• 08 Nov, 2025 *

Today has been a productive day! I woke up naturally early on a weekend day and make the morning my baby-back bitch. I cleaned around the house, brushed my hair and teeth, and even took a nice, hot shower so my hair would look nice for plans tonight. I even made cinnamon rolls for breakfast! Then I decided it’s time to make a new blog post.

It’s been about... oh god, half a year since I posted my initial weed moderation system. I thought it might be fun to give an update on how poorly or how well this has worked for me having consistent progress on my long-term projects as well as how those projects and priorities have changed or developed over the months.

I’m sure it’ll come as no shock to hear that the system flushed out a bit further since its inception. Instead of 3 sections, now there’s 4. The first 3 remained the same: lesson, practice, and long-term project progress. The new category was added to round out a segment for each of my personal goals: self-care.

What even is self-care in practice? I don’t think it’s a cut and dry answer, I think each person has to understand what their own personal version is. For an introvert, it might be turning down plans to recharge with a nice solo night home. For a new parent, maybe it’s getting someone to take the kid(s) to the park or lunch so they can have a long bath that isn’t interrupted. Even things like a trip to a coffee shop, a walk around a scenic lake, or finding a fun little trinket to celebrate a small victory can give you that silver lining needed to help change your outlook on life.

But self-care shouldn’t be saved as some last ditch effort to keep your sanity. Self-care should be an ever-present factor that weighs in on all major decisions you make, even some minor ones. I’m not in my fucking 20s anymore, man. I’ve had some big health scares and complications come up. I wish more than anything that I’d have taken my health more seriously when I was younger, but all I can do now is take the time to be kind to myself and my body going forward. I can’t undo any damage, but I can mitigate how often bad things happen from here.

For my board, self-care is a catch-all category that has things I should be doing that are good for my body. Taking a walk. Doing a workout. Eating healthy, or at least cooking the meal instead of buying something out all the time. Things I don’t usually take the time to do but really should. To help me find time for these things, I even have it weighted a little. No other category can account for more than 1 check per day, but I can tick off two if I cook and go on a walk. At the end of the day, I won’t be able to accomplish the things I want creatively if I don’t stay healthy enough to follow through.

I also added a few “contingencies” that give me a little wiggle room to relax when time is limited and life forces my hand. Maybe I have to run an errand alone (a thing I hate doing most of the time). Well, that’s a chunk of time that I now can’t dedicate to art or writing. But what’s the alternative of me not going, no food for humans or cats in the house? I run out of my medication and get stuck raw-dogging life again? I’m the only driver in our home, so if I’m not handling these necessities then they’ll never be done.

Beyond that, what about if I’m not feeling good? I’m not talking a cold or something, what if I’m in a Crohn’s flare up? Stress is how you get into one, and eliminating those factors is the fastest way out. Rather than keeping the pressure high to relax, I get a single check. I even have this same kind of safety net for my period since they’re a Bad Time for me (and those around me if it’s a rough enough one). Life is too short and difficult to not give myself a little help when I’m already struggling.

Now, you may be thinking, “Wow, that’s a lot of info and changes. Has it led to you actually making more progress on your projects?” And the answer to that is yes!~

... Well, I’ve at least made some progress.

Sometimes I get on my ass about the fact that my progress hasn’t been more dramatic with my system. But the honest to goodness truth of the matter is that I’ve been in a flare up for about four months that I’ve just crawled out of, and I did a lot of the bare minimum during those times so I could just take the edge off the crampy, shitty situation I was stuck in. This year in general has been Hard for a lot of us, but I’ll save that rant for another time.

That doesn’t mean everything was a wash! I did a lot of behind-the-scenes work on Nightcap, flushing out ideas for the overarching story and art. I got a bit further in Observation as well, adding context to explain the system of magic, finding the motivations for each character, and even progressing the story to the tune of a whopping 36.6k currently drafted! Not insane progress by any stretch, but forward momentum isn’t usually constant if it’s sustainable for me.

I’ve even kept up with my art! I don’t have any screenshots on hand, but I’ve continued practicing my gestures and plan to finally move onto the next lesson this coming week. I’ve even started another class that’s about character art specifically, one that reminds you that you can be realistic but if it’s not believable, then it won’t win anyone over. It was something I needed to hear to get out of my own head about my art needing to be a perfect recreation of its reference.

