Acceptance

When I started up this blog again, earlier this year, it was mainly because I wanted an outlet to write about my experiences of suffering and recovering from a mental illness. Writing has been a great way for me to process my crazy thoughts and sometimes overwhelming feelings and has helped me massively in my recovery.

I am very lucky as I have an amazing support network of friends and family and so I’ve always had someone to talk to when I’ve felt scared or overcome. And yet, a lot of the time, I have felt very alone. Although my loved ones have always been there for me, I think it has been difficult for them to understand what I have been going through. After all, they can’t see inside my head. Anxiety is a difficult condition to explain sometimes, as you can’t always articulate what you’ve anxious about. It is often just a feeling, and not a thought, and people find that difficult to grasp. And so, I turned to a support group online, to speak about my illness to others who were going through the same thing.

Just knowing that I wasn’t the only one, that I wasn’t mad, and that what I was thinking and feeling wasn’t unusual, has helped me to accept my condition and lift my mood at times. I had hoped that this blog could maybe do that for others and I have received so much positive feedback to suggest that it has helped some of you.

This week, I have been discharged from therapy and have worked with my GP to come up with a plan to come off of my medication. It’s the start of a new chapter for me, and so I probably won’t write much about my illness anymore. It may crop up from time to time, because it’s a part of who I am, but I’m past the point now where it is the main focus in my life. And although it is a part of me, I don’t want it to define me.

Yes, I am a sufferer of mental illness. But I am also a wife, a niece, a friend, a crazy cat lady, a Chartered Tax Adviser, a Law graduate, a Conservative, a toiletry hoarder, a cooking enthusiast, a clean freak and now a blogger. So I want to write about other things too, because I’ve got so much to say about the world and so much still to figure out. I hope you will still follow my ramblings and come with me on the next leg of this crazy journey called life.

Thanks to everyone who’s supported me over the past few months. And to those of you out there who are struggling, just remember, you are not alone. xx

Practical tips for recovery

The rubbish thing about a mental illness is that you’re never fully recovered. There will always be bumps in the road. You can have a great six months and then bam, a terrible day comes from nowhere.  A mental illness is not the same as a physical injury. If you sprain your ankle, it's easy to track your progress to recovery. You spend time in crutches, maybe have some physio, and take a load of painkillers. And eventually, your ankle will be well enough to walk or run on. Recovering from a mental illness isn’t quite as easy. You have to come to terms with the fact that you may have to deal with it to some degree for the rest of your life. And that involves learning coping strategies to get you through those bumps.

After a really great few months, I’ve had a tough couple of weeks. I try to push myself to do things that are outside of my comfort zone and to not let my anxiety disorder stop me from living my life to the full, but sometimes, I can push myself too much, resulting in a bit of a slump, and some anxious thoughts and feelings.

I thought it might be useful to share my experience of the everyday coping strategies that I use to get back on track. They might not work for everyone, but hopefully, if you’re struggling, they might provide you with some ideas.

1)      Mindfulness, mindfulness, mindfulness. I cannot advocate this enough. When your thoughts are getting on top of you, focus on your breath and your senses, and I guarantee you will begin to feel calmer. It takes practice and time, but it’s well worth getting to grips with.

2)      Sleep. Not to escape from whatever’s bothering you, but to recharge your batteries. I am a firm believe that if you are tired, your body is trying to tell you something. Get an early night, sleep in or take an afternoon off and catch up on kip. (I know it’s easy for me to say that, having no children or commitments, but if you can, then do.)

3)      Exercise. The one my doctor always tells me to do that makes me want to strangle her. But it does work. If the gym’s not for you, don’t worry (it’s not always for me either.) But even just walking around the block for 20 minutes always calms me down and changes my focus, and it usually gets rid of those nasty physical symptoms too.

4)      Distract yourself. This one doesn’t always work but sometimes just focusing on something different distracts me enough to get rid of the anxious thoughts. Plan a trip away, look through some cookbooks, declutter your wardrobe, write a blog! It’s quite difficult for the mind to focus on too many things so if you’re concentrating on something else, chances are, you won’t be worrying.

5)      Try some CBT techniques. This one’s quite new to me. I’m half way through a course of CBT and still figuring out what works for me. When you find yourself catastrophising, just say STOP! Say it out loud. Put the thought in to a bubble, balloon, whatever visualisation works for you and let it go. Refuse to entertain those thoughts. Focus on something else straight away. With persistence, you can learn to stop those thoughts from owning you.

6)      Talk. To your husband, to your friend, to a support group online. Or just write all your thoughts down. But don’t keep them inside. Sharing my fears makes them seem much less scary. And actually saying things out loud helps me rationalise them.

7)      Reward yourself. Appreciate how far you’ve come. When I’m feeling shit about myself or having an anxious day, I try to remember how bad I was in February of this year. In six short months, I have went from locking myself in the bathroom and pulling my own skin off, to getting up for work every day and actually doing a good job. I look at those scars and I’m not ashamed of them. I just feel glad that I’m not that person anymore.

8)      The compulsive in me had to have 8 (I like round numbers) but I can’t think of anything so let’s just say cake. You can totally fix anything with cake.