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Covid/Lockdown accomplishments, have you used the time to your advantage?

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Mach123

MyPTSD Pro
I always have played the guitar. I used to beat on it lol. My wife said she used to hate listening to me because I was beating on it which I passed through and I "let myself" play it. I doubt if I'll ever play it in front of anyone? Stage fright. During lockdown however I got an idea I wanted to take the time and play it which I have. Right now 2 hours continuous "practice" which I don't even really know what that means since I'm in charge, is nothing. Not only that, I like it. Can i say that? I'm accomplishing something, more than playing a video game for instance which I gave up so I could play my instrument instead, and I like it. Naturally I feel guilty. Doing anything you want to do and be good at for me is all or nothing because if I let anything else interfere, I won't do it. But I'm in love. I play it and I really give myself to it. My wife says she doesn't mind hearing me play it anymore and other compliments, not always, but often enough. I like to play it in the third person meaning I like people to listen when I'm in the other room so I'm not really an active participant, like background or elevator music. Anyway I decided once we locked down I was going to study the modes of the major scale and i did it. I am working on "shred" and I need an electric guitar to do that really but I'm doing it anyway on the acoustic because I "just do it and it plays itself". I'm the vehicle, that's all. Whatever i can play is because the guitar lets me or it taught me. But I gave it my time during lockdown and It's payed off. : )

In spite of it all, has it resulted in anything good? If not I hope it will.
 
Growing and preserving more herbs, "weeds", fruits, and veggies and learning more about the herbal/plant/mushroom world via online mentoring and such. So much is so freely accessible and I used to pay it no mind, until I was left without much of a choice.

It's stuff I already grew to love and actively did after a drastic health intervention and past hellish allopathic methods/experiences pointed me in that direction, but I'm much more invested now that I feel it's more important than ever to be able to grow and safely identify edible and medicinal plants and such.

Every time I think I already know something, I discover there's so much more to know. I stay fascinated and grateful, too, because I used to not be able to keep houseplants or a cactus alive, but now I keep amazing myself. Paying it forward when we have an abundance is one of the biggest highs I get from it.
 
I taught myself the modes of the major scale. I developed my own method or one I have not seen yet. I set out to memorize the patterns which is kinda the wrong way but it reversed engineered itself with practice and I just “got” them inadvertently, by ear.

If I had used the patterns and started with the roots, that would have been the correct way, but my learning is backwards/ visual, almost dyslexic.

But the roots came out in the sounds and during the week this week I just started playing from the roots because I “heard” that that’s what I’d been trying to do.

My playing is all like that, I hear the beginnings of something and I just keep practicing and it takes forever, but then I’m like “ oh, that was what I was trying to do. I just didn’t know it till now.

I’ve been working on a strumming rhythm that’s quiet complex and I found a ragtime pianist doing a piece on YouTube and I was like that’s it, I’m trying to play ragtime piano on the guitar.
 
I am cutting my own hair. I’m not sure it’s a really great idea because I’m not really sure how it looks. I think it looks good. ?

How I look is a monstrous trigger but it’s gotten less which is a benefit of age. I’m not saying I don’t care, but I certainly don’t care as much.

I always hated the haircuts I got and they never did what I wanted and it was getting to the point I was having to restrain myself from yelling at them and I hate barber shops and I hate having to get new people to do it. I’m not difficult or anything. : )
I also don’t have to say, my hair is thinning right there, or I have a cow lick back there so be careful, or can you fix it, which they would ignore anyway. Now I can just fix it myself. I was having to go home and fix it half the time anyway.

So we got locked down and you couldn’t get a haircut so that was the excuse I needed to get rid of something I really didn’t like at all and for now I’m getting away with it.
 
I learned to finger pick thumb, third, second first on guitar. I thought I was getting pretty good at fingerpicking but I was waiting for it to “turn into something “. I had a little bit of a hard time because I have not learned much in guitar by forcing it. The technique shock is basic finger style for classical guitar requires doing it in the proper order. I have to do things like that by not thinking about it. It was hard because no matter what you are doing with the fretboard hand , the picking hand plays the same pattern. There are a lot of variations but once you get the basic movement the rest comes naturally and with the rhythm in particular.

But it’s really exciting for me because it’s taken a direction of its own and it’s great to be learning new stuff just by discovering it. I found a YouTube channel because I had put the time in on the modes of the major scale and I was searching for techniques related to that and I doubt I’d have done any of it if we hadn’t been locked in the house for three months.
 
Great post! Thank you.

I double up my therapy since I saved time on transit. and since socializing has been compromised, I played enough tennis to last me life time...
 
I've done quite a bit since March when I quit my job. The job I had lined up fell through, so I've been unemployed since. I spent nearly every day all day with my cats, who were both sick. One died in June and one just a couple of weeks ago. I was so grateful for the time.

I've begun to establish my own proofreading and editing business and have started taking clients in my animal business. Since I am now without cats, I am working very hard to get everything cleaned so I can adopt two new ones. I also, just today, sent in an application to add bird feeders in the back - if approved, it will be the first time I've ever been able to have feeders!
 
I got an ESL teaching certification and a nonprofit fundamentals certificate, I completely rebuilt a 13.5' slide-out on our park model, I perfected my resume, I coated our roof, I moved us from Santa Fe to here on my own, I started PT again and finally feel like I am making progress, I started and continue to do EMDR, I cut back to 300 mg of Lithium and just picked up my 150s (which is the lowest dose they make) so I can finally be done with that, I sealed our little spot of wood floor, I painted part of our bathroom, I moved 3 times total - from Portland to small-town NM to Santa Fe to small town NM, I started driving again and don't freak out about it, anymore, I started volunteering in grant writing again, I created an online writing portfolio, and I started looking for remote work. And oddly enough, I feel like that's not even half of it. It's not that I am oh-so-accomplished but I was in fast-forward for a while. The protests started in Portland 1,000 feet or so from our apartment and zoom-zoom kicked in. It is slowly letting me down right this moment.

My husband and I have gotten a lot out of this time. He's in his first year as a high school math teacher now and we ultimately relocated to an area we can afford to live in that isn't so anxiety-producing as downtown Portland became,
 
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