With all the changes and progress, I think the biggest change has been in myself as a person.

For those that don’t know me personally, I’m very upbeat and outgoing. Some would even go as far as to call me “hyper” in some contexts. I personally refer to myself a golden retriever of a human (and have yet to receive any pushback on that claim). In high school, I was the kid behind the camera that documented the hangs while still adding to the energy. In college, I was always out late hanging with friends and causing chaos.

The other side of the coin that makes up me is someone who’s quiet, reserved. Even shy, to an extent. I feel like for years I’ve been this mode by default, having to manually switch on my more personable persona when we go out for a special occasion. I’m sure a lot of my long-term friends have noticed the energy drop off, but I’m a master deflector when the question of how I’m doing comes up.

I attributed a lot of this to environmental factors for a while. Last year’s busy holiday season turned into this year starting with a friend staying at our (small) apartment for a couple months. That led into a slew of birthdays and some health problems my husband was dealing with boiling over. Then came the flare up. Then stayed the flare up. But now as a new holiday season rolls around and I’m feeling more like my old self, I’ve come to realize that those didn’t cause the problem. Sure, they exasperated it. But the cause was far more simple.

I... Well, I just didn’t like me. I didn’t like who I was as a person.

The thing is, it’s not like that was a new discovery. I really hadn’t ever thought much of myself. I lived my life critiquing my every action and thought, trying to improve myself constantly and in every facet of my life. I analyzed my performance after every sports game to find out what I needed to focus on at practice that week. I chastised myself for every incorrect answer on every homework and test. It was exhausting.

“I wish I hadn’t given up sports, I miss being active and playing on a competitive team.” “I wish I had stuck with art when I was younger, imagine how much further I’d be in my journey.” “I wish I’d tried to work through my stage fright, I could’ve auditioned for a play or musical in high school.”

During periods of vulnerability, these thoughts even fell into more isolating sentiments. “Why don’t I have friends?” “Why don’t I have someone besides my husband to talk to?” These were usually easier to combat, but sometimes they got to me. Adulthood can feel really lonely. You don’t usually work with friends the way you’d go to class with them. Everyone’s free time isn’t perfectly aligned like during school, meaning coordinating a hang out is exponentially harder. Everyone has their own lives and significant others and schedules and even just remembering to find time to chat in texts or a call can feel like an astronomical challenge.

I saw my life as a series of could’ve/would’ve/should’ve events that accumulated in me being a total and complete failure. I viewed the world as a glass that could never be full because it was always slowly draining. It would always be approaching empty, no matter how much water I added. Sure I was working on art now, but it’d probably never amount to anything. I was writing a book, but it’s not like it’d ever get published, let alone finished. The games were just pet projects that my husband and I wouldn’t complete.

You know what I did to combat this spiral? It may not be particularly exciting or inspiring, but the truth is that all I did was continue trudging forward. I used my system to force myself to make progress, even when it felt like a waste of time. I started drinking more water and practicing better portion control during my flare up (you know, because the less that goes in, the less comes back out). I even started going on the walks I’d been saying I was going to for months, mostly because my new PCP encouraged me by saying that doing any walks was better than none, even if it never became an everyday thing again. I even lost some weight in the healthiest way I could during such a bad flare up!

Well, in true me fashion, this post has gone off the rails. If you made it this far, holy shit.

I guess the TL;DR of this post is pretty straightforward. My system works so far! Maybe it doesn’t lead to as drastic of results as I want, but I think it’s a better plan to hone in it more and more over time than look for something new altogether. Earning my weed hasn’t caused me to cut back all that much or resulted in a completed project yet, but it’s certainly kept me moving on the things I want to do when I had little to no motivation to do so!

And at a certain point, even if I never complete any of these specific projects that I’m working on, that’s okay. I feel like myself in a way I never have before. I’m back to my old self, the self that I actually enjoyed being. But now I’m willing to let a picture be taken of me sometimes, and not just a selfie. I’m willing to swing and miss because I can finally find the fun in the attempt. I’m a version of me that can see the good, not just the bad again.

That glass may only be half full, but that’s just because I’m drinking more water now.

[#about me](https://mhmiller.bearblog.dev/blog/?q=about me) #adhd [#mental health](https://mhmiller.bearblog.dev/blog/?q=mental health)