Finding HopeTaking A Self Care Day
Posted on August 4, 2018
Within an hour or so of waking up, I knew I needed a self care day.
I’d started the day at the gym, swimming in the outdoor pool. It felt good to do but by the time I got out, I was feeling really anxious and fragile. I thought about it and talked to my Mum and decided that I needed a day to look after myself. I needed a little break from life, from all the big, hard stuff.
It was never going to be a particularly busy day. I had planned to do a couple of things in town but there was nothing urgent and I felt really low on social energy. Sometimes it’s worth pushing through, worth practicing opposite action, but sometimes it just makes more sense to focus your energies elsewhere. So I cancelled that stuff and headed home.
On my way, I popped into the supermarket and bought some treats for myself. I’ve been pretty good about eating healthily recently, which I’m really proud of given my issues with food. But we all need unhealthy stuff sometimes and that day was one of those days. I also bought some new notebooks, which always cheers me up.
Once I was home, I headed to the living room and drew the curtains. I’ve never had white curtains before but I absolutely love it: you can draw the curtains and shut out the world but there’s still good natural light. It’s a little bubble in which I feel safe. I changed into my favourite T-shirt, put on a Harry Potter film for background noise, and got to work on the emails I’ve been avoiding. I was avoiding them because they were stressful but ignoring them only created more stress so I needed to address that. I just needed the right environment – a calm environment – to feel able to do that. And I felt SO much better afterwards. I also got caught up with my diary and my photo albums, both of which are my self care staples.
Another thing I was really worried about was my cat. She was spayed not that long ago and I just had this anxiety that the wound wasn’t healing properly. My Mum was taking our dog to the vet so I asked her to take Lucy with her. I have serious anxiety about going to the vet (probably from when we had to have my previous cat put down) which does need addressing but that wasn’t going to happen in a day and I didn’t want Lucy to suffer because of it. The vet checked her out and gave her a clean bill of health, much to my relief.
It’s also a really good time to try and practice good habits, healthy habits. I’m trying to build several things into my daily routine (not that I really have a daily routine), including drinking the recommended amount of water, practicing my instruments, and making sure I do something creative. Without a day to stop and take stock of my life, it’s easy to get into a really frenetic cycle that just gets faster and faster until I inevitably crash. So, for me, it’s important to stop.
So there you have it. This is what I do in a self care day. Obviously it’s different each time because of what’s happening in my life but, for me, a self care day involves several things:
- Calming my environment
- Addressing anxieties
- Assessing my routine and my habits
- Feeling safe and comfortable
Sometimes that means curling up in bed with my cats and my favourite TV show and sometimes it’s replying to all my emails and so on that have built up. Sometimes it’s like an aesthetic instagram post with fluffy socks and candles and sometimes it’s ugly with tears and frustration. We all do it differently and we all do it differently each time. Self care is a very small title for a very big idea.
Moving House When You’re Autistic
Posted on April 24, 2018
So I just moved house. It was not fun. I am going to write about it in more detail – I think the experience might be useful, maybe for someone trying to understand how change can affect a person with Autism – but I’m not ready to do that yet. It was really difficult and I’m still pretty emotional about the whole thing. Change is notoriously hard for people with Autism but I think the permanence of a change like moving house is particularly difficult. I definitely learned some lessons during the process so I thought I’d share them.
Some context before we begin: Not only were my family moving, we were separating into different houses, which was something I hadn’t been expecting. That was a real shock to me and made the whole thing even more difficult. But we’re still close and live close enough that we still see each other as much as before, which I’m really grateful for. Now I live with my Mum; I’m not ready to move out.
Right, here we go.
TIPS
Prepare for emotions, yours and others – First, however you feel is okay. It’s a big deal. Whether you feel everything or nothing, it will take time to work that out. And just when you think you’ve dealt with all of that, it’s time to move and it all comes back. There were lots of tears on the day of the move, as well as the few days after. It’s emotional and stressful and exhausting: the perfect mix for someone to get upset. I think the only thing you can do is be gentle with yourself and each other and give people space when they need it.
Build in as much time as possible – Moving house is exhausting and emotional. And packing at the last minute just makes it worse. Giving yourself time allows you to be careful and methodical and it means you can take breaks if it gets too much.
