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It's been a long year for everyone. Major positive events were our trip to Auckland to see the Lion King and moving into our new house.
A significant negative event that I didn't post about here was the second arson at Antonio Hall, in November, which gutted the original house and left the entire site basically, finally, awaiting demolition. (After photos, and after the 2019 fire, two years on).
# Work / money / mental health
These things are so connected at the moment they get the same heading.
Although a lot of stress was lifted when we finally moved and expenses started to settle, financially things are still going to be touch and go over the next year, especially winter. The possibility of going into next Xmas facing a mortgagee sale hangs over me like an overweight spectre.
I got a small Xmas present in notice that my health insurance premiums are dropping significantly from January, but we'll need to shake things up more than that. There's still no chance of my getting a pay rise but the number of hours I am managing has picked up after winter / the move. I do usually do better in summer, but did not last year so it's a positive sign. I am still short of where I would like to be / we need us to be.
The other senior programmer at work is planning to leave in the new year, so I will have to pick up part of his workload at least while work finds a replacement or two. Partially in preparation for this and partly to clear the amount of off-the-clock (unpaid) stuff I just do going forward I'm actually going to be spending a lot of the "holidays" (officially on leave from 17th December to about the same time in January) brute forcing hours on one or more of our "low priority" projects so that I can maximise my paid time next year.
## Brute forcing
This came through facebook as a screen cap and it hit me hard. Original source https://lauramkaye.tumblr.com/post/186187407600/about-adhd, emphasis mine
This not only perfectly described the pattern of my life's crashes, I've also realised that in my life as it is now I am /always/ trying to brute force /something/. Most often work, but also housework or other commitments. And it's not sustainable, and the resultant exhaustion negatively affects how present I am able to be in our relationship (pick any relationship type/persons, but obviously D & I is the main one).
Unfortunately while I can try and avoid taking on new commitments (and have been for a while) I still have to complete the existing ones before I can reach some sort of balance. Hence taking "my" time over the break and turning it into "unpaid" work hours to clear some of those commitments in which I have too much of a personal stake to walk away. As D will grumpily attest, once I get into one of those projects I will hyper-focus, fall into the trap of "one more thing" and lose track of time....
Next time I am called into the Dr's for a review of my anti-depressants I'll also ask about the possibility of getting referred to be assessed for ADHD, in case there is a medication on that side I should be taking instead / as well.
## Self-reliance as a trauma response
D (bless her) often comes to me when I am down / flat / grumpy and asks what she can do to help. And I never have a good answer. I don't know what emotional support from another person looks like for me, I don't know what to ask for. All the things I used to /want/ another person to provide I've adapted to not-having so much that they don't even register as needs? possibilities? a thing to responded to in any way? any more. On average just having her in my life has led to dramatic improvement, but when asked for concrete ways she can continue to make my life easier specifics fail me. (She already does her physical limit of household duties so there is no room for taking any more of the weight there).
There's another motivational? self care? post/meme which has been going around this year about fierce (extreme/hyper/ultra) independence being a trauma response, and I'm wondering if this inability is a variant of that.
# Gaming
I've done very little gaming this year, and have given away or sold off most of my roleplaying library. We don't have the space (and the money was useful). The one semi-regular game I have been in is a round-robin DMing D&D 5 game that D, P and I are running for E and P's kids. I was in the DM seat, so not exactly playing. D is up next, assuming the game manages to find it's feet again in the new year.
I have been playing quite a bit of Path of Exile at the computer recently, but my character advancement has stalled in the low 80's. I have one character running maps (slowly working though the Conquerors of the Atlas and picking up voltaxic sulphite) and another delving. D & I occasionally play together, but we seem to stall out about Sarn.
# Family
D & I have been married nearly two years now. Not quite sure what to make of that. So much has changed so fast.
E has been with us for the entire school year and has blossomed. She's had a wider variety of opportunities here than she would have had at her old school and has made the most of them, even winning a national award. D is very proud. Many of E's rapidly acquired cohort of new friends will be progressing to the same secondary school next year.
The newest member of the family arrived just before Xmas, a daughter to my younger brother and his fiance.
