awareness. Hence the clumsy. Although based on this logic, my dog must be insanely stressed.
So, in summation, what I am saying is, I need to lower my expectations of myself and remember that currently my brain is not my brain, rather my brain under an awful lot of stress. And the fact that I mostly remember my kids names, is, by that measure, pretty damn impressive.

More from Life

TW: suicidal ideation.

At the darkest days of the abuse I was being subjected to I decided to attend a conference for women in Los Angeles. I convinced my mother in law to pay for it because I couldn’t afford it. @ChristineCaine was preaching. I was desperate...
1/


I wanted to die, I didn’t see a way out and I had tried everything. I imagined many ways to die daily. The most recurring one was throwing my car down a bridge I had to drive over every day. I never did it because my kids were in the car and I was afraid one of them would...

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survive or I’d kill someone on the way down.

Christine spoke about honoring your pastors even when they weren’t great, she spoke of us expecting too much of pastors and how wrong that was. She said God would use our testimony if we submitted to our pastors.

3/

She said “honor your pastors, God will honor you.” She said more about having disagreed with her pastors but she submitted and God honored her and now she’s blessed. How if they are faithfully serving God, we need to support them and not forfeit what God has for us.

4/

I felt my heart drop into my stomach. I got up and went to the bathroom because I couldn’t breath and I felt like I was going to faint if I didn’t scream. I now know I was having a panic attack. I sat on the toilet w/my head between my legs, breathed and wept..
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Tip from the Monkey
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Stay Tuned!


1. Yang


2. A jacobin capuchin dangling a flagellin pangolin on a javelin while playing a mandolin and strangling a mannequin on a paladin's palanquin, said Saladin
More to come tomorrow!


3. Yigang Tong
https://t.co/CYtqYorhzH
Archived: https://t.co/ncz5ruwE2W


4. YT Interview
Some bats & pangolins carry viruses related with SARS-CoV-2, found in SE Asia and in Yunnan, & the pangolins carrying SARS-CoV-2 related viruses were smuggled from SE Asia, so there is a possibility that SARS-CoV-2 were coming from