Label the boxes – The destined room is not enough. By the time you’ve packed everything you own and transported it to your new home, you’ll have no idea where anything is. And every time you need anything, you’ll spend at least twenty minutes digging through all the boxes in order to find it. It will drive you up the wall.
Pack a suitcase – You know me: preparation, preparation, preparation. Make sure you have a bag of things you’re going to need for at least the first week. You might think that you can get yourself sorted in a couple of days but chances are you can’t and you really don’t want to find yourself out of things like clean clothes and make up remover. You don’t need that on top of the stress of moving. Also, remember to check the weather forecast before packing, just in case you find yourself caught unawares by a heat wave with only jumpers to wear like I did.
Try to create a safe space for yourself – Moving house is messy and if you’re anything like me, being surrounded by clutter for extended periods of time makes me feel very claustrophobic and panicked. So, both before moving out and after moving in, I tried to keep one area calm and somewhat neat to give me a space to decompress and recharge in. I wasn’t always successful at keeping it tidy but for the most part, it helped.
Set a reminder to put all your food in the fridge – The last thing you need is all your food going off and with a million things to remember, you’ll most likely forget something. Let that be something else.
QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT
How much help do you need?
Depending on your capabilities, you may need to enlist some help to move everything, whether that’s professional movers or friends and family or both. You really don’t want to get halfway through moving day and be unable to keep going so make sure to think carefully about what you need and ask for that help well in advance.
Do you need to be there on moving day?
This obviously depends on whether you’re moving with your family or by yourself: the demands on you will be different. In my case, my family knew how difficult the whole experience had been and so suggested going to see a friend while the removal people did their thing. They thought that the empty house would upset me but I felt like I needed to be there; it helped me say goodbye.
Do you need a clean slate or do you need to keep things familiar?
As already mentioned, change is often hard for autistic people so you might feel the need to keep things as similar as possible, such as furniture and when decorating. But on the flip side, many people with Autism feel emotions very strongly so a change might actually be the less overwhelming option. It wouldn’t be healthy to be constantly reminded of an upsetting event.
Do you need closure and if so, how can you get it?
I definitely needed to say a real goodbye. I’d lived in that house for fifteen years; I felt safe there and there are a lot of memories associated with it. For a long time, it felt impossible to leave. So, once I could consider it, I thought a lot about what would help me leave, knowing that I wouldn’t be coming back. So, on the last day, we took some pictures of me in my room and then I put a letter I’d written for a future resident under a loose floorboard. I can’t tell you why or how but that did help a bit.
ADVICE FOR FRIENDS AND FAMILY
If you’re telling an autistic person that you have to move, be clear. Give them all the information. Especially when there’s so much emotion, it can be hard to process what’s going on so anything that isn’t explicitly stated may get lost.
Give them as much warning as possible. Something like this is really difficult to process – there are so many emotions involved – and it came take time to absorb and make sense of.
So I think that’s everything. I hope this has been interesting and helpful. One last thing to add: I found this article recently that is more relevant to someone moving out of their family home and thought it was definitely worth including here.
Backwards Binoculars
Posted on December 5, 2017
Over the years, I’ve had periods of feeling really far away. It often overlaps with my bouts of depression but sometimes it creeps in out of nowhere and I feel completely lost, untethered from everything around me. It fades in and out like a fog, sometimes with no warning and often there’s nothing I can do to dissipate it or avoid it. It can be really scary, especially when it first started to happen, but at the same time, it’s like I can’t really feel that fear or any of my emotions. I’ve described it in different ways but they all describe the same feeling: feeling completely disconnected from myself. But I thought I’d include a few of those descriptions because they give more of a sense of how it feels:
- It’s like looking backwards through binoculars so everything seems really far away when it’s actually close. Sometimes I can almost see the black tunnels that would be the inside of the binoculars. This is the way I usually describe it; I think it fits the best.
- I feel like I’m five miles back inside my head. I can’t reach anything or anyone and it feels like no one can hear me, the real me.
- It’s like watching everything happen and feeling like it would continue as normal if I wasn’t there, almost like people wouldn’t notice if I disappeared. They’ll keep talking, leaving spaces for me and responding to what I would’ve said if I was there.
- Similarly, it can feel like I’m invisible, like people will look right through me.
