When dreams become goals

In just over a month I will be on a plane to England. Something I have dreamed about for over 10 years. So when did my dream of going to England become a goal and how did that happen? What did I do to finally make this dream a reality?

I’m not sure when or how this dream began but about 10 years ago I went and renewed my passport with the hope of traveling to England. At the time it was a distant dream, a hope, a fantasy. I had no funds to pay for it and no plans to get there but I wanted to make sure I was ready to travel if the opportunity came up. It was a passive dream, something I hoped someone else would make a reality.

 

I have wanted many things in life, had many dreams and I have achieved quite a few of my goals. Recently though, I realised that my dreams only become reality when I turn them into goals. When I become serious about wanting to achieve them and put plans into place. I realised that I could want something but not actually want it enough to do anything about it.

This was the England dream, I wanted to go but not enough to actually do anything about it. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice day to day things so I could save money. Not enough to make plans and put them into action. When thinking about it, this is exactly how so many of my dreams fizzle out and die. I don’t want them enough. Yes, I’ve had some struggles, yes, the time hasn’t always been right but unless something happened that made going to England more important than anything else I was never going to actually get there.

I think that the same applies to many things in life. We want and want but aren’t willing to put in the action. It definitely applies to my mental health. When I first got depressed, of course I didn’t want to feel that way but I also didn’t want to do anything about it. I fought telling anyone, I fought going to see a professional and I fought taking any medication. I walked around for years feeling depressed and suicidal. I hated life, I hated everything around me and I hated myself.

It took years before I eventually landed up in a psychiatric hospital and then a few more years before I finally took some action. Now 10 years later I see the results of all the action I have put in over and over. I see the results of healthy coping mechanisms that have become second nature. If you have been following my blog posts you will know that this has been a rough year for me concerning my mental health. I’ve had some really bad days and weeks, but days and weeks are nothing compared to the months and years I had in the past.

Not even 2 weeks ago I was so depressed I was suicidal. I had lost all hope and motivation to keep living. Previously this would have stayed for what felt like forever. Not this time though, not even 2 weeks later and I am feeling more balanced again. This is only because after years of action I continued to do the next right thing even when I didn’t want to. I often speak about my gratitude to God and others but I am also grateful to myself for never giving up and putting all the hard work in over the years.

When I first started struggling with mental illness I wanted to get better, I dreamed of a day where I would feel almost normal, but not enough for that dream to become a goal. It was a passive dream, I wanted someone else to achieve it for me. When it did change to a goal when I put in the action, the goal didn’t become reality overnight, it was many more years of hard work and never giving up (believe me, there were moments when I wanted to). Now more than 20 years later I still have a mental illness but now it’s mostly managed. The good days far outweigh the bad ones. I can’t tell you exactly what changed for me and when this dream of being better became more than a dream. I can’t tell you how or why I started wanting it enough to make sacrifices and I can’t tell you the exact plan of action I took to reach this point.

What I can tell you, from my experience, is that it happened. The fear of staying where I was stuck overrode the fear of doing something different, it overrode the fear of doing hard work and it overrode the fear of failure. I picked a course and stuck to it despite wanting to give up, despite the emotions that rose up and despite the pain I was feeling. I reached a point where I wanted to get better so much that my dream became a goal. You will have your own reasons for not wanting it right now and your own challenges to face but I wanted to say it’s worth it in the end.

The England dream became a goal when one of my longest and best friends told me he was getting married. Suddenly it wasn’t just about going to England it was about supporting my best friend on one of the most important days of his life. The dream became important enough that I made it a goal. I gave up coffees and dinners out. I gave up the nice things I didn’t need and I saved. I put time into planning and that dream is now a reality. The goal has finally been achieved.

What is the turning point for you to turn your dreams into goals, to let them become realities? Do you want it enough, are you willing to make the sacrifices and put in action, the hard work required? You will know when the time is right, and then you will succeed. Your dreams will become goals and eventually a reality. Good luck.

Walking through the darkness

It felt so sudden, like one moment everything was fine and then the next moment it wasn’t. Looking back and trying to figure things out I realise that maybe it wasn’t so sudden. First was the irritability and sensitivity, taking things too personally and becoming frustrated. Then was the anxiety and a slight feeling of panic. Next came emptiness, blackness, ‘the darkness’. No, it wasn’t sudden at all, it had been building up for days.

So when did my world suddenly become dark again? When did I leave the light and start walking in the darkness? I think the day I heard my friend had died, the day my heart broke a little, the moment in which my hope was pulled away. The first response was tears and terrible sadness, disbelief that I was never going to see him again. Then anger at addiction, depression, him and God. By the time evening came, I was numb inside. The next morning I couldn’t concentrate and all my moments with him came to mind, the conversations, outings and I was again filled with sadness. That’s when I wrote ‘Leave the light on‘ after which my emotions settled down again. I thought the grieving was happening but I was just getting number inside.

The big turning point came when I started to feel guilty and jealous, then shame about being jealous. Jealous that he had cheated life and I was still living. Jealous that he chose to leave this world and I had to stay. I tucked the jealousy away and focussed on the guilt. Guilt that I had been too busy for the last 3 months to spend time with him when he was trying to make plans with me. Guilt that I was so wrapped up in my own mental health struggles that I forgot about his. Guilt that I wasn’t there for him. But people told me that I shouldn’t feel guilty, that it wasn’t my fault and so the jealousy moved back in and I got angry. Angry that I couldn’t follow in his footsteps and ashamed that I even wanted to. The mess of emotions from the weekend reached critical on Monday when I was finally exhausted. Tired with living, tired of fighting a losing battle, tired of being optimistic, tired of never giving up, just tired. I didn’t want to do this anymore, I didn’t want to fight anymore, I didn’t want to live anymore.

