Here, everyday, you can find something to be happy about. This is not trivialising the anguish you might be in - simply taking a moment to reflect and relieve it.
Today's daily YAY!
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With this:
It's ok to not be ok.
Wednesday, 17 June 2015
The Everyday Yay!
Hello friends. We all need cheering on a daily basis - that's not something I just attribute to anxiety or depression or another mental illness. It's how we are. We need to support each other.
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Saturday, 13 June 2015
Write Now
I have a complicated relationship with writing.
Right now I'm trying to write a new short story and the trouble is, the trouble has always been, that it has to be bad before it comes good. This is why, for many years in the throes of depression I wrote diaries by the ton load, but I hated my own words. Sometimes I would scribble them out just so I wouldn't have to see them. Now it's the most useful thing, because I can look back and understand how I was feeling given my mental state. I don't feel angry at how poorly expressed my thoughts are, I feel sympathy for my younger self and sad that it took so long for me to get the help I needed.
Whoever you are and wherever you are, writing helps.
As for my story? Never confuse a single failure with a final defeat.
Right now I'm trying to write a new short story and the trouble is, the trouble has always been, that it has to be bad before it comes good. This is why, for many years in the throes of depression I wrote diaries by the ton load, but I hated my own words. Sometimes I would scribble them out just so I wouldn't have to see them. Now it's the most useful thing, because I can look back and understand how I was feeling given my mental state. I don't feel angry at how poorly expressed my thoughts are, I feel sympathy for my younger self and sad that it took so long for me to get the help I needed.
Whoever you are and wherever you are, writing helps.
As for my story? Never confuse a single failure with a final defeat.
Thursday, 11 June 2015
Coping: Joy Lists
Hello my friends,
The sun is shining here and it's a beautiful day. I wanted to share with you something that I find helps me when I'm not as smiley and when things are more difficult. I make lists of all the things that make me happy. Sometimes I write them down, sometimes I don't. What I have learnt through yoga is to think about the mind/body connection - how doing something with your body can have a positive impact on your brain. So now, when I'm down - and if I remember, I am only human - I try and do one of the things from my lists.
Currently, here are some of my joyous things:
Peace, happiness and smiles
Miss D
The sun is shining here and it's a beautiful day. I wanted to share with you something that I find helps me when I'm not as smiley and when things are more difficult. I make lists of all the things that make me happy. Sometimes I write them down, sometimes I don't. What I have learnt through yoga is to think about the mind/body connection - how doing something with your body can have a positive impact on your brain. So now, when I'm down - and if I remember, I am only human - I try and do one of the things from my lists.
Currently, here are some of my joyous things:
- Feeling the sunshine on your back as summer begins
- Laughing
- Singing to Banarama with my friend as we drive around
- Drinking Tea
- Falling out of yoga poses and getting back into them
- NPR All Songs Considered Podcasts
- Beer
- Reading (specifically 'The Bean Trees' by Barbara Kingsolver)
- Looking at pictures
Peace, happiness and smiles
Miss D
Monday, 8 June 2015
Why Yoga is it's Own Little Miracle
A year and a half ago, when I was going through what turned out to be the point in my life where I was finally diagnosed with depression, I started doing bikram yoga. I had tried another type of yoga before but I thought this one, undertaken in a forty degree heat would be more worth my while.
For a long time exercise was my way of coping, and at times became an obsession. I'd gotten tired of the cycle - going for a run, going to the gym, going to a class - it had all begun to bore me. Bikram was different.
Firstly there are mirrors. So you have to look at yourself, for 90 minutes of intense poses, working external and internal organs. You see every slouch of your shoulders, every slump of your thighs. Sounds awful? Probably, but it's not I promise you. You see what you are doing wrong and then you correct it. You go as far as you can then you breath. You don't push into pain. All of that helps. Just think about it - shouldn't we all be doing that with our minds too?
Now I do a lot more yoga at home, although I still do Bikram every week. I sleep better and I always feel better after I have given myself time for yoga. The video below is by awesome Adriene, who does wonderful, supportive sequences.
This is one I found particularly up-lifting. Namaste my friends x
For a long time exercise was my way of coping, and at times became an obsession. I'd gotten tired of the cycle - going for a run, going to the gym, going to a class - it had all begun to bore me. Bikram was different.
Firstly there are mirrors. So you have to look at yourself, for 90 minutes of intense poses, working external and internal organs. You see every slouch of your shoulders, every slump of your thighs. Sounds awful? Probably, but it's not I promise you. You see what you are doing wrong and then you correct it. You go as far as you can then you breath. You don't push into pain. All of that helps. Just think about it - shouldn't we all be doing that with our minds too?
