public transit experiment / daylio
I just barely made it to the bus on time! Topaz dropped me off, and as soon as they drove off I realized I was at the wrong spot in the park and ride, so I called them. They came back, found me (I was walking to the right place just in case) and took me to the right spot. I was the last to get on! so lucky. it's nasty weather though, heavy rain w puddles everywhere. But now that I've successfully done it once it will be so much easier. I have huge anxiety with being alone in public without my car (it used to be to the level of a phobia) so this was a big step.
Also the extra speed-walking is good for me. When I have to be somewhere by a certain time I can't stroll, even if I know I have 30 minutes of leeway. So this morning I speed-marched to work for like 20 minutes and this afternoon I did the same. I don't remember if I mentioned it but my brain meds raise my blood pressure and that makes exertion SO unpleasant that I'm always looking for sorta "automatic" exertion that I don't have to think about or spend activation energy on.
I've been using this app called daylio for mood and goal tracking. I love the goals tracker - you can pick a symbol for each goal and then you have a grid of symbols that get filled in when you click them. This is a lot like my old sticker rewards project, but electronic. You can set reminders to make an entry -- I have it set to twice a day. I wish the mood tracker had more options because I need a 0-10 scale not just 1-5 but I have finally started to get enough of a baseline that I can think about it and figure out if I am neutral, positive, or negative. I had a really hard time doing that at first, because as a coping habit I tend to avoid thinking about how I am feeling since for so many years what I was feeling was CONSTANT MAXIMUM STRESS. But my stress is manageable now, and getting more so.