CPTSD/ADHD Life Reset: December Routine Rebuild

How I’m Building Structure From None

It’s time face it- I’ve spent years frozen and stuck in a rut. Today, I’m creating a plan that works with my mental health instead of triggering it.

How do you commit to a long term goal when sometimes, your mental health takes all of your good intentions and crushes them?

I’m in the process of planning a year of growth that has three major commitments- I’m trying to earn a bachelors degree at an accelerated pace, lose weight and improve my overall health and also get my online presence off the ground, all at the same time!

I know that if I am going to succeed, I need to come up with a plan for how I am going to structure my time, but there’s a catch- I struggle with several mental health disorders that make it really hard for me to stick to a plan. My particular blend of CPTSD, ADHD, major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder is enough to make anyone feel paralyzed.

Today, I’m going to be sharing a deep analysis of my own behavioral patterns, and how I plan to work with myself, and not against- so that I can see my goals through without quitting, because, due to my mental health struggles, I often tend to wind up in a dark place and spend that kind of time very frozen, doing nothing beneficial for myself.

I tend to wall myself off my in my mind and disassociate from my reality, and this can last for any amount of time from minutes to months- really overall, years of my life have been spent this way.

I know myself- despite my best intentions, dark days are going to return, and when they do, I am going to need to be prepared to push through because I am finally in a situation that I cannotquit on.

It’s my hope that by having an arsenal of rituals and routines to counteract my usual fall into a rut, I will be able to stay the course and make it through.

***

So first, let’s take a look at my existing rut behaviors- these are the things I want to overcome, eliminate if I can, but really, this year I want to choose the self-compassionate path and so even though these things are on the negative side- they are a steady aspect of my being. I am probably not going to be able to just eliminate them. Instead, I want to find a way to honor the needs that these compulsions represent.

So, the rut states that I want to overcome: depressive freeze, anxious binge eating and social distress.

Depressive freeze- this is when I am in, what I call, “the dark place.” I am hurting deeply, probably overcome by CPTSD flashbacks and all of the accompanying emotions, and feeling highly stressed and overstimulated. When this is going on, my coping mechanism is to withdraw and isolate. I often spend the entire day lying on the couch, scrolling Reddit.

When I’m like this, I don’t want to talk to anyone, and I am not doing anything constructive beyond the bare minimum to keep my kids fed and transported to school. This could last a day to weeks, I often cycle in and out of this state spending an average of a week to ten days this way each month.

Obviously, this would be a huge problem with managing commitments, and so I need to get a grasp on this so I can make it through my BA program and be consistent with this channel.

Two, anxious binging. The other side of my mental health coin is a manic and anxious state. When I am like this, my stress gets funneled through binge eating. Generally, if I am truly in a depressive state, I will lean towards going without food. But when anxiety is prevailing, or if I am trying to suppress my feelings so that I don’t wind up in the depressive state, the binging crops up.

This makes sustaining weight loss very hard and is the reason that my weight has swung wildly and drastically for my whole life. With a goal of getting my fitness and weight under control in the year to come, obviously this is something that I need to harness.

And finally, social distress. Nothing in my life sends me more into one of those two states than when I am embroiled in some kind of social battle. And ultimately, it doesn’t take much, because I am so attuned to aggression due to my CPTSD, even sometimes just hearing my daughters battling over toys in their room can send me into a spiral.

But especially, my marriage tends to be a major source of my social distress. Obviously I live with my husband and so having to share space with someone that I feel uncomfortable or upset with is distressing and is a challenge to navigate.

***

So those are the things I need to overcome and they are pretty major- so what am I going to do in order to utilize rituals and routines to combat them, and what is the difference between rituals and routines anyway?

Let’s address that first- routines are our (hopefully beneficial) daily, repetitive behaviors that we do without much thought. Creating new ones is the hard part, but once they are well-established, these are the things we tend to do on autopilot, like brushing our teeth before bed or making our daily meals.

We tend to go through a pretty similar circuit of behaviors on most days, and the actions that are done consistently are what we can consider our routine behavior.

Rituals, on the other hand, are actions carried out with focus, intention and a bit of reverence. These can be either positive or negative, we can have self-destructive rituals, but these are the things in life that tend to have a bit of ceremony attached to them.