Now I do a lot more yoga at home, although I still do Bikram every week. I sleep better and I always feel better after I have given myself time for yoga. The video below is by awesome Adriene, who does wonderful, supportive sequences.
This is one I found particularly up-lifting. Namaste my friends x
Sunday, 31 May 2015
The Best Advice I Can Give You
I was talking to someone a couple of days ago about mental health and anxiety. He was struggling with their current situation, which wasn't at all unhappy. The only thing I could say to him was this:
IT'S OK NOT TO BE OK
More than that, for the majority of the time it's just how we (those millions of people who live with mental health issues) are. The pressure to be happy in the life that you have - when nothing is technically wrong - can be crushing.
I lived with the question for more than a decade: "Why aren't I just happy?" I'd cry over it frequently, feeling like a failure because everything I had in live wasn't enough for me; feeling ungrateful because I had so much; feeling horribly confused because at times I could be so very happy, then the emptiness would come. As much as I wish I known my diagnosis and understood my symptoms sooner I suppose it's a part of me that made me stronger. I did fight through it. I still got up every day. I had an incredible job and incredible friends. In a way that almost made things harder: my symptoms weren't severe enough to really be noticed.
I suppose it might possible to fight your own way through depression alone, without acknowledgement or support, but it's a hell of a lot better not to.
It's ok to not be ok. Most of us aren't.
Friday, 29 May 2015
Hailstones
Today I drove home in a hailstorm. Thousands of tiny frozen particles ricocheted madly off my windscreen, like they were attacking me, attacking the ground, attacking people with a glacial force. Three hours later it's a gorgeous day again, you'd never know it happened. When I started thinking I wanted to write something here it came into my mind and I started to think about how my brain can act just like the weather, and kind of attack me when I least expect it. Now I suppose I'm more able to know when it's happening, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hit me with some force. When it used to happen I supposed it was just being a fucking horrible person. It manifested itself like that, a fault of my own, and that feeling didn't leave me for years and years.
Blaming yourself for the weather? That's just crazy.
What I'm Listening to Today: Damien Jurado, Reel to Reel Demos (Where Shall You Take Me) on vinyl, a really beautiful record by a genius who shows all of us struggle.
Sunday, 10 May 2015
The Lives of Others
Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes.
The truth is a powerful thing.
The thing I have found most startling since I started actually talking about my own mental health is how it almost always leads to somebody telling me something similar, or something worse, about a relative or a friend or themselves. Again and again we all keep it quiet, don't mention it until we are pushed.
And it's not in the way that you might if you were talking about a more physical illness - like cancer. I mean sure you might wait until your comfortable to tell someone about that kind of a struggle. But there is a precedent for it - books, films, TV shows and by enlarge you would only expect a swelling of (perhaps hard to deal with in itself) sympathy.
There is still a huge disparity when it comes to mental health issues. Instead of waiting for something positive or empathetic you wait to be judged. You wait for people to look at you differently, or try and skirt over it politely. I'm lucky in that very often this hasn't been the case for me - it's happened only a few times. Instead I've found people sharing their own stories. I remember telling one of my oldest friends about it after she had been through an episode of her own and she was stunned. 'Everybody hides stuff' was what she said eventually. Of course we do. Why? Because your brain, after all feels, like your responsibility. Perhaps the only responsibility that will make a difference is the ability to tell the truth about it.
The truth is a powerful thing.
The thing I have found most startling since I started actually talking about my own mental health is how it almost always leads to somebody telling me something similar, or something worse, about a relative or a friend or themselves. Again and again we all keep it quiet, don't mention it until we are pushed.
And it's not in the way that you might if you were talking about a more physical illness - like cancer. I mean sure you might wait until your comfortable to tell someone about that kind of a struggle. But there is a precedent for it - books, films, TV shows and by enlarge you would only expect a swelling of (perhaps hard to deal with in itself) sympathy.
There is still a huge disparity when it comes to mental health issues. Instead of waiting for something positive or empathetic you wait to be judged. You wait for people to look at you differently, or try and skirt over it politely. I'm lucky in that very often this hasn't been the case for me - it's happened only a few times. Instead I've found people sharing their own stories. I remember telling one of my oldest friends about it after she had been through an episode of her own and she was stunned. 'Everybody hides stuff' was what she said eventually. Of course we do. Why? Because your brain, after all feels, like your responsibility. Perhaps the only responsibility that will make a difference is the ability to tell the truth about it.
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