# The world around
For NZ 2021 was the second year of COVID-19. I've been constantly frustrated by the commentators calling for certainty from the government in a constantly changing situation.
While acknowledging that the government's response has been good by international standards I'm nevertheless disappointed in many aspects, particularly around
- failure to effectively take the time our first hard lockdown in 2020 bought us to get our health system expanded / contact tracing up to the level it needed to be when Delta hit / immunisation under way sooner
- (not) targeting the vulnerable communities and finding ways to engage with them which are not the top-down authoritarian approach western governments are so fond of and which immediately alienate so many who have been on the pointy end of less well-meant policies in the past
- further that the government has continued to fail to use it's historical MMP-majority elected mandate and the pandemic circumstances which are highlighting /so many/ of the inequities and flaws in our social security net, to fix some of those inequalities. (The fixes are known. They've been highlighted in review after review. And they would cost less than is being thrown in support, on trust, at businesses who have just encountered their first real existential crisis, which should have been on their SWOT sheets anyway).
If our social security net was beefed up (and support directed to /people/ not institutions) those businesses would be able to fail safely without huge personal loss and the staff and resources they use could transfer more-or-less painlessly to new industries in the Covid world to come rather than pinning their hopes on the miracle which would be the world returning to a pre-covid state of affairs anywhen in the next decade.
Granted there is a massive readjustment of the health system underway at the super-administrative level which among other things will hopefully take out many of the issues caused by the layer of deniability the DHBs gave central government WRT funding. And I can only have faith that similarly large changes are being worked through in other areas. But I just can't see why the low-hanging fruit seems to be so politically unpalatable at a time when so many of the constituency are having to face up to the fact that "hey I might actually need that myself one day".
# Conclusion
I don't have any tidy wrap-up or hopeful words for the new year to go here. 2022 is shaping up to be another long year.
A significant negative event that I didn't post about here was the second arson at Antonio Hall, in November, which gutted the original house and left the entire site basically, finally, awaiting demolition. (After photos, and after the 2019 fire, two years on).
# Work / money / mental health
These things are so connected at the moment they get the same heading.
Although a lot of stress was lifted when we finally moved and expenses started to settle, financially things are still going to be touch and go over the next year, especially winter. The possibility of going into next Xmas facing a mortgagee sale hangs over me like an overweight spectre.
I got a small Xmas present in notice that my health insurance premiums are dropping significantly from January, but we'll need to shake things up more than that. There's still no chance of my getting a pay rise but the number of hours I am managing has picked up after winter / the move. I do usually do better in summer, but did not last year so it's a positive sign. I am still short of where I would like to be / we need us to be.
The other senior programmer at work is planning to leave in the new year, so I will have to pick up part of his workload at least while work finds a replacement or two. Partially in preparation for this and partly to clear the amount of off-the-clock (unpaid) stuff I just do going forward I'm actually going to be spending a lot of the "holidays" (officially on leave from 17th December to about the same time in January) brute forcing hours on one or more of our "low priority" projects so that I can maximise my paid time next year.
## Brute forcing
This came through facebook as a screen cap and it hit me hard. Original source https://lauramkaye.tumblr.com/post/186187407600/about-adhd, emphasis mine
Smart people can have ADHD. And a lot of the time, they compensate for the ADHD with intelligence- until they reach the point where they just can’t overcome it anymore, which is why a lot of gifted + ADHD people have good grades their whole lives and then “suddenly” crash and burn. For some it’s college, for some it’s grad school, for some it’s postgrad or professional exams like the bar. Whenever the things they have to do can no longer be brute-forced at the last minute.
ADHD is often lumped in with learning disabilities but it’s really a DOING disability. We know what we should do. Probably we know six ways to do it. The trouble is actually getting our brains to activate so we CAN do it. Sometimes it’s like you’re being controlled by aliens or something because you say “I need to do X” and you’re going to do it and you just. Don’t.
This not only perfectly described the pattern of my life's crashes, I've also realised that in my life as it is now I am /always/ trying to brute force /something/. Most often work, but also housework or other commitments. And it's not sustainable, and the resultant exhaustion negatively affects how present I am able to be in our relationship (pick any relationship type/persons, but obviously D & I is the main one).
