This is something that I have been given by someone who knows very much what they are talking about. The idea behind it is to explore areas of your life which could be improved by you working on them and hopefully bring down the amount of anxiety these areas bring you by having a way to work forward and through them.
I figure the best way to do this is to list the areas (love a list) along with steps that can be taken, and that I feel are achievable to help improve them. * My Self Care: As per previous posts, I'm fairly lax at looking after myself. It's not so much I don't want to, more than I am in the mindset of looking out for everyone and anyone else first. Things that I can do for this: Take a set amount of time each day to spend on exercise- don't make this a crazy amount of time and only make it 5 days a week; Begin using the aromatherapy roll ons that were gifted for Christmas - just taking the time to put them on when waking up and thinking of one thing to accomplish during the day. * My Family: since I am on the other side of the world it's more difficult to speak to them because of time difference and various technology issues. However I am painfully aware that they are all adults and they are able to sort things out for themselves too. Things I can do for this: Work out a time every couple of weeks to have a video call with a family member - by arranging in advance it gives people time to make sure they are available and maintains relationships; Write down any concerns or worries that may be shared from the conversations and then burn them when ready - This may seem a bit drastic but we use the paper to start the fire for the oven and also it sends the worry into the universe and away from me. *My negative thoughts: This is an area that has been overwhelming me recently and effecting important relations. Things I can do for this: Schedule a call once a week to create a safe space with someone who could also benefit - this give space to get the thoughts out and look at ways to overcome them, as well as stops the anxiety about just using someone's time; write down any pressing concerns and burn them when the time feels right. (I know it's a lot of burning but it is paper and I am living on a zero waste farm at the moment); Using breathing exercises as I was taught by the therapist to bring me back into the room and focus on the things in front of me and not what my mind is saying. *Confidence: I have struggled with this for years (I used to be quite a lot larger) and pervious partners didn't help. Things I can do for this: When feeling down find one thing that I do like/feel good about, be it an achievement or a physical aspect, and focus on it; Find and repeat a mantra (I genuinely also thought these were a bit stupid but that is the fun about learning) for when I am struggling with my confidence. - probably the same thing that goes on the end of all these posts. I think for now these are enough to focus on but they joy of this is that I can do it over and over. All the different stages of my year and of my life will have different challenges and as long as I take the time to identify things that may be more negative areas of my life than I would like them to be then I can come up with ways to improve them with the help of my brain and others. And if I can do it then so can you, so try it. Make it as long or short as you feel comfortable with and use your own strength to help overcome things you may not like. You are enough. You are not alone. You are ok.
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We lie all the time. Little white lies that we think don't hurt anyone. And for the most part they don't. When someone asks How you are and you reply with 'fine thanks, you?' even though you feel like you could quite happily rip off your own skin and run away, When someone asks how something looks and it's not to your taste but you say that it looks good. Sometimes it's not a complete lie. Sometimes it's just omitting part of the information so that a view can be formed or a sympathetic ear can be made. It doesn't hurt anyone right? If you don't want to share, then you don't have to. The worst part about it is people can choose to lie, they can choose not to give you information or to change you view on something without giving you all the facts. They can make you think in a different way because they choose for you too. They all of a sudden have power over you and you don't even know it. When someone with mental illness learns that they have been lied to (or that information has been left out) it doesn't process in the same way as it would to others. Often it can send people into a spiral as they don't understand what they have done wrong that led to them not being told the truth. It sounds like it's a lot, like an over reaction. The thing with mental health is that it effects so much of your life. In ways that you don't even think about until you sit down and explore why you are thinking or acting in a certain way, until you look into what could be triggering you to think in a certain way. When someone doesn't tell you the truth, it becomes an internal question as you try to work out what you have done wrong. Why wouldn't someone tell you the truth? Then it becomes a cycle of thinking of all the ways in which you are not good enough, while dissecting the ways in which you could be better. These is a dangerous cycle as it can lead you down a dangerous road making you very low. It also has a huge knock on effect as you then start to look at what you are doing every day and how you are still doing the things that made people not want to tell you the truth. So then you become focused on changing the way that you do things. Then you miss out on what is happening around you. You've effectively become unable to live in the present because you are spending so much time thinking about the bad parts of yourself. Then you think about how you are changing the relationships you have with people because you are not actively spending time with them or looking out for them. We call them a tribe because they prop you up but if they are not if they don't see you. Actually see you being present. There is only so much that people can take. This is where your brain goes. Then it cycles back to how you are doing things wrong, how you are wrong, how you are not good enough, how you don't deserve what you have., how people don't actually like you. it becomes very difficult to get yourself out of the cycle. It takes a huge amount of strength and focusing. (often for me it takes a new piercing to bring me back into the room). So you are being applauded, from afar. You are enough. You are not alone. You are ok. When you have a form of mental illness it often seems like you are spilt into a lot of pieces. This becomes more obvious as you go through the journey of becoming better at working with your illogical brain.