- It feels like I’m stuck behind glass, like there’s glass between me and everybody else. I am physically separated from everyone. This is another one of my ‘favourite’ ways to describe it.
- A variation of that is feeling like I’m wrapped in cling film: separated from everyone but also trapped. It makes me feel like I can’t breathe.
- I feel disconnected from my life, my body, like I’m in control but it’s not mine. I’m moving my limbs but they feel oddly numb, thick and heavy and clumsy.
- One of my earliest memories of this feeling is feeling like I was out of sync with everyone else. That’s a very lonely and uncomfortable feeling.
- Sometimes it feels like I’m underwater. It’s like I’m surrounded by something other than air and there’s more resistance when I try to move.
- The most recent description is that I feel like I’m sleepwalking and can’t wake up. This one overlaps with how I feel when I’m really depressed so it’s not the most reliable analogy, if that makes sense. It fits both.
To be completely honest, I’m not sure what causes it, given the overlap of the different mental health problems I struggle with. This is something I have a lot of anxiety about, not being able to pinpoint where individual problems come from. Everything’s connected to everything else. Everything influences everything. But from my own reading, it seems to be common in depression and in Borderline Personality Disorder. It’s often a coping mechanism for stress or overwhelming emotions. The Mind website has a great page about this. My experiences line up best with the description of ‘Depersonalisation’.
I still haven’t found anything that does much to help it but there are a few things that give me a few seconds of relief, of connection. Usually, it’s about tapping into my senses. That seems to bring me back to the world a little bit. So things like opening windows, sitting in the sun, touching leaves or flowers, stroking a pet, having a cold shower or holding something cold… they don’t fix it but they do have a positive effect. Even if it’s tiny, they do create small positive spikes in my mood. They’re like stars in a suffocatingly dark sky. With this, it’s more about getting through it than trying to fix it. It’s about creating one moment after another to carry you through to the other side.
I want to add that I’ve also used self harm to ‘wake myself up’ from this. I’m not advocating it; it’s dangerous and damaging and really difficult to get free of. But if nothing else, I’m honest and it has helped. When I’m in a really bad place, I don’t want to hear that I shouldn’t do it because it feels like the only thing that helps but when it’s not quite so bad, I try really hard to find other ways to cope. I try the things I’ve listed or I try to distract myself. I don’t want to get too far from the point of the post so I’ll come back to this in another post but I felt like I had to include it here.
Friends and family have asked me what they can do to help and if I’m honest, I don’t really know. It can be hard to think about that when I’m just trying to get through it. But I do want to help them help me. At some point, I will write more about this, but I do find it really helpful when the people around me let me set the pace and decide what I can and can’t manage. Sometimes a push is helpful but in this situation, it isn’t. A sense of control grounds me a little bit. Plus, there are some things that are just really hard to manage when you feel like you can’t connect to your emotions. For example, I find it really hard to write songs and be creative when I feel so disconnected from everything. So being able to (and feeling safe to) adapt my activities does help. And talking. Talking it through, figuring out solutions, letting off steam. That really helps.
13 Things That Don’t Make My Depression Worse
Posted on September 16, 2017
I’ve been struggling with depression on and off for about five years now and that’s added up to a lot of bad days. Over that time, I’ve tried a lot of things and talked to a lot of people. And the best advice I’ve ever been given is ‘don’t make it worse’. Well, step number one is ‘don’t make it worse’, step number two is ‘try to make it better’ and that always rang true with me. In my opinion, the most important thing about coping during periods of depression is getting through it.
You can worry about making things better when you’re feeling okay but when you’re feeling awful, that’s too big an ask. These things on this list aren’t life changing. They’re not going to banish the depression or quiet the anxiety. But they have helped me to feel better, even if it’s just the smallest amount. And that’s where you have to start. So I thought I’d list them here. Maybe they’ll help some of you too.
1. Journaling – I’m a huge advocate of writing stuff down, for two reasons. Firstly, I think it really helps with the processing of emotions. A lot of the time, I feel like my thoughts move very quickly and to write them out, I have to really slow down. That allows me to make different connections, explore the depth of the emotion, and really think things through. I find that so, so helpful. And the second reason is that it allows me to let go of everything that’s happening to me. I’ve been keeping diaries for a long time and this is something that has really helped me. All of these big emotions make my head feel very full and it can feel hard to breathe but when I write it all out, it’s like I can let it all go. I compare it to backing up my hard drive: I know it’s safe and I don’t have to actively hold onto it or worry about forgetting things, something that often feels like it takes up a lot of energy.
