I failed the driving test in apparently one of the most common ways to do it: no major errors except that the engine died at an intersection and I got flustered and failed to restart it so many times that the test administrator had to gently coach me through even though we both knew I knew what to do. I was fully aware that I was releasing the clutch too fast, but I just could not slow down no matter how I tried. Until she gently and calmly told me when in her coaching voice, of course, and that worked right away.

We sat there three light cycles. It was like something out of a sitcom. The test administrator was very nice about it; and apart from the embarrassment, I don't feel that bad about it, and I think I'll be okay when I retake it in three weeks.

§§§

However.

It's very frustrating to be told that you just need to calm down or relax, as a person with anxiety disorders. I don't mean it's insensitive or anything, just that it's frustrating because I already knew that and have been trying very hard to, but it's not working very well, because there's nothing that does work very reliably that I can do.

I can't take a tranquilizer. I can't magically make myself extremely familiar with the entire context/place/situation/people. I can't exercise vigorously right before because it takes longer to travel to Turku than it does for endorphins to fade (and I'd have to have time to go home and shower and dress even before the hour commute). I can tell myself everything's going well and it's not an emergency and I should chill; I can tense up all my muscles and then release and do those breath patterns that help lower your heartbeat; and I can listen to music that I find comforting. That's really it. It's got limited effectiveness.

But importantly, the bus ride is already stressful enough for me to need to do those things much of the time because I have a severe perfume allergy and am hypersensitive to perfumes, and typically there is at least one (physically) irritating perfume experience in over 90% of bus rides that I take. It's not often possible to come out of one centered and relaxed and refreshed, even if I logically know that the risk of anaphylaxis was low!

Probably it would still be hard to relax without the bus trip, though.

I have been thinking about the ADHD struggle, and I decided I should buy the Barkley book on adult ADHD and also a copy of How To Keep House While Drowning; I added them to my cart at the online bookstore, then didn't order them because I didn't have the executive function to do that yet. I found some potential replacements for the charger of my laptop that just broke as well, but didn't manage to finish comparing them and decide.

Other stuff I need to do and have been unable to start includes:( Read more... )

I think a lot of what's blocking me from several of these things in the last month, anyway, is that they feel like projects that require planning and stamina, but so much of my bandwidth has been going to anxiety about the driving test (two days from now) that there wasn't space. This is extremely normal for me and obviously a fallacy, but I guess I've been feeling like the time until the test was mostly short enough that I should just try to minimize anxiety and worry about all the other stuff after. And I didn't want to take my adhd meds in between.

The plumber and the digger have left after tamping the dirt back down and pouring some new gravel where the car parks! The septic tanks have been removed and the separate rainwater drainage is in place!

The sewers from the tenant side do not empty into the tank under the garage anymore (that's still there though, but it shouldn't be able to give us any trouble unless we get like a month of flooding rains and a leak)!

It's all brown dirt and gray gravel again now, but here's a few pictures Wax took of the excavation earlier.


We have lost a few bushes and possibly some hostas, as well as a little flat cement pad that we didn't want, to the piles of dirt and digging. We will need to buy a few baby bushes (rhododendron maybe?) and a bunch of clover seed which hopefully might manage to outcompete the grass. And set the cement paver path back in place. All that has to be done during the autumn, before the frost, so... here's hoping. Also a city tree on the corner of the lot had a lot of its roots cut off and unfortunately a lot more on the other side last winter when the city dug up the street to fix the pipes. It's probably not gonna survive that, I guess.

I have been feeling full of anxiety and suspense when actually a lot of things are going well. This stupid open septic tank issue has been oppressing and terrifying us for a year. Monday and Tuesday are my last driving lessons and then I take the test (tons of anxiety) but my teacher and I agreed I've been doing pretty well. Wax and I have managed to cook together a bit more often, even.

On the plus side, plumbers are here digging up the yard to fix the drain to the sewer.

On the minus side, the plumber asked me if Wax was my mom. 😂😭But on the plus (?) side that was probably more embarrassing for him than for us? (I have gray in my hair! But apparently not visibly, at a glance.) (Wax also looks young for her age, but I guess her hair looks much grayer now.)

The tenant side drains will be cut off from tomorrow, so we have to clean the bathrooms tonight so they can use our bathrooms. And the giant pit that's being dug has eliminated the direct route from their door to ours, so they'll have to go the long way around the house to reach us. And we'll have to climb over the railings and jump down the side of the stairs to our door for a little while.

But obviously it's all worth it! Because ultimately it means working drains instead of open septic tanks with a pump in them.

And he came and spray painted on the ground! He says that the digger dude who was never returning his calls in the spring should be less busy right now. Idk, but I hope he's right.

We might not have to have the open septic tanks for another winter!!