Sunday, December 19, 2010

Loss of Routine

So I am staying at my parents place until after the new year and I have been here one night and I am already ready to go home.

Dont get me wrong I love my Mum and step dad, they are good people. And my Mum tries to be supportive as she can of the DID but she doesnt completely get it. But she tries and she has been getting better. But my mum's house if full of clutter - piled high along hallways and in every room. There is no escaping it. I find that makes me stressed, my parents also live in a small country town where unless you drive at least 30mins there is no where to go. I dont have a license so I cant go for a drive and get a way for a while.

I also just cant keep my own routine here, my parents live differently, eat differently and generally their lifestyle choices are rather different. Its hard getting up in the morning and not having my usual choices available for breakfast. Or have all my tea things (sugar, kettle, mug, teaspoons) all set up in the corner ready for me to make my tea in the morning so I can function. These are small things but I find myself more stressed, more tired and just generally more unhappy. I love my parents and I cant explain it to them without upsetting my mum so I just live with it.

Routine and familiarity can be really important in making people feel more safe and less stressed. Our routines are what make things "normal" for us, provide us with a familiar base to work with every day. For me, my routines make functioning in the outside world easier. They help ground me after a bad night, and when I was really struggling with depression they helped me keep going because I didnt have to think I just followed what I knew.

5 comments:

castorgirl said...

I'm sorry that your routine has been disturbed. Are you able to create a routine or safe zone within your room? Sometimes I find this helps me cope, even if it's small reminders of my old routines - like playing a game on my phone, or any of those other portable coping/grounding skills.

I hope you can find a consistent sense of safety soon.

Take care,
CG

Bee said...

Loss of a routine is especially hard. It is the reason why I don't take very many road trips to stay with friends because it means I have to be in a different place without my daily routines.

Try as best you can to do your routines and the things you can't do at your parents house, try to visually do them in your mind. I find it helps me, maybe it will work for you too?

(((hugs)))

MultipleMe said...

Thank you for the well wishes, suggestions and hugs.

While my day to day routines are not really possible in parents house I have found that I still have my rountines when I sit in front of my laptop. Checking Emails, blogs, comics, facebook, replying and posting on my blog. They are simple things but they are familiar and my laptop is the same even if the location is different.

I also have games that I or my littles can escape into while here - not wow but other offline games. I am sure we will cope, but it was good to get it out here.

Paul from Mind Parts said...

I totally react (badly) to loss of routine. And the clutter thing! My wife cleaned out our spare bedroom (which was filled with "stuff" to make room for my mother-in-law's visit. And now the stuff is all over our bedroom and driving me crazy!

It's very good that your Mum is making an effort to understand what you go through. That is great. Are you able to talk openly about things?

MultiMe said...

We have certain routines that are practically sacred to us, and others we can do without. When I get up in the morning, no matter who's out, we follow the same routine of bathroom and brushing teeth and dressing in the same order. These are things that I can usually do the same way even when I'm not home. It makes us very tense and twitchy when the routines are broken, though.

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