I became obsessed with dying, obsessed with giving up and letting go. But I couldn’t commit suicide, the recovery wolf was too well fed and wouldn’t let me. So then I became obsessed with self-harming because if I couldn’t kill myself then I needed to get rid of the feelings I was having and self-harming would help but again the recovery wolf was too strong and all I got left with was a spiral into darkness and the inability to act on any of it. I couldn’t stop the feelings, I couldn’t get rid of the blackness and I couldn’t get rid of myself. Much to my dismay, I kept doing the next right thing. I called my sponsor, who told me to contact my counselor the next day. The next day I managed to get an appointment with my counselor who set up an appointment with my psychiatrist, who I eventually saw 4 days after the darkness entered. Through every conversation, appointment, and explanation my anxiety rose. I was so anxious I felt sick inside. I wanted to purge, get rid of every feeling and thought inside of me. I am so very grateful for this time I have spent in recovery that has taught me to just keep doing the next right thing. This recovery that has fed the recovery wolf year after year making it stronger than the dark wolf at this moment. I am so very grateful that over the years I have picked up the most amazing friends who stand by me even though I don’t want to talk about it or be around anyone. I don’t feel lonely and I don’t unloved. I just feel broken and defeated, I just feel tired and hopeless, I just feel like I can’t any more.

6 days later I have woke up for the first time feeling a little less anxious. Today I can look back on the week and feel compassion for myself, not a lot, but a little. For this moment, I have a little bit of hope in me once again. So far, I have spent just 1 week walking in the darkness and I have no idea how long it could last. I could wake up tomorrow and feel a little less bleak or I could wake up tomorrow further down the darkness. I am terrified of falling deeper and I am terrified that my recovery wolf will weaken as the dark wolf grows stronger. I can’t focus on that right now though. I need to concentrate on this moment where suicide is not consuming my thoughts and be grateful for the brief respite. I have lived days, months and years in the darkness. There are people all around me who continue to walk in the darkness every day and never give up, I need to be one of those people. At the moment I hate my recovery, I hate that part of myself that is keeping me alive but I know that tomorrow I will be grateful for it. I will be grateful I never gave up and I will be grateful that I didn’t do anything to harm myself. If I can’t make it in this moment, I am holding onto that moment. That moment that will come tomorrow or the next day or the next.

If you are reading this and know me personally please do not be alarmed. Yes, I am struggling, but I am doing all the next right things. I am in contact with my psychiatrist and counselor, my medication is being looked at. My friends are around me and supporting me. Plans have been made for if I get worse. So please, do not worry.  I have beaten this before and will beat it again and again as many times as it takes. Please feel free, if you absolutely must, to contact me for reassurance. I am not fine but I will be. I share this post because there are many people out there also walking in darkness, it is an awful place to be. I write this to remind myself that I am not alone and to let you know that you are not alone either. I am comfortable with my mental illness and I am comfortable sharing how I am feeling not to shock people or get attention for myself but rather because people need to know this is a reality for both me and others. You don’t need to fix us, we mostly know what we need to do. What we need from you is understanding and just for you to be there.

Just for today, I will continue to do the next right thing even though I don’t feel like it. Just for today, I will keep talking about how I am feeling so I don’t get lost in my own world. Just for today, I will surround myself with people who love me and my treatment team. Just for today, I will hold out for better days.

 

Leave a light on

“If you look into the distance, there’s a house upon the hill. Guiding like a lighthouse to a place where you’ll be safe to feel at grace ’cause we’ve all made mistakes. If you’ve lost your way I will leave the light on” – Tom Walker

Listen to the song here.

Two weeks ago I heard this song for the first time and was completely struck by it. For days the lyrics swam around in my head, word after word, line after line. I started thinking about all the lights people have left on for me, the safehouses people have created and shared with me. Gratitude bubbled up to the surface, not just soppy gratitude but real, deep-seated gratitude for the people and for God.

“Tell me what’s been happening, what’s been on your mind. Lately, you’ve been searching for a darker place to hide, that’s alright. But if you carry on abusing, you’ll be robbed from us. I refuse to lose another friend to drugs. Just come home, don’t let go”

On Wednesday night a friend of mine was taken away too soon, stolen from our world by addiction and mental illness. I hadn’t spoken to him for a few weeks and we didn’t see each other often but we were close. We shared a house for over a year, shared our lives, shared our feelings, our stories and our pain with each other. I knew he struggled – not only with addiction but also with depression. Every few weeks we would catch up with a call or messages. Lunch and an adventure somewhere in our beautiful city. We were comfortable with each other and we could sit in silence just enjoying the other’s company. Yes, I knew he struggled. I knew there were days he didn’t want to leave his room and there were times he didn’t know how to move forward but he always pushed on and pushed through.

I was saddened by the news and angry, very angry. Angry at the disease of addiction, angry at the illness of depression. Angry that we live in a world where people hurt people and so many of us live in pain on a daily basis. I was angry until I felt the gratitude rise in me again. That could have been me, I could have been stolen away – last month, last week. I am still here today though and I am still here because so many people have left the light on for me. I am sad that my friend decided to leave us, I am sad I will never have a conversation with him again, never laugh, never play games and never cry with him again. People left lights on for him and he couldn’t find it in him to get to the ‘house upon the hill’.

