Overdoing it when i feel good.

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Does anyone else plan a ton of things when they are having good days?

I seem to do this a lot and end up regretting it and having to break plans and/or disassociate and forget half or all of it.

How can I prevent this? Or is it just life?

 

[Tornadic Thoughts]

Yep. I felt so f'n bad for so long that whenever I'm having good days now, I want to do ALL the things. I forget that everything that gives also takes and ultimately end right back up in a depressive/anxious/what-ifness ditch somewhere along my attempted path(s).

I still trip over my best intentions by over planning and over doing, so I'm afraid I have no specific solutions to offer, other than listen to your body and keep trying to find that perceived state of balance while remaining kind with your self-talk.

It feels so weird, also, to finally be feeling that much better yet still realize the depths of familiar despair are very much still within our reach. I think I've discovered it to just be life, pretty much.

 

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@Tornadic Thoughts

Thank you! Glad it’s not just me.

 

[ladee]

Oh it's not just you. I have had a very long run with good days.
If I pay attention to my body, that is my signal to stop. Just stop. Take out an hour or just rest, read, get caught. up here, etc. At the end of that hour if my body says we can keep going, I do, But put a time limit on myself and then stop for the day.
Don't know if this helps, but I hate it when I'm the one who sends myself into PTSD overload.
I understand wanting to take advantage of the good days.

 

[deeplyloved]

Definitely. Trying to find a steady balance of doing a little more on bad days and a little less on Good days.

 

[EveHarrington]

Pacing yourself is a must!

I overdo it a lot.

(FYI there are even people here who will tell you to push yourself at all costs. I keep running into them. I tell them all to go kick rocks as pacing myself is in my best interest. Pushing myself to the point of crashing is not healthy. But for some reason they think that pacing=excuses for staying sick. I personally think they have self-hatred that they are projecting on others.)

 

[Friday]

I've learned not to make future-plans* unless I'm consistently doing well.

Meaning no matter how much fun (or whatever) something sounds like now? In 4 hours it may well sound like hell & be an impossibility. So I need to focus on doing what I can, right now, as I can do so.

As I stabilize and I can generally predict how I'm going to be in a few hours, or a few days, or a few weeks... Then I start making plans. Tentative ones, but plans none-the-less.

* One of the things I've found is that when I'm in survival mode, regardless of my mood, I have a very strongly held belief that now=forever. If I feel f*cking miserable? It's going to be like this forever. If I feel f*cking amazing? Ditto. Both are lies born of living in the moment. Works great when there's an actual emergency, there is no past / no future, only now ; works bleeding terrible in normal life.

 

[Chem Lady]

I actually went down in work hours and am on part time disability so that I didn’t feel the need to push myself so hard if I have a good day. This way I just plug slowly along. I don’t do nearly as much as people without ptsd, but at least now I’m not only living two ways: completely exhausted or pushing myself super hard to get things done in a short window thereby exhausting myself. It can be a bit hard not to feel lazy, but overall I feel so much more even keeled.

 

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Thank you all so much for responding. You are all awesome and appreciated!