Lazy weekend
Failure to use skills I don't have 'ruins' my weekend in the best way
Recently, I went on a bit of a rant on Mastodon about a problem in our culture about blaming people who lack certain resources for their lack of having those resources. Victim blaming. It’s all over everything in western culture.
The two examples I used were getting sufficient sleep1 and coping skills/strategies2.
I don’t know how clear it was from my toots but I wasn’t coping well when I wrote it. I did end up finding some resources but I was so overwhelmed by the point I did that I was too livid to get very far with the very poorly organized mess.
Stuff like this is why I share my Resources file. Some times information is just too hard to find. No matter how hard you search3. Maybe some folks out there are looking for answers to the handful of un-searchable questions I’ve already gotten some kind of information about.
I’m doing a bit better today but I didn’t get any weekend chores done yesterday since I wore myself out. I planned an actual light-chore day for today and I guess that’s going well. I have to keep reminding myself this is good. A lazy weekend isn’t a failure.
It’s absolutely necessary.
- Sleep summary: Doctors, scientists, journalists, and other ne’er-do-wells who try to get us to live life “healthily” say we should get 7-9 hours of sleep a night. They also say if we don’t, we raise our risk for diabetes and a bunch of other things. But they also say sleep medicine doesn’t give you real sleep (among a long list of things that don’t give you real sleep). If you follow what amounts to the practical part of their advice, you’re still not guaranteed (or even particularly likely) to get sufficient sleep. And somehow it’s still our fault for not getting enough sleep. [return]
- Coping skills/strategies: In articles about dealing with stress, depression, or anything else, the writers often tell us to “use your coping skills.” But this isn’t something that comes baked in. It’s not taught by most parents (who probably don’t know healthy coping skills either) and it’s not taught in most schools. Telling us to “use (our) coping skills” is a huge blamey cop-out. The situation isn’t much better when you try to research it and get some on your own. The advice is either not practical (i.e. you can’t follow those instructions because they lack basic detail), not true (i.e. written by someone who is pushing an agenda which is more important to them than conveying meaningful instructions), or so difficult to access it may as well not exist. But failure to have coping skills/strategies is somehow still our fault. [return]
- While writing this piece, I dredged up a piece I wrote on Conflict Management previously, updated it, and published it in my Resources file. I’m not good at Conflict Management—yet?—but I have some resources and I’m happy to share them. [return]