“If you’ve lost your way (I will leave the light on), and I know you don’t know oh, but I need you to be brave. Hiding from the truth ain’t gonna make this all okay. I’ll see your pain if you don’t feel our grace and you’ve lost your way. I will leave the light on, I will leave the light on, ‘Cause I will leave the light on”

Addiction is a cunning, baffling disease and has taken so many friends. Mental illness is a thief and has stolen even more. I know, I have been in the deep dark places, I have felt lost and consumed with pain. I have experienced the blackness and I am forever grateful to the people in my life who ‘left a light on’. I am blessed that my Higher Power has somehow carried me through the moments I couldn’t carry myself and put these people in my life.

I want everyone out there who is struggling to know that I will leave a light on for you. Anytime, any place because I know we need those lights to guide us home again. I know we need that grace to accept our mistakes and our pain. I know we need people in our lives who are going to be there regardless of how much we push them away. I open up my house as that house upon the hill and I will leave a light on forever. Please don’t get sucked in by the darkness, don’t get confused in the pain and don’t let go yet. Not until you’ve seen the light I am shining for you.

It is an honor and a privilege to have the people around me that I have. The friends, the family, my treatment team, 12 step fellowships, support groups, work colleagues. I am blessed and I know I will forget this some times and I know I won’t feel the gratitude always but for today, in the here and now I am taking this opportunity to say thank you.

So there you are. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to each person who leaves a light on for people like me who lose their way in the darkness. THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!

What is acceptance?

After living with a diagnosed mental illness for over 15 years you would think that I had learnt to accept my fate by now. The thing is, I don’t know if we ever fully accept something that affects our lives on a daily basis. Sure, we have moments of acceptance that last for periods of time but then something happens and we are often back to being angry, or disappointed or sad again when we think about the fact that we have to live with it for the rest of our lives.

Right now I am in a phase of having to learn to accept that I am mentally ill again. Having to accept that I can never be certain what tomorrow will hold for me and having to accept that I am not in control and never will be. At first, this was hard in itself to accept until I starting thinking more about what acceptance really is and how it works, especially within the realm of mental illness. I thought I would lay my thought process out here in a blog and see what others thought.

When we talk about acceptance in the terms of psychology we are referring to a person’s assent to the reality of a situation or recognition of a process or condition. But the question in my mind is, do we ever accept things that affect our daily living fully? I don’t know if we can, I don’t know if it’s possible to just accept that this is our lives forever. I don’t know if I want to. When we accept something like this fully it’s almost as though we are giving up. But, if we never accept it, then we live our lives controlled by this illness, this hurt and this pain. So what do we do, how do we accept something yet not give up hope?

I was diagnosed with Depression when I was 20, this was later turned into a diagnosis of Bipolar Mood Disorder and a side serving of Borderline Personality Disorder. After that came the professional acknowledgement of General Anxiety Disorder, Addiction and Compulsive Obsessive Personality Disorder as well. Of course, there are other things all mixed up in there like self-harm, ADD, trauma, negative schemas and more but in the end, it all comes down to 1 thing really. I suffer from mental illness, badly enough that it is actually regarded as a mental disability. Luckily, with an amazing support team around me, family and friends I manage to live a relatively normal functioning adult life.

I do this because I have found a relative amount of acceptance without giving up hope. I will never come to fully accept that I have to live with mental illness for the rest of my life. Every time I have an episode or my medication stops working, whenever I land up in a psych ward again or am just having a bad day I get angry. I feel like I was given the short end of the stick and that life is unfair. I have to go through the whole process of acceptance again and I think this is alright. I think that it’s okay to have moments when I am angry or want to give up and stop trying as long as they are only moments and I don’t get stuck in a full-blown pity party.

So here are my thoughts. We learn to accept things to a point, a place where we accept that we have a mental illness but not that our life has to be controlled by it. In truth, for those of us who suffer from mental illness, it feels like our lives are controlled by the illness. We take medication every day, we have set appointments with psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists and counsellors. We regularly land up in psych wards and hospitals and much of it is completely out of our hands but regardless of all of these things we cannot control, we can control and take action to manage our illness in our own way. I choose to listen to my psychiatrist and stick to the prescriptions she gives me. I work hard in my therapy sessions and try to apply changes where and when I can. I have control over these things. I have control over waking up in the morning and feeling like crap but getting out of bed anyway and focussing on doing the next right thing at that moment.

The acceptance of my illness comes and goes. I find peace for a while and then land up in a war with myself again but after that acceptance reappears and I keep trying. I never give up even when I want to. When I see no point of continuing to battle an illness I cannot control. An illness that changes my mood and alters the way my brain works from day to day and in those moments I want to stop trying, I want to give up. But I don’t, I know it’s hard and there are days I don’ want to get out of bed or even talk to anyone. In these times I follow lists which tell me what the next right thing to do is because I cannot remember by myself.

So here’s my opinion: I will never fully accept that I have a mental illness, I will never fully accept that I have no control over my moods and thoughts. I will never fully accept because that is when I will give up. I will accept I have an illness I am not always in control of, I will accept that it is not always my fault when things go wrong and I will accept that I will always need help. I will not give up, I will fight to the bitter ends but I will also acknowledge that I am chronically ill and not always at my best. This is how I understand acceptance and how I keep fighting through every bad day and mood.