There are the pieces of you that are fearful of what is happening, what could happen, what has happened and how different people think about what has, can and is happening. There are the pieces of you that want to try and enjoy (again this is once you are becoming stronger and realize that not everything your illogical brain says is true). There are the pieces of you that are waiting for the bad thing to happen. There are the pieces of you that are analyzing every single thing you are doing to see if it is ok, and also the pieces of you that are thinking about how what you are doing in regards to everyone else. Then there are the pieces of your brain that have gone off on some tangent or six. And then you have the pieces that are fighting to stay present in the moment. These are not all of the pieces, these are just some examples that are happening as I type this. People who have not had the joy of a mental illness struggle to understand the toll it can take on someone. And in turn the toll it can take on people around them. A huge amount of patience is required both on the part of the person fighting the battle and on the part of the people propping them up when it gets too much. The reason why people with mental fights need a lot of sleep is because of how hard they fight when they are awake. Yes it may seem boring or lazy, but when you are trying to bring all of these pieces together so you can function as some form of a human being and work with your illogical brain so it doesn't stay in control all the time it is exhausting. Of course the flip side of this is that often people who have these struggles find it very difficult to sleep. I struggle like crazy and often resort to physically exhausting myself to the point where that is the only thing I can think about. Obviously the more I do this the harder it gets but at least I think I'm gaining some muscle out of it. For a while I used to have a few beers and a sleeping tablet because it helped me to fall asleep. This isn't something that I would recommend but it made me able to function. This then becomes a vicious cycle as you fight the illogical brain, becoming more tired but not having sleep to restore your brain power until (in my case) you spiral into a breakdown. They aren't much fun and have resulted in me being hugged by strangers as I've been unable to make it home to hide away before it has hit, I ended up speaking to my doctor about it because , as much as I didn't want to take anything for it, it was becoming a lot more obvious to people around me that I was struggling. While there is no perfect way to sleep every night all night, there are ways to get slightly more than an hour or two a night. Currently I get4-5 hours sleep, mainly in the early hours of the morning. I take medication to help me sleep but its non addictive so there won't be any problems if I come off it. The other thing with this is that the medication doesn't make me just pass out. Literally all it does is widen the window I have to fall asleep in. Before I would have a 5 minute window where I was tired and could fall asleep but then after that window my illogical brain would kick in and that would be that, night done. Now I have a nice 15 minutes or so, which means that I can actually fall asleep and not just lie there waiting to face another day and feeling even more exhausted than I did for the last. Sleep is important, the bags under my eyes will tell you. So when someone changes plans with you it could be because they are just too tired for fighting all day and they don't want to bring all the pieces of themselves together because they just can't. I don't know if you ever get the pieces to fit. I honestly have no idea, I hope that at some point they will because it would be nice to just have them all be friends and for my head to work like it should. For now I have a slightly better grip on them and that's massive progress. It's taken 2 years to get to this point and is encouraging enough to want to keep going. If I can do it, so can you. You are enough. You are not alone. You are ok. Recently a cat died. This wasn't a cat that I had known all my life, She wasn't a cat I had known for half of my life. She was a cat I met at a help exchange (where you work a few hours a day in return for board and sometimes food).
