u/EastMedium9408

My life has been a shit show for years but this last year has been specifically very rough on me. Dealt with my mom’s cancer for a year before she passed back in January 2026. Had to move because of it as I as renting with her and couldn’t stay there alone. Plumbing in my new place has been backing up for the past few days with no success from my landlords attempts at fixing it, making my bathroom unusable right now. So it’s been very overwhelming.

I’m also in a starting stage of talking to someone which seems to be good so far! It seems all healthy right now thank fuck. But because of all the stress along with today being Mother’s Day in Canada, I was spiralling last night. And my brain was focusing on the guy I’m talking to because he wasn’t responding “fast enough” which it hadn’t even been half an hour. I knew I was spiralling and kept telling myself I’m just spiralling, things are good with this guy and don’t ruin it by running away. (I wanted to cut contact) After seeing a simple painting on TikTok, I decided to try and attempt it with pastels which kept me occupied for a couple hours managing to help soothe my mind enough. I wasn’t even concerned about messaging the guy back when he responded cause I was now focused on this and told myself it’s okay for him to wait until I’m done.

It’s a small win but a win nonetheless and I’m really fucking proud of myself for not ruining anything because of the stress going on. Even when I accidentally ripped my art paper when doing it, I managed to stay calm when I would usually have a melt down (I’m a perfectionist) and just taped the back so it’s not really noticeable. I think I did good and wanted to share this win so I can celebrate my small progress😊

My life has been a shit show for years but this last year has been specifically very rough on me. Dealt with my mom’s cancer for a year before she passed back in January 2026. Had to move because of it as I as renting with her and couldn’t stay there alone. Plumbing in my new place has been backing up for the past few days with no success from my landlords attempts at fixing it, making my bathroom unusable right now. So it’s been very overwhelming.

I’m also in a starting stage of talking to someone which seems to be good so far! It seems all healthy right now thank fuck. But because of all the stress along with today being Mother’s Day in Canada, I was spiralling last night. And my brain was focusing on the guy I’m talking to because he wasn’t responding “fast enough” which it hadn’t even been half an hour. I knew I was spiralling and kept telling myself I’m just spiralling, things are good with this guy and don’t ruin it by running away. (I wanted to cut contact) After seeing a simple painting on TikTok, I decided to try and attempt it with pastels which kept me occupied for a couple hours managing to help soothe my mind enough. I wasn’t even concerned about messaging the guy back when he responded cause I was now focused on this and told myself it’s okay for him to wait until I’m done.

It’s a small win but a win nonetheless and I’m really fucking proud of myself for not ruining anything because of the stress going on. Even when I accidentally ripped my art paper when doing it, I managed to stay calm when I would usually have a melt down (I’m a perfectionist) and just taped the back so it’s not really noticeable. I think I did good and wanted to share this win so I can celebrate my small progress😊

I’m someone who is basically housebound. It’s extremely hard for me to go anywhere with my agoraphobia, especially long distances alone due to finances on top of it. But a couple weeks back, I managed to force my ass to a doctor’s appointment last minute which I think sort of helped cause not as much time to overthink you know? But I did it, even went and got blood work done while there (lab in the same building but different office) killing two birds with one stone. And things came back showing I did have a couple things wrong I thought I did have and even mildly low iron which wasn’t the reason I went in for. But I feel it’s such a relief knowing this. Cause knowing my family history, that even mildly low iron is probably contributing to me being so tired all the time and having severe difficulty functioning. So I’m starting supplements soon and want to incorporate more iron rich foods.

While there’s a chance the mildly low iron isn’t contributing to my fatigue, I have a feeling it is. I knew it couldn’t just be my depression making me so tired and having lack of energy. It was a bonus from that appointment discovering this. So I’m feeling hopeful finally that maybe this will help me have the energy to actually push through my agoraphobia more. It’s hard to fight the anxiety when you don’t have the energy to. So fingers crossed and wish me this best that this is the start of me being able to push back against my agoraphobia more🤞🏻😊