Finding HopeQuotes That Helped Me (Validation Edition – Part 1)
Posted on May 11, 2019
One thing I’ve really learned over the last few years is that, as important as support and help are, so are recognition and validation of what we’re going through. To feel like someone understands how we feel can ward off the intense isolation that can come hand in hand with mental illness. To have our struggles dismissed is sometimes even worse than them being ignored altogether.
In a continuation of this series, here are some quotes that validated my feelings and helped me feel understood. I hope they can do the same for you.
“I’m afraid I’ll be a book that no one reads. Music that no one listens to anymore. I’m afraid I’ll be abandoned like a movie playing in an empty theatre.” – Tablo
“We are all museums of fear.” – Charles Bukowski
“I exist too much, I feel too much, think too much. Reality is crushing the life out of me.” – David Jones
“I’m really afraid to feel happy because it never lasts.” – Andy Warhol
“Have you ever had to get through a day, smiling at people, talking, as if everything were normal and okay, while all the time you felt like you were carrying a leaden weight of unhappiness inside you?” – Elizabeth Wurtzel
“I get it now. I get it. The things that you hope for the most are the things that destroy you in the end.” – John Green
“I’m numb and I’m tired. Too much has happened today. I feel as if I’d been out in a pounding rain for forty-eight hours without an umbrella or a coat. I’m soaked to the skin with emotion.” – Ray Bradbury
“The truth is, I pretend to be a cynic, but I am really a dreamer who is terrified of wanting something she may never get.” – Joanna Hoffman
“The incredible pain returns again and again and again.” – Susan Sontag
“I can only connect deeply or not at all.” – Anais Nin
“Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.” – Jonathan Safran Foer
“I’m not sure which is worse: intense feeling, or the absence of it.” – Margaret Atwood
“That’s the thing about pain. It demands to be felt.” – John Green
“I need to be alone for certain periods of time or I violate my own rhythm.” – Lee Krasner
“I am deathly afraid of almosts. Of coming so very close to where I want to be in life that I can almost taste it, almost touch it, then falling just a little short.” – Beau Taplin
“I’m just dying to say, ‘Hey, do you ever feel like jumping off a bridge?’ or ‘Do you feel an emptiness inside your chest at night that is going to swallow you?’ But you can’t say that at a cocktail party.” – Paul Gilmartin
“It’s all too much and not enough at the same time.” – Jack Kerouac
“She felt everything too deeply, it was like the world was too much for her.” – Joyce Maynard
“Even if you know what’s coming, you’re never prepared for how it feels.” – Natalie Standiford
“The sadness will last forever.” – Vincent Van Gogh
“How do we forgive ourselves for all of the things we did not become?” – David ‘Doc’ Luben
“There is a certain clinical satisfaction in seeing just how bad things can get.” – Sylvia Plath
“No one warns you about the amount of mourning in growth.” – Té V. Smith
“I am half agony, half hope.” – Jane Austen
30 Days of Self Care
Posted on May 4, 2019
A while back, I discovered the 30 Day Self Care Challenge (here) and I’ve been really wanting to try it. I’m always on the look out for more and better ways to help myself manage my life. As April was Stress Awareness Month, I figured this was a good opportunity. Stress and anxiety aren’t necessarily the same thing but there is an overlap and anyway, we could probably all use a little more self care in our lives.
I’ll admit that I was only semi successful at completing the daily challenges. I managed most of them but there were busy days, illness, and various other roadblocks. But I tried, and I thought I’d share some of the ones I did manage to do:
Day 4 – Write down 3 things you love about yourself
- That I’m honest.
- My hair – when it behaves.
- My scars.
Day 7 – Burn a candle/incense
I burned my pink pepper and grapefruit candle (my absolute favourite candle) with the special wooden wick from The Candle Bar in Nashville. The wooden wick makes a crackling noise, like a fire burning. It’s lovely and the smell always relaxes me.
Day 8 – Unfollow people on social media who don’t inspire you
I don’t think I’ve unfollowed anyone since I joined Twitter and Instagram and it definitely needed doing. I was following a lot of people and organisations that only stressed me out. More and more, jobs are involving social media so it’s not always possible to just unfollow every account that doesn’t bring you joy but there were definitely some that were unnecessarily stressful. So I started unfollowing. I went through my Following lists and unfollowed thirty accounts on Instagram and forty on Twitter. My social media sphere has felt a lot safer since then.
Day 9 – Take yourself out on a date to eat/see a show/go to a gallery/museum
I had to shuffle things around a bit for this one but for one of my parents’ birthdays we went to see Waitress the Musical. She’s always encouraged my love of music and the music in this show is so good. We decided to do something together for her birthday and this is what we landed on. We had so much fun and we laughed a lot. It was a good night.