She was found by another person at the help exchange before I arrived.. She had been bitten by a snake and was close to death. Ants were eating her hind quarters. This person took her in. They fed her. They kept her warm and made sure she felt safe. She knew that she was loved. And she grew from this. She became stronger. All of a sudden this animal that had all but given up was walking and interacting with others again. She stayed at the help exchange. She would walk around, slowly and obviously concentrating. But people would wait for her to reach them, they would lavish attention on her because they could see how much it meant to her and how hard she had worked for it. It took her a good deal longer to walk across the kitchen than it did any of the other animals. A few days ago she began fitting. These weren't small fits and there was no obvious sign as to why they were happening. She would have them in the kitchen, outside or even upstairs. People became worried but with so many volunteer workers passing through, their concern was good but ultimately not helpful. She was then put in a cage by people overnight to keep her warm. This was a good idea because if she had a fit she wouldn't come to any harm but also meant there was a barrier between her and the rest of the world as she knew it. Two days ago she had a big fit in the kitchen. She came up to the room I am in and while one of the other volunteers did beautiful henna on my leg I just held her on my lap, with the occasional stroke when she moved. When my boyfriend came in from work he wanted to put her on the bed and stroke her. We put her in her cat bed, wrapped in a towel and kept her close to us whilst making sure there was background noise so it was similar to being in the kitchen, where she spent most of her time. At around 9:30 PM she had a huge fit. It lasted for around thirty minutes and the whole time we were both telling her that she was ok, that she was safe. She had the touch of 2 people and their undivided attention and love when she passed away. We buried her in the garden. She has a headstone and she will give new life to the plants that grow there, so she will live on. She died in the same room I was in when I was told my Godfather had died. In a place so built upon the idea of finding yourself, where you can become better, where you have time, was where time ran out, This is coming from someone who named every single inanimate item they own because everyone has to be ok (if they have a name then they immediately have feelings) and therefore I could not hurt myself with them because their feelings were more important than mine. I'm fully aware that these are made up feelings that I have given to items that most people think don't have them. But the illogical part of my brain tells me they do. If I mop a floor then the whole floor has to be mopped, because otherwise some of it will feel sad that it hasn't been cleaned. If you chew a certain number of times on one side of your mouth then you have to do the same on the other or something bad could happen (trust me on this one, I've had 2 wisdom teeth out in Asia). By staying away from home as long as I did, by believing my illogical brain was how I was meant to be for as long as I did, by putting others before myself as I still do on occasion (It is hard not to fall back into that trap) I missed out on so much. It has taken what I have been through (and am still going through) for me to realize how important the people around you are. We like to say they are your tribe. They pick you up when you are falling down and will hold you up when you stumble. They are the people who you don't feel like you deserve, the people who have helped to shape you into the strong, intelligent person that you are. They are the people who you tell you love whenever you have the chance for 2 reasons: 1. Because you do. You honestly completely do; 2. Because your illogical brain is thinking of all the things that could happen to them and all the ways you could never see them again because you haven't been enough. So as hard as it may be, start small. Tell people you love them, you appreciate them. Instead of saying sorry for not going out or for not being able to face the day when you have planned something together, say thank you to them for changing plans and doing something else. Say thank you to them for waiting for you while it took you a while to shower or even thank them for putting up with your stench because you haven't showered in 3 days and you're not sure if you will tomorrow. Celebrate the teeny tiny things with a thank you, maybe even a smile. Because that is never time missed. Make sure that you feel and know (in all of your brain) that you have let your tribe know how important they are to you. Because they are. .They are there for you and you alone. You are enough. You are not alone. You are ok. This post comes from someone that I am incredibly proud to know. She is a mother, a friend, a sister and one of the strongest people I know. I have learnt so much from her and am beyond grateful to have her in my life.
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