Living in the black and white

 

You know when you have an argument with someone and then makeup and you’re friends again? When someone disappoints you but you suck it up and move on? When you do something wrong but tell yourself you’ll do better next time? That’s life right, living in the gray? Not so much for me. You see, I have Borderline Personality Disorder and what this means is that I live the majority of my life in black and white. Everything is all or nothing. Grey makes absolutely no sense to me, I don’t understand it, can’t really comprehend it at all. Living life in black and white can be really hard sometimes. So many things that people take for granted make no sense for me. For me it either is or it isn’t. You are either my friend or you are not, you like me or you don’t, I am good at something or I am not. There is no middle ground, no sometimes and no room for changing your mind. What seems normal for most people in the world confuses me greatly and because of this all or nothing way of thinking I don’t have much chance of even beginning to understand or change my own behaviors.

Because of this, I have pushed people away and even cut people out of my life. I know you can’t really diagnose young children with mental health issues easily but my mom likes to tell a funny story that so clearly shows the way I think. When I was in grade 1 or 2 I was taking part in a school athletics day, one of the events was the 100m sprint. I was doing well and coming first when another little girl overtook me. Apparently, I stopped running right there, walked off the side of the track and sat down. I was no longer coming first so in my mind what was the point of still competing. Even now, many years later, this thought process still makes sense to me, I am still like this to this day.

Not being able to find the grey means I can’t really live there. Decisions are easy for me because in my mind you do or you don’t. There is no in-between to make the decision harder. A really simple example is when we order pizza, my friend starts to get more and more anxious as we go through the pizza varieties and can’t make up her mind. For me, it’s ‘yes, I like that one or no, I don’t like that one; yes, I feel like chicken or no, I don’t like vegetables’ things are very clear cut in my mind. I often give up or stop trying when I think or realize I cannot be the best or I don’t like how it is going to turn out. Not because I am a brat (although sometimes I suppose I can be) but more because I don’t see the point of persisting in something that I am not going to win at. If I am losing a game, I want to finish it quickly because there is no chance for me to recover and get back in the game. I am not a sore loser, I acknowledge you have won and no longer see the need to pretend to compete anymore.

Right now I am still recovering and sorting myself out after my most recent Bipolar episode but in reality, I just want to give up. I tried so hard and have done everything I can do to manage my mental health yet still I have no control over anything and can’t always stop an episode from hitting so what’s the point right? I struggle to understand why I have to keep trying when I am never going to win at this game. I feel unmotivated for almost everything in life, I am struggling to concentrate on the simplest things and I am moody, very, very moody right now. This is not the person I want to be but because of my illness, I don’t have a say in it. I take my medication every day, I go see my counselor, I share with my friends and I make sure that I am eating, exercising, and sleeping right but all of this doesn’t seem to make any difference. Bipolar takes me on an up and down ride and the Borderline exacerbates everything with it’s black and white thinking. I am never going to win. Statements like these are normal, with lots of finalities, because for me that’s the end. With this mindset of finality, it is really difficult to pick myself up again after a Bipolar/Borderline episode.

Thank goodness that I have been in recovery from addiction for the last 13 years. Recovery has taught me to never give up even in my darkest moments and to focus on doing the next right thing. That’s me at the moment, living in 5-minute blocks and just doing the next right thing. What else can I do? If I don’t I will give up, I will stop trying and I would probably ruin my life by doing something stupid. So, you are probably asking how I keep a recovery mindset when everything else screams to think in the illness mindset. It comes down to the story of the wolves, have you heard it? Here’s the short version: An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life: “A fight is going on inside me,” he says to his grandson. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil–he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you–and inside every other person, too.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Simply put, the more I feed my recovery wolf the stronger it becomes and the more I am inclined to listen to it. The more I feed my illness wolf the stronger it will become. So, I fill my life with recovery things even when I don’t want to go. I attend NA meetings and mental health support groups, I take my medication, I reach out to my friends and I meet with my sponsor. All of these things feed the recovery wolf and help me keep doing the next right thing. The next right thing is currently keeping me as an alive, productive member of society. It reminds me of what I have achieved in life despite being mentally ill. It reminds me of what I have and what I will lose if I give up. When I stop feeding my recovery I will start to lose myself again. I will give in to the Depression and Borderline. I will give in to hopelessness and despondency. Right now, life is hard but I think I am winning the daily battle against my illness. In this matter I cannot let the black and white thinking take over, I cannot give in to the all or nothing way I live the rest of my life. I’m not going to lie, it’s hard and every day I struggle to get up and do the next right thing but I have to. I know I have to because sometime, maybe in a month, maybe in a year, my moods will settle down and life will become manageable and bright again.

Right now (to steal a line from a close friend) I live for the pockets of sanity, the 5-minute moments where the light shines in and the shadow lifts, even if only for that moment. I know I can be a difficult person, I know many people don’t understand me just as I don’t understand them but I have been blessed with a handful of friends who continue to stick around no matter what I put them through. If any of those people are reading this I say thank you for everything, I would not have survived without you in my life. If you have those people around you be grateful or maybe go out and be that person for someone else. As I said last week, we all need a tribe and I have found mine.

