My Personal Challenges for 2022

 2022. It's crazy. 2021 felt like it went incredibly fast and yet felt like it took 5 years. The weirdness that comes from socially isolating and being forced to spending most of your time at home. This isn't something I am new to, thanks to all my illnesses, but I was starting to emerge from the last depressive episode. Plus usually my partner isn't home.

I've been working on learning what I actually enjoy doing since I began therapy and stopped repressing so much. I've gotten better at grounding which means I dissociate less. I still struggle with emotions, both understanding what I am feeling and being overwhelmed. I feel like I've made progress with slowly sifting through my hobbies and joys from before trauma therapy and learning what I truly enjoy.

Painting

I  know I definitely love being creative and painting is part of this. I want to try some mixed media painting, drawing and sketching before painting, and painting on different surfaces. I've decided I am going to attempt to do one painting project a month, but I don't want to be too ambitious in case my mental health interferes so I am aiming between 8 and 12 pieces for 2022

Reading

Last year I aimed for 22, thinking I could read at least read 2 a month until December, but it was more than I could handle. I get frustrated with reading because I used to read up to 100 books a year, but I'm aware most of that might have been as a coping mechanism to disconnect from reality. I realised by the end of 2021 I have read a great many books, but some I've breezed through and haven't really read them. I also learnt last year I do love books. I'm excited to read some days and other days couldn't care less. I'm in an in-between place with reading. Last year I read 8. This year I am going to aim for 10 books for 2022 and see how I go.

Crochet

In 2021 I really committed to finishing projects and I did surprisingly well. Surprising to me anyway. I didn't have much faith in myself to actually stick to something and finish it so crochet for me was a big deal. In 2021 I aimed for 8 and finished 17 projects. 17! I'm not crocheting much at to moment because of life, but I feel confident enough to aim for 12 crochet projects in 2022.

 Projects 

Besides the above I am going to be doing some projects around the house and gardening. I'm keeping this open because I have some ideas of what I want to do, but may or may not do them. I might blog about them... One thing is creative, but also falls into gardening. We'll see. I just want to do more with my days, but I don't think I'm ready to commit to more responsibilities yet with triggers and flashbacks still being present. So obviously going to be doing more therapy in 2022 including much more EMDR.