Day 26 – Read a chapter of a book
I technically failed this one but the day before, I read the whole of This Is Going To Hurt by Adam Kay. It’s a collection of diary entries from when he was a doctor and it’s hilarious and disgusting and tragic in equal parts. It was a really good read and it reminded me of why I always loved reading. It’s like the rest of the world stops for a bit and I really needed that, even if it wasn’t the easiest read.
Day 27 – Take a nap
Mid morning, I went down with a migraine and the only coping mechanism I have for migraines is to sleep through them. So I ended up having a six hour nap.
Day 29 – Explore affirmations, and write three of your own
Before this, all I really knew about affirmations was that they were positive phrases that you repeated to yourself. But I did some research and it’s a really interesting practice – this article was particularly good. So I’m having a go at it:
- I have the skills to do my job.
- I am competent and confident.
- Every action I take makes me more comfortable in my life.
Self care isn’t a one size fits all scenario and what I think is so great about this challenge is that it allows you to try all these different things that you can incorporate into your routine as self care. Some will work for you and some won’t. The last day of the challenge allows you to reflect on the successes and failures and while some were practices I already use as part of my self care routine, there were others that weren’t but will be now: I’m getting back into reading, I’m learning about affirmations, and I’m more comfortable on social media. I’d definitely recommend this if you’re not sure where to start with self care; it gives you a lot of options. Hopefully there’s something for everyone.
The New Plan
Posted on April 28, 2019
The last few months have been tough, medication wise. I had a wonderful, un-depressed Christmas (which I’m massively grateful for) but since then, I’ve been struggling. My mood just kept dropping and my anxiety just kept getting worse and we tried to alter the medication to compensate, to find that perfect balance, but it’s gotten to the point where we just need to try something new. So I’m taking stock of everything and trying to figure out how I feel about all of it.
The Clomipramine (a Tricyclic anti-depressant) worked for a while. As I said, I had a really good Christmas where I felt joyful and energetic and actually happy for the first time in a really, really long time. But then it seemed to lose its effectiveness and my mood dropped, whether that was because I was taking a magnesium supplement (I talk about that here) or because it just had a short shelf life. I don’t know. But it stopped working and my depression returned. Since then, my depression has been stifling and I’ve really struggled with suicidal thoughts, at an intensity I’ve never experienced before.
My anxiety also skyrocketed so, in addition to the Pregabalin (also known as Lyrica) I was already taking, I started taking Flupentixol to help manage it. At first I felt no different but after adjusting the dose, my anxiety decreased dramatically and I started to feel a bit more functional. But in the months since then, it seems there have been a number of difficult side effects: my energy levels dropped dramatically, to the point where even a shower is a real struggle. Standing for any length of time is impossible and I ended up being wheeled around multiple airports in a wheelchair during my Nashville trip. The worst part though was that my hands felt thick and clumsy, like my fine motor skills had just evaporated into thin air. Playing guitar was practically impossible.
At first I didn’t realise that these things were connected to the Flupentixol but thanks to my Mum and her incredible attention to detail, we realised that the dates all seem to match up and since we reduced said medication, these problems have disappeared. I’m ridiculously grateful to have my hands back, even if my anxiety has flooded back in.
We’ve reached a point where I can remain where I am or start over. So I’m starting over. I don’t want to live like this. So, after a lot of thinking and talking to my psychiatrist, I’m coming off both the Clomipramine and the Flupentixol. I’m not a massive fan of the Pregablin either to be honest but even changing two things at once is ambitious. So that one can wait. I’ve already started reducing the meds and I’m bracing myself for a barrage of mood swings, depressive episodes, and more. It’s not going to be fun. But it will be worth it. Hopefully.
The current plan is to come off the two drugs, go the ‘wash out’ period (two weeks of no drugs – apart from the Pregablin – so that there aren’t any negative interactions between the medications), and then start Phenelzine again. Yes, Phenelzine – the drug I stopped taking two years ago because it had stopped working, because the joyfulness it gave me felt fake and suffocating. BUT it’s the only drug that’s allowed me to be functional – creatively and otherwise – so we’re giving it another try. It did work for a long time and if it doesn’t, we’ll try another MAOI (monoamine oxidase inhibitor) anti-depressant.
I’m not sure how I feel about it, to be honest. Part of me is frustrated and disappointed. I’ve spent two years trying to find something better only to end up where I started. But on the other hand, that’s two years of knowledge, experience, and confidence that I didn’t have before. I’m a different person and chances are, my reactions will be different: our bodies change and our chemical makeup is constantly shifting. These medications all but cause a hurricane inside us. So I’m trying to be optimistic. I’m trying to be hopeful.
Finding Hope 