Autumn #braindetox halfwaythrough Week Two

I have a highly toxic brain.  I have to accept this I think, and to appreciate that this #braindetox will take a lot more than I thought.

Week one started last Sunday, and after four days I was in total meltdown. The overheated reactor was sinking into the surrounding brain, and I was really not doing well. Three Mile Island*  was happening again in my head. I needed capping off and isolating for a few days..

The problem is that I don't have a gradual release valve. I am an all or nothing person, and have always been. If I think I can do something well, nothing will stop me. If however, I am not sure, or find it harder than I thought it would be, I will panic, abandon hope and stop. Bang. Just like that. Put down my gun, turn round and walk away. But I don't want to walk away from this, I want to persevere. It is time to stop being a giver-upper and to gently take myself in hand. **

So this is week two, and I have taken days 5,6,7 and 8 as reactor cooling off time. I feel a lot better now.

I am coming back on line in a gentle way. Even gentler than Betty's original way. I am starting this week with just two of the basics, and none of the monthlies. I am :

a) looking at the sky (even when it is grey like today. I am looking at it and thinking it is grey but will be blue again. )

b) reading. Lots of reading. I love reading. Life without reading is life without breathing. Even toxic brains can cope with reading. I have reduced my number of books on the go at once ( I can have up to four at any one time) as I feel that this may be adding to my confusion and fug. So one at a time.

That is this week. Next week we will add in breathing.  When we are a little cooler in the head. 

* Not Chernobyl. Even I am not that toxic. People can still approach me and hug me without falling down dead. 

**please forgive the mixed metaphors, my reading has been Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, and I am metaphored and similed and analogied to the top of my milkshake mixer. The one they used to have in Wimpy with the big metal cup thing. My metaphors have been whisked and shaken and I am happily burping words***.

*** Words don't fit through a straw. Sadly. I would love to blow metaphorical bubbles. .