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.