Becoming vulnerable

This weekend I went away with a group of people from my tribe to the wonderful town of Betty’s Bay. We left midday on Friday and blasted tunes from the radio all the way there. Arriving in a, slightly cold, but clear sunny afternoon at the campsite we had a good look at all the available rooms and finally chose the one we thought best for us. On the wall, we put up a sign that said ‘This is a snoring room” and hoped that was enough warning for others. I love that I feel safe enough with this group of people (some of who I had never even met) to state that so boldly. We quickly picked up a few more people who were happy to put up with the snoring and they joined us in our room.

By 6pm most people had arrived and supper was being prepared. A massive fire was built and the hall started warming up with the heat from the fire and the personalities from my co-retreaters. Warm greetings were given to all, tight hugs and smiles from those I hadn’t seen in a while and tentative hugs and introductions for those I had never met. Little did I realise that this group of people would become so important to me in a very short space of time. The weekend was officially started with a big welcome and the laying out of the house rules. People volunteered themselves quickly for different service and we jumped into an amazing supper of various burgers. I found a seat with my plate of food and started chatting to those around me (some I knew, some I didn’t) and afterward my team was on cleaning duty where we laughed and did service together, without realising it new friendships had started forming and old ones were rekindled.

It was then time for the first meeting of the weekend and without knowing it, time to start getting vulnerable. The topic was ‘Living in the Now’ and a good man was the main speaker, afterwards, others shared back. The next thing I knew I was opening my mouth, introducing myself and sharing. Not sharing words of wisdom or surface level thoughts like I sometimes do but really sharing. I spoke about how irritable I have been and that a winning day for me is if I don’t strangle someone. I spoke about how hard the days have been as I have tried to recover from my latest Bipolar episode. I spoke about how unmotivated I currently am and therefore just ignore the world. Everything poured out as I shared how important living in the now is for me during this time. How sometimes,  I can only focus on the next five minutes and how I have to tell myself to do the next right thing in that moment.

I shared and I shared and I shared. As I realised what exactly I had shared my first thought was horror, followed by immense relief and then joy as I saw people listening, nodding their heads in understanding and looking at me with empathy in their eyes instead of judgment. Once again I was reminded why I chose these people as my tribe. They knew what I was experiencing and would hold nothing against me, they would love and support me regardless of what came out of my mouth. Here I could be free but only if I let myself. I went to bed shortly after feeling exhausted but for the first time in weeks, I was relaxed.

Saturday morning started bright and early and I felt rested, at peace for the first time in a while, not irritable, not anxious and not restless. We played a game called ‘All my friends’ and I won’t explain the whole game but the purpose is for people to realise and understand that they are not alone. We have all done things that we are ashamed of or feel guilty for but in this game, you get to see that you are not the only one. Out of the 50 situations that were given not once was someone left standing alone, others always joined them in the middle, sharing their feelings of guilt, shame, fear or remorse. A passing comment from someone was, “never has sharing my secrets and exposing the shame been so much fun.’ How very true. Wounds were opened for people and insights into resentments, fears, and shame were had by all. There was no time after the game to slink off on your own and isolate though as we soon got a ‘burning issues’ meeting going for everyone to share what had come up for them in the game. Tears and toilet paper rolled around the room. People got up to hug others, hand tissues out and silent encouragement was given in the form of hand on someone’s back or leg next to you.

I looked around me and saw what support really looked like, what love looked like and what empathy looked like. It was amazing, I felt amazing, the people around me were amazing. We were a large group of people spanning 50 years in age, over 100 kilometers in distance, from all different backgrounds and cultures, with different identities and struggles. But we were a tribe, we ARE a tribe, we are MY tribe. I know this, have known this in the past and should know it but still, I was keeping my fears inside for so long and putting on a brave face for the world, my family and my friends. Why? Because that’s what I think people expect, it’s what I expect, it’s the pressure I put on myself all the time.

After 3 hours of noble silence and just being with ourselves quietly, we broke into gender groups and us girls sat around the fire while the boys went into the eating hall (I don’t know what happened in there meeting but here is how ours went). It started with that first beautiful, amazing, brave women opening her mouth and talking to us, being honest and vulnerable with her feelings, thoughts, and insecurities. Well, the dam walls broke and something so special and amazing happened at that moment. As we went around the circle and I listened to each of these phenomenal ladies talk I was entranced. I was present, in the moment and aware of their feelings and my own. I had no idea what I was going to say when it was my turn but I didn’t worry because I knew I was safe with my tribe. Halfway through, the snacks came out as we laughed, cried and just sat with and comforted each other.

Finally, the circle turned to me, one of the last women to speak. I had been listening for over 2 hours and it occurred to me that I could also be vulnerable, I could also be honest and I could also receive love and acceptance in this group. I once again opened my mouth, just like on Friday night, and the words again came tumbling out with no pre-thought at all. I spoke about my childhood, I spoke about not feeling beautiful, I spoke about giving up on love and I spoke about me. My fears, my anxieties, my loneliness, and my hurt. Words kept coming out with no thought to what I was saying, without fear of judgment. In that moment I was seen, I was heard, I was loved. And this is the amazing beauty of choosing to be vulnerable with the right people, of opening yourself up. I could have been rejected, judged, laughed at but because of the brave women who spoke before me, I knew I was with safe people, people who had trusted me and it was time to trust them back.