Unfortunately while I can try and avoid taking on new commitments (and have been for a while) I still have to complete the existing ones before I can reach some sort of balance. Hence taking "my" time over the break and turning it into "unpaid" work hours to clear some of those commitments in which I have too much of a personal stake to walk away. As D will grumpily attest, once I get into one of those projects I will hyper-focus, fall into the trap of "one more thing" and lose track of time....
Next time I am called into the Dr's for a review of my anti-depressants I'll also ask about the possibility of getting referred to be assessed for ADHD, in case there is a medication on that side I should be taking instead / as well.
## Self-reliance as a trauma response
D (bless her) often comes to me when I am down / flat / grumpy and asks what she can do to help. And I never have a good answer. I don't know what emotional support from another person looks like for me, I don't know what to ask for. All the things I used to /want/ another person to provide I've adapted to not-having so much that they don't even register as needs? possibilities? a thing to responded to in any way? any more. On average just having her in my life has led to dramatic improvement, but when asked for concrete ways she can continue to make my life easier specifics fail me. (She already does her physical limit of household duties so there is no room for taking any more of the weight there).
There's another motivational? self care? post/meme which has been going around this year about fierce (extreme/hyper/ultra) independence being a trauma response, and I'm wondering if this inability is a variant of that.
# Gaming
I've done very little gaming this year, and have given away or sold off most of my roleplaying library. We don't have the space (and the money was useful). The one semi-regular game I have been in is a round-robin DMing D&D 5 game that D, P and I are running for E and P's kids. I was in the DM seat, so not exactly playing. D is up next, assuming the game manages to find it's feet again in the new year.
I have been playing quite a bit of Path of Exile at the computer recently, but my character advancement has stalled in the low 80's. I have one character running maps (slowly working though the Conquerors of the Atlas and picking up voltaxic sulphite) and another delving. D & I occasionally play together, but we seem to stall out about Sarn.
# Family
D & I have been married nearly two years now. Not quite sure what to make of that. So much has changed so fast.
E has been with us for the entire school year and has blossomed. She's had a wider variety of opportunities here than she would have had at her old school and has made the most of them, even winning a national award. D is very proud. Many of E's rapidly acquired cohort of new friends will be progressing to the same secondary school next year.
The newest member of the family arrived just before Xmas, a daughter to my younger brother and his fiance.
# The world around
For NZ 2021 was the second year of COVID-19. I've been constantly frustrated by the commentators calling for certainty from the government in a constantly changing situation.
While acknowledging that the government's response has been good by international standards I'm nevertheless disappointed in many aspects, particularly around
- failure to effectively take the time our first hard lockdown in 2020 bought us to get our health system expanded / contact tracing up to the level it needed to be when Delta hit / immunisation under way sooner
- (not) targeting the vulnerable communities and finding ways to engage with them which are not the top-down authoritarian approach western governments are so fond of and which immediately alienate so many who have been on the pointy end of less well-meant policies in the past
- further that the government has continued to fail to use it's historical MMP-majority elected mandate and the pandemic circumstances which are highlighting /so many/ of the inequities and flaws in our social security net, to fix some of those inequalities. (The fixes are known. They've been highlighted in review after review. And they would cost less than is being thrown in support, on trust, at businesses who have just encountered their first real existential crisis, which should have been on their SWOT sheets anyway).
If our social security net was beefed up (and support directed to /people/ not institutions) those businesses would be able to fail safely without huge personal loss and the staff and resources they use could transfer more-or-less painlessly to new industries in the Covid world to come rather than pinning their hopes on the miracle which would be the world returning to a pre-covid state of affairs anywhen in the next decade.
Granted there is a massive readjustment of the health system underway at the super-administrative level which among other things will hopefully take out many of the issues caused by the layer of deniability the DHBs gave central government WRT funding. And I can only have faith that similarly large changes are being worked through in other areas. But I just can't see why the low-hanging fruit seems to be so politically unpalatable at a time when so many of the constituency are having to face up to the fact that "hey I might actually need that myself one day".
# Conclusion
I don't have any tidy wrap-up or hopeful words for the new year to go here. 2022 is shaping up to be another long year.
Tags:
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- health,
- house,
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- life,
- link,
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