We can even turn our routine behaviors into rituals by becoming more conscious within them, like by thinking affirmations about self-love while doing skincare, or by focusing on the warmth and aroma instead of rushing through the process when making a pot of tea.

For me, routines tend to be a hard thing to cultivate. I have a real personal distaste to the feeling of being controlled or limited, even by myself, and so I generally buck against any forced structures in my life.

So, knowing this and trying to work with myself, I need to tread lightly and gently with myself, and honor who I actually am and not try to create a minute by minute daily schedule that I will abandon before day one is even completed.

Instead, this year I am using the rule of threes- I have three major goals, I have identified three major areas of challenge that keep reoccurring in my life, those are my ruts- and so I am going to focus on three areas of importance to include in my daily life routine, and they are:

1. 20 minutes of walking, every single day. I have a treadmill, or I can go to a park, but every single day, required. With my tendency to fall into deep depressions that can last a long time and keep me very sedentary, this ensures that at the bare minimum I am getting 20 minutes of activity a day.

2. Document my eating, honestly. This is going to be a big one for me, because there is a lot of shame behind binge eating, but one of the places that I want to cultivate radical honesty with this project is surrounding my eating and so, I am going to be tracking all of my food with either video or photo journaling.

3. No weed until my daily goals have been completed. I have gone back and forth a lot, with the idea of trying to fully get sober in order to give this year my best focus, but I also know that eliminating a ten-plus year habit overnight is likely going to send me off the rails with my mental health. It is an act of kindness to create limitations but not rip away something that does help to manage my stress. Plus, whenever I am in scarcity mode with it, I use it chronically and anxiously, much more than my usual use- this gentle approach will give me the best chance of being able to step down or stop my use without it being traumatic.

And so those three things, as consistent parts of my daily routine, are going to help set me up for success through 2026 and beyond. Once they are mastered and automatic behaviors, maybe I would try to add more, but this is reasonable and doable for me, challenging but not unrealistic.

***

And what about rituals? Rituals are behaviors that can ground us and make us feel connected to our humanity. Truthfully, when I am in dark states, I don’t tend to do anything ritualistically, except maybe my weed use but I need to get beyond that, and find some better additions.

So these are my three intended rituals for my year ahead, what makes sense for me.

1. Skincare affirmations: I do care a lot about my skin care. I use good products and I enjoy doing this every night before bed. I am going to add in the ritual of intentionally practicing self-kindness while doing this each night. While I am doing my skin care, I will think of nice things about myself. This might sound a little hokey, but I tend to have really horrible and cruel inner self-talk and just, very low self-esteem or self-value in general. Thinking nice thoughts about myself is a big step, believe me.

2. Beverage of choice: Lots of cultures put a lot of effort into making beverages, but for whatever reason, this is something I never take the time to do for myself. I tend to just drink water, maybe buy a chai latte once or twice a month, but I never take the time to make myself a cup of tea at home even though I do like it. And so, this simple act seems like a good addition to my life, a grounding moment added to each day where I stop to do something nice and soothing for myself.

3. Movement and expression: Something you will come to know about me as we go on is that I do really want to be a performer. This has been incredibly suppressed for much of my life for reasons we will discuss in the future, so subscribe. :) But I love to move my body, and when I am not in a depressive state, I like to do flexibility training, dancing, and I love to sing. These are things I currently only do privately, but I do someday want to become brave and empowered enough to perform in public, and that starts here.

And so that’s it: three ruts to modify, three routines to keep me on track and three rituals to keep me grounded and focused on my overall goal: to become the healed, healthy and most functional version of myself that I can be, and achieve the major goals I have set for the year to come.

I have some challenges against me but most of all, I have a huge sense of urgency and a sense of importance that I finally do this- finally see this through, and move into the type of future that I want to have.

2026 is going to be a pivotal and transformative year for me in so many ways, I already know this and I really hope you will stick around for the duration of my journey.

More than that, I would love to be the person that lights the spark that makes you feel ready to embark on your own. If this inspired you, please let me know, tell me what ruts, routines and rituals you want to create for the year ahead. Join me, and we can become the people we want to be, and help others along the way.