I have struggled to be vulnerable my whole life, to open up and share what is going on in my mind. I have always seen it as a weakness or assumed that people would use my words against me. There are very few people I express everything to but here, on this weekend I was reminded that in my tribe I don’t have to hide things. I don’t have to put on a mask and lie. I don’t have to fear judgment. Here I can just be me, broken, fragile me.

I have had these moments before and I am sure I will have them in the future. I need them often because I forget. I forget that I too am a beautiful, brave amazing woman and when I try to remind myself I don’t believe it. This weekend I was reminded by others over and over again. To each person that shared this weekend with me, that shared their guilt, fears, and anxieties and listened to mine I thank you. The weekend continued this way as we played games together, ate together, had deep conversations and continues sharing with each other.

Sunday ended the weekend with a JFT meeting in the beautiful outdoors, hiking up the moment (which I declined), a ‘Letting go’ ceremony and hugs, hugs and more hugs as we said goodbye. Tears were shed again and numbers exchanged. Photos posted on the group and memories etched in us forever. I will never forget this crazy tribe I find myself a part of and I will always be grateful for the love you all showed me this weekend.

 

 

Becoming more self-aware

So for the past couple of weeks, I have just been so irritable. Then I got really bad allergies and got even more irritable (feeling sick is never a good place to operate from). What I realised though, is that because I was aware of my general irritability, I was able to not lash out as much at other people around me. I would feel the irritability rising and say to myself, “Is this person irritating me or am I more irritable than usual inside?’ The answer most of the time is that it was me, not the other person. By asking this question I was giving myself the opportunity to monitor my reactions and change them to responses instead.

Thinking this through I realised that having a greater self-awareness can really help in the way I react and respond to people around me. It can make coexisting with others more peaceful and it would definitely stop me from hurting people I care about because of my unstable moods and emotions. For example, if I am in a low mood and my housemate cheerily greets me in the morning I don’t need to grumble or ignore her I can acknowledge to myself that I am feeling low but respond appropriately with a good morning back. I don’t have to lie and put on a fake smile but by being self-aware I stop myself from snapping at her instead. I am sure she appreciates this and it helps me not push people away.

So, in theory, this sounds really simple but anyone who has tried to control their responses and actions can tell you it is not easy and becoming more self-aware is even harder. I have learned that many of my reactions and actions are very much linked to how I am feeling inside. If I am irritable my responses will be short and harsh, if I am feeling low my responses will be almost non-existent and if I am anxious my responses will be redirects and often not make sense. The trick for becoming more self-aware is to start to listen to and understand your body and emotions.

This takes time, I had to figure out what my body was telling me and try to connect it to various emotions. It took years of trial and error and talking to others, even today I don’t recognise everything perfectly and I will probably never be completely self-aware but I am better at knowing more and understanding more in my body. Being open to listening to my body and emotions opens me up to becoming more self-aware and gives me more control over my responses.

I am by no means an expert but here are some of the things I did to help me:

1. Learn the various emotions  – So here I made a list of emotions. I categorised them into six primary ones and then populated the list underneath each of these. My 6 primary emotions were; love; joy; anger; sadness; fear; and shame. Once I had these I put emotions like irritation and frustration under anger, hurt and depressed under sadness and anxiety and panic under fear. This gave me a list of emotions to start with.
2. Name your emotions – If you are anything like me then you have probably struggled to put names to your emotions as well. This step took quite a bit of research. I asked other people how they knew what they were feeling, I looked up different emotions and situations that brought on those emotions for other people. I also put an hourly timer on my phone and every time it went off I would try to name the emotion I was currently feeling. This gave me information and practice to name my own emotions.
3. Learn how your body responds – I thought this would be simple but sometimes my body’s reaction to a specific emotion is so subtly different I had to start taking numerous things into account. When I felt an intense emotion I would stop and do a quick grounding exercise. Starting at my toes I would move up my body just noticing how each part of my body felt. Was my stomach rumbling, were my fists closed, did I feel nauseous, was I clenching my teeth, did my face look redder, had my temperature increased or decreased. I would then take into consideration the circumstance that had triggered the emotion and try to connect the likely emotion to my body’s reaction
4. Put it all together – Here is the final part, once you have made your lists and figured out how your body reacts to certain feelings you can start looking at your body even when you are unsure what you are feeling, once you can figure out what you are feeling you can work it backwards and realise maybe what bought up the emotion for you. Then you can decide if you are feeling something internally like anger because of something else that is happening or if the current situation is making you angry and respond appropriately. Now you can work up and down your information slide and become more self-aware. This helps us to respond instead of react.

So, the final thing I’m going to throw out there before I leave is about responding versus reacting. I never knew there was even a difference before a mentor of mine sat me down and explained. She said to me, when I react I am not thinking, I am not pausing and taking a moment, I am simply coming back with a reaction before my brain has caught up. Responding, on the other hand, is when my brain leads. It has stopped, thought about everything and decided on the most appropriate response instead of just a quick reaction. This has saved me from getting into a lot of hot water at times and has helped me become more self-aware in the moment instead of just making apologies to people later.

I know it’s hard when you have a mental illness that makes your moods swing from one side of the spectrum to the other but everything I wrote is something that has helped me keep the peace in my friendships and not push people away as quickly. In the end, it comes down to thinking before we speak and sometimes that is really hard. Good luck and please share any other tips you might have in the comments.