2. Looking at the sky – I’m serious. There’s a little park across the street from my house and recently, I’ve found myself heading over there in the early evening (when it’s empty and quiet) and taking a moment to lie in the grass and look at the sky. There’s something about it that really calms me. I can feel my ribcage opening up and it gets easier to breathe. It kind of feels like, with the sky above me, there’s finally enough space for my emotions to leave my body. I don’t know if this works for anyone else but humour me. Try it and see how you feel.
3. Playing with or stroking an animal – There’s something about animals that can be incredibly calming. They’re so mindful, so completely present in what they’re doing. Spending time with my dog or my cat is something that’s really helped me over the last few years. Focussing on them, for me at least, makes everything fade into the background for a little while.
4. Washing your face – Simple but true. Sometimes, washing my face just feels like a fresh start.
5. Buy something (cheap) online – I say cheap because I know money is a cause of stress for a lot of us, but when you’re having a bad day, having something to look forward to is important. And sometimes there’s nothing in the diary so you have to create it yourself, even if it’s something simple, like a pretty notebook. Knowing that something nice is going to arrive in a couple of days can help you keep going.
6. Doing something that takes all of your concentration – If you’re feeling up to it, doing something that takes great concentration is really good because it prevents you from thinking too much and ending up in a spiral of negative thoughts. My preferences are playing the piano or doing origami.
7. Doing something you don’t feel pressured to be good at – A while ago, a friend suggested trying something like painting because it was something I’d never really done and therefore it didn’t matter if I wasn’t any good at it. It was a good idea in theory but in practice, all I could focus on was how I couldn’t make it look how I wanted it to look. To me, it was bad. So that just made me feel worse. But when I picked up poetry, I discovered I didn’t mind what the outcome was. I just did it because I enjoyed it and I think that’s because it was linked to something I was already skilled at. I’ve been writing in some form or another for years so while this form of it was new, the basic skills weren’t. It was already something I was comfortable with. So, if you’ve had the same problem, perhaps try something similar to a skill you already have: a different art form, a different sport, even a different type of puzzle. I’ve found that doing something purely for enjoyment can help, giving you a sense of accomplishment at a time when you may not feel very accomplished.
8. Having fresh flowers around – I don’t know about the logic of this one but there’s something about having fresh flowers in my room that just gives me a little pick-me-up.
9. Watching a movie or TV show – Sometimes you just need a break from your own life and watching (or rewatching!) a TV show or movie and getting really involved with characters can do just that.
10. Take a break from responsibilities – This is obviously not a long-term strategy but giving yourself a period of time where you aren’t required to do anything can recharge you. For a little bit, you can avoid things that make you feel invalidated and not feel guilty about the things you should be doing. That takes up a lot of energy and having a break from that just allows you to recover some energy so that you feel more capable when it’s time to start again.
11. Organise something – Putting things in their proper place can help give you a sense of control in a time you where everything may feel completely out of your control. I actually find this quite helpful when I have to make big decisions. Jumping straight to the big things can send me into a panic so I kind of warm up by organising my computer desktop, putting everything in the correct files.
12. Going to concerts – This is obviously a harder one to orchestrate because you can’t just conjure up a concert when you’re feeling depressed (although looking forward to one can be helpful too). Concerts can be difficult (especially if you struggle with anxiety as well as depression, like me) but in my experience, there’s something about live music and that group emotion that can make you feel very alive. And you’re completely focussed on that moment in time. Emotions feel more vibrant, after feeling very faded by depression and they stay with you, allowing you to relive them afterwards. There’s something very special about going to concerts, especially when it’s an artist or band that mean a lot to you, and I’ve found those experiences can really lift me out of my depression, even if it’s only for a little while.
13. Changing your bed sheets – I don’t know about you, but there’s something about sleeping on clean sheets that just makes me feel better. If I’m in a bad place, I need someone to help me do it but it always improves my mood.
So that’s my list of things that don’t make my depression worse. Hopefully this has helped or given you some ideas for when you’re feeling really low. And if you have any suggestions, leave a comment below!
