#allaboutapril

Simple question, right?

Except… he suddenly got defensive. His tone changed. I could feel tension building, and I had no idea why. So I took a breath and asked, “Wait, what did you hear me say?”

He paused, thought about it, and said, “I thought you meant ‘Why aren’t you doing anything?’ Like you were mad I was being lazy.”

But that wasn’t what I meant at all. I’d genuinely just been curious.

And that moment reminded me how easily things can go sideways when we assume intent. Our brains, especially when we’ve had messy pasts, trauma, or relationship anxiety, tend to fill in the blanks with the worst possible meaning.

But that one question, “What did you hear me say?”, turned what could’ve been an argument into understanding.

It gave both of us a chance to clarify before our brains made up a story that wasn’t true. I was able to explain, and he was able to listen. Understanding what I meant changed his tension entirely.

Sometimes the fight isn’t about what was said. It’s about what was heard.

I don’t deny that. I don’t minimize it. But I am more than the things that happened to me.

My experiences have shaped parts of me, not shrunk me. They explain my responses without defining my limits. I am allowed to carry the impact without letting it reduce me to my pain.

I can acknowledge what I’ve survived while still getting to be me and it doesn't claim my future.

Like, you know you need to eat. You can feel it. But your body won’t switch into “go get food” mode. Not even for something simple like grabbing a granola bar. You just sit there stuck, frozen, and keep doing whatever else you’re doing instead.

It’s such a frustrating loop. You’re hungry, but you can’t move. You can’t move, but you’re getting hungrier. And you feel ridiculous because eating sounds so simple, but the executive dysfunction makes it feel impossible.

I don't know how many readers follow me... But...

I spent way too many hours making a reading challenge spreadsheet for myself, so I figured I'd share it in case anyone else thinks it sounds fun.

I wanted a reading challenge that would take me a really long time to finish. Like, realistically, probably years if I ever decide to go for full completion.

The idea started with a simple question:

What if an alphabet challenge wasn't just one book per letter?

Instead of reading one book for A and moving on, you can keep working on A by finding books with different cover colours.

Maybe your first A book has a red cover. Then later you find a blue one. Then a green one.

The challenge combines an alphabet challenge with a cover colour challenge. Every letter has 12 colour prompts, so you can keep working on a letter instead of immediately moving on to the next one. Or you can jump all around. Whatever you want! There are different achievements and 'tiers' so you can still get them even if you don't complete letters! I did make the rules a bit lax for the letter part to make it more reader friendly. It can come from the title or the author name.

You can play casually and just fill in a few colours here and there, or go completely overboard and try to complete every colour for every letter.

Naturally, I went completely overboard and built a spreadsheet for it.

The spreadsheet includes:

-Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum tiers for every letter -28 achievements (these will fill in automatically if you tick in the tracker) -Automatic progress tracking -Reading statistics -A book log -Achievement tracking

My favourite part is probably the achievement system. It gives the challenge a bit of a game-like feel and breaks things up with goals beyond simply filling in boxes.

I had a lot of fun putting this together, and I'm excited to start using it myself. If it sounds like your kind of thing, feel free to check it out!

Rainbow ABC's Challenge Spreadsheet

Feel free to come back to this post and share when you get achievements or tiers! I’d so love to cheer you on!

Also don’t hesitate to let me know if something doesn’t work! I did my best to test every formula but I could have missed something.

Screenshots below the read more.

I was talking about my anxiety and how I was always scared I’d say the wrong thing just by being myself.

And my friend said ‘you can’t say the wrong thing to the right people’.

What he said has really stuck with me and I feel like I might be able to let go and try and enjoy new friendships.

And instantly, my chest tightened. It felt like my stomach dropped. I assumed he didn’t want to be around me. That he was angry with me for some reason. My throat hurt because I instantly felt like crying but was trying not to in front of my mom.

It felt like rejection of me and our relationship.

But after sitting with it, I realized… that’s not what he actually said. My feeling it was rejection didn’t mean it was.

He said he wanted to get home because he was tired. My brain filled in the rest. The tone, the meaning, the imagined distance.

Sometimes, what we hear isn’t the same as what was said.

So now, when that happens, I try to pause and ask myself:

What did they actually say?

What did my brain add to it?

Is there a calmer way to check what they meant before assuming?

“Hey, I think my brain twisted that a bit. Can you clarify what you meant?” Or I might say “So, I know this isn’t probably what you meant, but this is what my brain heard. Can you tell me what you actually meant?”

(In this specific case, I said something like “Hey, I really know this isn’t what you meant but this is what I heard and I’m feeling really insecure. Can you reassure me?” )

And more often than not, their answer is something completely neutral. Not rejection, not anger. Just normal human stuff.

It’s not easy, but catching those moments before they spiral is part of the work.

You can be self-aware and still have feelings. You can notice your brain’s patterns and still need reassurance. It’s okay to still have those feelings, and need reassurance. But it helps me to remember that ‘this isn’t an emergency. I don’t need to act on these feelings right now.’ And with that, I can usually avoid my impulses and I can usually talk myself through the rest.

My book still hasn’t been published, mostly because I’m struggling with feelings of doubt. Like it’s not good enough to publish or just you know… all those negative things.

I’m still around, just having anxiety about posting or writing.