u/Exotic-Low812

My sallet came!
It’s a bit tight with the liner riveted inside, I might need to remove the riveted liner and wear a padded cap instead for a more comfortable fit

I made the mistake of going in to hard to fast and bought one of whatever I could when I started the army, quickly got overwhelmed by all the shit I had to build and paint and then put the whole army in a tote under my bed.

Not sure what possessed me but I’m pulling them out after a year or 2 of banishment to paint again.

Oh and I ordered more shit, trolls and a bolt thrower…

Still have no idea how to play the game or even make this into a list but I’ll figure that out later

Ok a few days went by here and no post

Truth is I got addicted to that jrpg I got last week and it’s been consuming my free time

Yesterday was my first symptom free day, I had a pounding headache but the weather here in the lower mainland has been nuts

I took my family to Burnaby village museum and we had a great time. (See all pictures)

Then I think I mostly just chilled and play trails in the sky. Somehow I’m like 11 hours in since Friday…

Got through a few more chapters of one piece also. Still on book 9.

Today was also pretty uneventful.

Daughter woke me up this morning and wanted a cuddle before school.

Worked at home.

Had my sofa finally get delivered. I ordered it in early July.

Got a filling.

Went to the playground

Played trails, still on the first chapter.

Gave my kid a bath.

You know normal every day stuff…

I think my leg was acting up because I’m stressed about this trade war bullshit…

Been falling off some of my wellness habits, I gotta do my meditations, I’ll do i publish this even if I just want to play more trails.

FND is becoming less and less of something I actively think about now that I’m getting closer to 2 weeks out.

I’m only getting minor symptoms now when I’m under stress.

I may space out some of these journals a bit to when there are larger symptom related changes since I’m sure you guys don’t want to read the journal of a middle aged game developer who is just going to work and hanging out with his family.

Today was a pretty slow day. I needed that after last week.

I woke up at about 6:45 and couldn’t get back to bed so I finished building that tank I started the other day. (See picture 1)

My family woke up around the time I finished it and we had breakfast.

Today was the end of the summer reading club at the library and my daughter had to go and collect her medal. (Picture 2 and 3)

It was pretty busy and I started to feel a bit weird. (Mostly weak legs)

On my way out I ran into a friend from the industry and we talked for a few minutes.

We go to the cafe and have some breakfast (the noise is really bothering me so I try and get my wife to leave but she doesn’t want to for some reason, so I sit outside for a bit and wait for them)

Once they are done reading books in the cafe we go down to C and L it’s a massive warehouse full of mangas and movies. (Pic 3 and 4)

I buy a shitload of one piece comics I think I got like 15 of them or something… I’m totally hooked.

We go for a walk by the river after and my wife is doodling behind at a snails pace and my daughter is bolting ahead. I try and keep up with my kid so she doesn’t get to far out sight. I’m calling at her to stop and come back but she’s not listening, eventually I just stop and wait for my wife, she takes like 2 minutes to catch up to us and she starts yelling at our daughter to come back.
Daughter just isn’t having it and won’t come back and keeps running ahead, i finally catch up to her and get down low and tell her she can’t run off like that, blah blah blah.
We stop and sit for a bit since my wife is in a pretty grouchy mood at this point. I ask her what’s up and she said she is “annoyed that she has to always make accommodations for me”

I ask her “ what are you talking about”

We get into a bit of a fight, she doesn’t seem to think I’m doing enough to try and recover, and that I should already be in CBT.

At this point my symptoms are coming back pretty bad because I’m so pissed off. Mostly just my legs feel weak. And I’m getting a headache…

We get back to the car and she says she needs some time to her self so drives me and daughter home and I read her some books and build some models with her, eventually she gets bored of that and we play some more trails into the sky on ps5

Wife gets home and orders pizza.

I play trails and do dad shit for the rest of the night.

My head is still pounding, I guess recovery isn’t always linear though…

Slept in today.

My alarm woke me up around 8:30.

Had my morning bath, I’m stiff AF from playing basketball yesterday, might have overdone it a bit.

Make an Americano and start working at home. Not feeling it right away, but I get into a flow eventually.

Work until noon and then I walked down to the retro game store about a 4km round trip. (See photos 1 and 2)

Chat with the guy who works there for a bit, eventually I buy trails in the sky on ps5 and head back home.

Get a mozza burger from a&w and a Yerba mate from the grocery store.

I finish walking home and I’m feeling the heat in a big way.

Make it back home and work until like 530.

My wife and kid get home from work and daycare. We all lay in the bed and play the game I bought earlier in the day. (See photo 3)
I have a projector mounted on my roof in my room instead of a tv.

We all take my daughter to her swimming lesson and opt to try and swim too while she’s in lessons.

