‘Normal’ Passing

Look at me, I’m Normal McNormalson!

If there is one thing that is probably universal with spoonies, it’s the having to be ‘normal’ passing. As tomorrow is Pins & Needles, that means me making the effort to have a proper bath, clean hair and all that. It’s exhausting at the best of times, and recovering from this cold is noooot the best of times. Today was me spoiling myself with taking pain medication and extra caffeine so that I felt human enough to manage the bathing. And while I feel great for being clean… doesn’t make it any less hard.

So then, what is ‘normal’ for me? Well, it starts with waking up in pain and fatigue. But I’m so used to it that I tend to just sort of do my best to bull through it. And I don’t mean a little bit of yawn, I want to go back to bed — I mean you cannot think because your brain has been replaced by cotton. On fire. You want to go back to sleep, but there’s no point; it’s not going to be restful anyways (and with me and naps, I wake up feeling physically brutalised in addition to foggier than before).

Another issue is executive dysfunction. While to a lot of people who don’t know what that is might think it’s laziness, it’s not. It means that one’s brain has a hard time lining up the steps to get even simple things done. I take what feels like an inordinately large amount of time trying to get my brain to go from A to B, and will often make myself lists if there are several ‘regular’ tasks that I need to accomplish, like dishes or cleaning something.

Well. Let’s use dishes for an example. Most people might think, ‘Well, you go to the kitchen, and wash them! Simples!’. But it’s not. First is going and seeing how many dishes need doing. Depending on how many, I need to retreat back to the lounge to think about it before tackling it again. Usually the next step will be to go back and put away anything clean so there’s less stuff in the way, and then retreat back for however long. Then there’s going back and finding the sponge — is it buried under things? If it is, pull it out, put it on the side, and then flee the room. Take a few minutes, go back and see if the dishes have been soaking. That means draining out the gross, cold water, retreating, returning, and replacing with fresh. Then, and only then, does washing some of the dishes. Yes, some — once the drying board fills up, I have to retreat again to let things dry. That’s sort of quickly because I like to wash at scalding hot temps, but it’s still not immediate. ‘Oh, why don’t you just dry them?’ Because my brain has a thing against that and is convinced it’s rubbing filth and stink onto my freshly washed dishes. I have to let them air dry. If I’m ‘lucky’, I’ll actually manage to process them through before poor Z has to do it, but that doesn’t happen very much, I have to admit.

Anyways, I feel like I’ve blown my word load, so I’mma leave off with that. Enjoy the insight? Or yanno, the bemusing step-by-step of a simple task.

<3