 

Managing day to day

Over the last four weeks, I have been taking part in a process group looking at depression. This group came to an end on Monday night and the last part of processing that we did was write a letter from a ‘future self’ to our ‘present self’. I went about writing my letter in my usual ‘have to get it perfect’ way and ended up writing some actual (what I think) are useful tips to deal with my mental illnesses on a daily basis. I thought I would share all of these with you. Before laying them out I do need to state that knowing them and applying them are two different things and so while in my head I know all of these tricks are useful, I also completely understand and relate to when we are unable to put them into action.

Anyway, here are my top five useful hints in dealing with mental illness on a day-to-day basis:

1. Believe in something bigger – This is probably one of the most helpful things in going about long term management of my mental health. Believing in something bigger than myself (whatever you may want to call that) allows me to have some kind of hope in life. Too many times I lose hope and often life is not worth living. When I started believing in a higher power I found that even though times often got dark I didn’t always become hopeless as much. I found an ability to persevere in the blackest of moments. Hope has become such an integral part of never giving up for me. I seem to struggle the worst when my spirituality is at it’s lowest.

2. Be grateful – Whenever I start to feel low or find myself slipping down the depression hole I try to be grateful. Gratitude reminds me of the things I have in life, what I have achieved, the people who love me, etc. This is important because so often I really do want to give up and say goodbye or fall into the mindset of life is not worth living. Writing a gratitude list when I feel my mood spiral sometimes provides an instant shift. I have found that just writing a list doesn’t always work though and the next thing to do is take action. Gratitude doesn’t just have to be a thought, it can also be behaviour. When I act on my gratitude, the darkness just doesn’t seem as dark and the hole not as deep.

3. Keep talking – My first instinct when the world becomes overwhelming or my anxiety takes over is to shut up and shut out. What I mean is I stop interacting on any deep level with people around me. When these feelings rise up I remind myself to keep talking. Get an appointment with my therapist, phone my sponsor or a good friend, find a support group to attend. Keep reaching out, because I have realised that the more I keep talking the quicker the feelings pass and my world semi returns to normal again. Don’t ever stop talking as this is often the only lifeline we have for people to support us.

4. Hit the reset button when needed  – Once I am in my head it is almost impossible to break free unless I reset. This is actually easier than it sounds and the best part is you can reset as many times as you need to. Sometimes, I will come home from work or from being out completely overwhelmed and on the verge of panic. I stop thinking clearly and begin slipping into depression or, I feel myself getting more hyper, I stop eating properly, don’t want to sleep and my brain is racing. Whatever it is, the moment I realise my brain is overworking I hit the reset button. Sometimes, it’s getting into bed early and sleeping until the next day. Sometimes, it’s hanging out with close friends who will distract me and sometimes it’s just reading a book or watching a series but I have to reset so that I can start thinking clearly again.

5. NEVER GIVE UP – this is the hardest thing to do and I don’t blame anybody who has but in this battle against mental illness it is also the most important. We all deserve to live, we all deserve to find peace and healing, we all deserve to be loved. Live for the moments where things are fine, where your emotions are not running wild and you feel content, even if it is only for 5 minutes. We are in this together and cannot give up on ourselves or each other.

These are just my thoughts and some basics that help me live with the different mental health issues that I have. It’s not easy and it’s not simple but we can fight mental illness together. Let’s share our tips with each other, let’s encourage each other and build each other up. So few people understand what we are going through but I want you all to know that I understand, I see and I feel what so many of us experience. Know that we are strong enough, brave enough, worth enough to win this daily battle.

Let’s do this together, just for today.

 

Never recovered

“Relapse, prevent trigger intent, now drown 
High strung, say X amount of words 

You’re solar, bipolar, panic disorder 
Seems harder and harder and harder 
Still, you try to control it”

X-amount of words by Blue October

My body tensed, teeth grinding and fists clenched. I want to hit something, I want to break something, anything to escape what I am feeling, anything to transfer the rage inside of me. Rage, anger, agitation, all at the most intense level I have ever experienced. Everything is too loud, too bright, too close. Please get me out of here, get me out of my head, my body, this world.

“I am feeling irritated’ I tell my friend calmly as I slowly breathe through my nostrils. My exterior does not match my interior, unsurprisingly this is actually normal. My exterior rarely matches my interior but I have been faking it for so long I fool even myself. For the last 6 years, I have been relatively stable, no spikes in my mood, no major depressions. Just little bumps as I go about managing my life and my anxiety on a day to day basis. Life itself is hard work but I don’t let it get me down and I don’t really dwell on it much. I do what I need to do and move on, I ignore – possibly deny – that I even have a mental disorder. I mean, I know I have one, and I know that I have to do certain things to manage it but I thought (told myself) that I had it covered. Come on, after 6 years without any real episodes you would tell yourself the same thing, wouldn’t you? Basically, I believed that I managed my mental health so well that I was essentially recovered.

This is possibly the biggest mistake that I could have made, that anyone with a mental disorder could make. We don’t recover, ever, we simply learn to manage life around it. We learn to accept that we will be taking medication every day, we learn to change our environment and put things in place that alert us to spikes and dips in our moods. We push a lot of people away and we isolate ourselves much of the time. We work in jobs that have flexibility as much as possible and we try to minimise our stresses where we can. I learned to work around my mood and personality disorders so well that I essentially forgot I had them. I had become so adept at managing my anxiety and hiding my quirks that people who had only been in my life for less than 5 years mostly didn’t even know that I had mental health issues. This isn’t a bad thing and it worked well generally except when it didn’t. I was definitely not recovered.