At this point I’m starting to have FND symptoms. I think it’s the crowd setting me off, my legs are cramping up and my feet feel weird when I walk. I’m not limping or anything, it just feels… weird.

I go sit in the hot tub instead of trying to swim laps.

We all leave the pool and go to get diner around 7 or so.

End up at my favourite greek place and have a pretty long sit down dinner, at this point I’m totally bagged.(see last few pictures)

Tomorrow is going to be a bit more chill. We got the summer reading club wrap up party for my kid and then I’m going to go and buy a bunch more one piece books. It’s become the highlight of my day reading about luffy and his crew. Im on Arlong Park for those of you who have already read or watched it.

Gotta put daughter to bed here in a few and then I’m going to sleep like a corpse.

Until next time.

It’s almost 10, I got a cold bottle of San pelle so it must be time for the journal:

Wake up early, pretty tired, kinda slept like shit.

Drink a can of redbull in the bath and don’t eat breakfast, breakfast of champions.

Legs are good just stiff from all the running around the other day. Maybe like 13 percent numb on the right side

Maids came today so I had to tidy up the house before work.

Walk to the station (see picture)

Try reading one piece on the train but my hand doesn’t want to turn pages, I stop reading manga and opt to try to meditate on the train and see if can get focus of my gimpy hand.

Get to work a half hour early,
Pretty normal day, hand is working fine by this point.

Lunch break comes and i go play basketball.
It wasn’t bad; I didn’t even think about FND at all, I was to busy trying to play basketball. I’m awful at it but it’s because I’m inexperienced kinda short, fat and middle aged. (See picture)

Played about 3/5ths of the game and spent the rest of it subbing out.

Rest of the day at work is largely uneventful, left at 6.

Read one piece on the train ride home, it’s getting good but I’m not going to spoil it for you guys here.

Got home and my daughter and wife made grill cheese, ate that and then me and my daughter had one of those icees we got yesterday. (See picture)

There is a music festival thing in the playground a few blocks from our house so all 3 of us go down to that.

We get to the park:
By this point my daughter is all jacked up on slush puppie and is running around and dancing to the music. (See picture)

The singer keeps asking people to make requests but nobody is doing it, so my daughter asks her to play “let it go”

The singer does it and daughter is pumped.

We watch the rest of the show and walk back home through the forest path, daughter wants to pick blackberries and then race me home. I let her win :p

Get home and have a bath with my daughter, wash her hair.

Teach her how to make “towel dress”

Now I’m collapsed in bed writing my journal, I’m bagged, I bet I sleep well tonight.

Going to work from home tomorrow, probably do a little hike at lunch and sleep in.

I’m continuing to make progress against FND but I do have some scary moments throughout the day, (going blind for a second, or my hand deciding to fall asleep on me.

If my kid falls asleep soon maybe me and my wife can get in an episode of x files before bed.

Woke up today, got up early, walking wasn’t an issue.

Get my daughter up, she’s in a pretty good mood we play with stuffies for a bit before my wife takes her to daycare.

Walk to the train minor leg cramps but at this point idgaf, it’s just how it is.

Read one piece on the train (see first picture)

Get there about 40 mins early, another animator JJ was having some technical problems so I try and sort it out with him for an hour and then work until lunch.

Lunch was weird, kinda wandered around downtown in a fugue state, I eventually ended up at indigo and bought Kingdom # 1, I’m trying to take breaks but I don’t really feel hungry and I don’t have anywhere to go, but if I stay in the studio I just work through lunch.

While walking back to the studio I went blind for a few seconds. Nothing new but it’s kinda annoying.

Walking around downtown seems to set me off, I don’t think the crowds agree with me… it’s when I seem to have my worst symptoms.

I got a shitty iga sandwitch and worked for the rest of the day, mostly programming. brain fog was not much an issue, fixed a few bugs and left a bit early.

My friend JJ asked me “hey you gonna play basketball tomorrow?”

“Fuck it, why not, I’ll try”

He was surprised, so was I, I haven’t played in a year, and it’s a week today since I’ve been diagnosed.

Take the train home,

Think about my dad and get a bit weepy…

Got off at my stop and I’m going up the stairs, somebody is grabbing my backpack and kinda shaking it up and down, I turn around and see a friend from work DG with a big grin on his face.

We talk about work and stuff until we hit a fork where we both gotta split off.

I get home and my daughter is excited to see me and my wife is all contorted on the couch complaining about her back hurting.

I take my kid for a walk up to high gate so my wife can loaf for a bit and we go to the games workshop, I chat with my friends who are working and but her some lord of the rings model. (See attached picture)

We go to the grocery store and get a bunch of snacks, they have these like slush puppies things you put in the freezer. some of them blew up so they are all sticky but they basically just giving them away before the ants come. I got like 10 of em.
(See second picture)

Got home around 8 and had dinner.

Have a bath with my kid. She fills the tub up with freezing cold water so I get out after a while.

My sister in law calls my wife and says there is a ren fair coming to town, so we get some tickets to that.

After the bath me and daughter start building a model kit I had sitting around from the spring, it’s some chibi tank, I think I’m going to put sci-fi guns on it and use it for wargaming but I don’t know for sure. (See last picture)

She gets board of that and puts on a mermaid costume and asks me to play the keyboard so she can dance for a bit.

Now I’m sitting here drinking my Sanpellegrino and writing my journal, I’ll let you know how basketball goes tomorrow, I suspect it’s going to be a disaster but you gotta push your limits to learn your limits.

Until next time…

It’s 10pm, my daughter is going to bed and I got a cold glass of sanpellegrino, it must be that time again!

Woke up on time today.

Had a bath and watched some YouTube

Walked to the train. My legs were cramping pretty bad but I did the usual - ignored it and just kept walking.

Got a seat on the train and read dragon ball z the whole way (dragon ball z kicks ass)

Had a few meetings at work today, and got a bunch of stuff done, can’t go into specifics.

At lunch I walked up and down Granville street, had some pretty bad symptoms at this time, mostly eye stuff and confusion / depersonalizations.

Went to the comic store and bought one of those huge berserk tomes for myself and a comic for my kid.

Got an Italian sandwitch, I ate half and saved half for
My wife.

Did a meditation and worked the rest of the day.

Left work a half hour late - already slipping into my old habits …

Meditated on the train and limped home.

Had diner with the family and read my girl her new comic, it had way to much dialogue and had to bail half way through. My wife read the end to her

Gave my daughter a bath and then we read dragon ball z together.

Gotta do my nighttime meditation and then it’s bedtime.

Kind of a boring day, but honestly boring is kinda nice.

I suck at meditation, I am committed to improving but it’s super unnatural for me to just “do nothing”.

Does it get easier as you keep going?
Is it something one can even improve at ?

Photo of Mu because she always comes to meditate with me.

Back to work today,

I slept in, fuck it’s 10am I start work at 10am (at latest)

Get up to have a bath, the burning hot water helps my cramped up muscles, I have 2 a day.

Noticed I that I didn’t fall over when I got out of bed!

Start work,

Hand was cramping making work a bit difficult but I ignored it and just pushed through, it worked!

Got a short doctors telehealth appointment.

I tell her about my diagnosis, she tells me I need to start CBT asap. I book in with my friends councillor but he’s out of town until the end of the month.

Worked through lunch because I slept in so I wasn’t hungry and then took a break at 3 when I got what I was working on finished.

Took a walk.

Ran into my neighbour walking his dog and told him my crazy FND story, he told me that he had a similar episode when he was my age, no formal diagnosis but similar. He laughed and joked “I’m glad your just insane and not dieing”

We both laughed, he’s right.

I proceeded to walk to the shop at the edge of the park, I’m doing pretty good let’s see if i can push this and walk to the big stair case about 2km away.

I make it the 2km!
I push my luck.

I walk down the staircase (see attached picture) it’s around 100 steps.

I’m still doing ok by my vision is starting to tunnel. Ignore it.

“Fear is the mind killer” I think to myself

I proceed to walk about 3 more km up hill and off road.

Make it home and wrap up the work day when the family gets home from work / school.

Wife makes dinner and my kids throwing a fit, I give her a hug and it calms her down a bit

We all eat dinner.

Now I’m laying in bed watching rug rats reruns with my family and typing up this journal.

Going to have the second bath here soon and then maybe read the rest of one piece book 7.

I’m not “better” yet but I’m going to get better soon.

I refuse to give another inch, there are to many people that rely on me, both at home and at work.

(38m)Hey guys, what sort of FND compatible hobbies do you have, or how have you changed your approach to existing hobbies?

A lot of my hobbies involve a lot of dexterity.

My main hobbies are:

When not flaring up:

Miniature painting

C++ programming

Composing music

Hiking

Going out with my daughter

When flaring up:

Reading manga

Playing video games usually with simple one stick controls (dynasty warriors mostly)

Shopping (retail therapy)

Watching the xfiles

Laying in my hammock in the park

Doomspiraling

Watching movies or reading books with my daughter

Wasting time on Reddit

What about you? What do you guys do for fun in your free time?

There is also a large mural on the ceiling but I didn’t take a photo of it because there were people sitting under it and I wanted to respect their privacy

Don’t really make music just scavenge around the city looking for stuff to hook together