My little episode got me booked into a psychiatric hospital and my meds got changed and changed and changed until we found a combination that worked. Eventually, I landed up spending the full 21 days at the hospital to monitor the medication, balance out my moods and to my surprise work on some emotional issues, Much was brought to light and it landed up being hugely beneficial for me. I learnt many new things about myself and gained new insights into my coping mechanisms. I also realised that I will never be recovered or normal or mentally stable like people who don’t have mental disorders. I also learnt to be okay with that, I learnt to be okay with being different. This didn’t mean that I wasn’t frustrated, annoyed and even self-pitying at times but I did learn to be okay with having a mental disorder, again. I thought I was okay with everything but really I wasn’t I was only ignoring it and pretending to be okay.

I am not normal (and don’t get into the debate with what is normal with me) and that’s okay. My life looks different and I act different and I need to do some things differently to others. This is hard but it is not insurmountable. I can live my life the way I need to live my life. With things in place that help me manage the disorders on a day to day basis. What I can’t do is forget, I can’t ignore and I can’t deny that I have a problem. This problem is not my fault, it is in my brain. I have to live with it the best way I know how to and sometimes that won’t work for other people and that’s also okay but I can’t forget. People will accept it or not, they might understand and they might not and they may leave or they may not. Whatever happens, I realise that this is my life and all I need to do is the best I can. This means that some days I will be rude to you because I simply do not know how to interact with others, it might mean that on this day I don’t want to talk to anybody and it might mean that there will be times that I am simply not coping with life but I have to remember that it’s okay. It’s okay to be frustrated, it’s okay to be sad, it’s okay to not be like others.

I write this because I want others out there like me to know that it’s okay. I want others to know that sometimes we have to get additional help like going to a hospital. It’s okay to have to take medication every day and not interact with the world like the rest of civilization. It’s okay to struggle and it’s okay to have good days. I write this because I want people who are not like me to begin to understand that we can’t always be and act like you, I want you to understand that what you see on the outside is not always representing what is happening on the inside and ask that you be patient with me, love me and support me. I have a mental health problem and I will never be recovered and I am okay with that. I hope you can also be.

 

A look into the past … Part 2

Please read the intro of part 1 to see the history here.

This piece of writing describes 1 of the many battles I have had in my head while struggling to overcome mental illness, addiction and self harm.

I post it with the hope that it will help people to understand what their loved ones might be going though or if you are the one struggling to remind you that you are not alone.

WARNING: Slightly graphic and may be triggering.

Vivid Images, written 29 June 2016

Spent lots of time up in my head today, both spacing out and thinking about what was said in my session and later with my sponsor. Wondering why I was craving so much last night, not just craving but the vivid images that filled my head. Feeling the blade press through the skin and watching the blood seep through the gap. Playing with it as it spirals and leaves tracks of red down my arm. Even now in the late afternoon the image is so real and tangible. I find myself leaving reality and fantasizing about it. Fantasy is all I have though, I can never go back down that road but oh how I want to right now. This morning I spoke of being disconnected, out of sorts.

I realize as I look through the day that yes, I could say disconnected which is a truth in a way, it is more dissociated than anything else. I sit in conversations and feel unreal as though everything is happening around me but not to me. I spend moments just staring off into the distance when I should be focusing on the conversations around me but I don’t feel a part of it. I don’t feel a part of anything at the moment. I think back to the images in my head and wonder why they remain more real than the life around me. Release stands out, pain stands out but denial stands out above everything. Avoidance of what might really be going on, fear of what I maybe don’t want to face. I can’t touch it though and through the day it feels like reality is slipping further and further away. I don’t feel negative and thoughts like being unworthy or not good enough nip at the edges of consciousness but haven’t seemed to have broken through yet.

I still feel generally satisfied with my life and where I am placed in it but I can’t seem to merge the emptiness with being satisfied and I am left confused. I do all the right things, work a solid program but still I am reaching for something and I can’t seem to grasp what it is. As I write this all I have eaten is a small cinnabon which is not nearly enough for the day. I realise that I have not been taking care of myself, not nurturing myself and if I’m honest I don’t care.

So at the end of the day I can no longer deny that I am not in a low space but where does it come from. I immediately want to blame a circumstance but off the top of my head, I tell myself that I am happy, that there is nothing wrong with my life. Is it true, I want it to be but I have just stepped out of financial security, leaving a job. Can this affect so much though? It sounds weird but I don’t want it to be my mood, that means looking at medication and puts me out of control but the more I think about all the symptoms the more I come to think that it might just be my mood.

Living with BiPolar sucks, being Borderline sucks even more. I call myself stupid because by now I should know healthy coping mechanisms yet still I slip into melancholy and dreams of slicing my arms up. The dreams have expanded now. I sit and have a smoke and hold the cigarette as close to my hand as I can without burning it. Playing with temptation but I can’t seem to stop myself. What if I go to far, what would happen if I let the cigarette touch the skin, kept it there until a blister forms? I can’t though, I would shatter so much, I can’t. Is it sad that the thing stopping me is not that it’s unhealthy but rather what others would say, what I would lose. It’s insane and once again I find myself not caring.

Writing this rambling is the first thing that I’ve connected to all day, the first thing I have felt involved in. I don’t want to stop in case I start to feel empty inside again, in case I slip off into the nothingness that has been hovering all day.