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.
An Introduction to Amitriptyline
Posted on July 28, 2018
I have now been taking Amitriptyline for about six weeks so it’s probably time to take a step back and get some perspective. I usually look at it week by week but this time, that doesn’t really make sense. The effects (and side effects) have been fairly consistent…
I’ve been feeling overly emotional ever since I stopped taking the Venlafaxine and that hasn’t changed with the addition of Amitriptyline. Everything makes me cry, from difficult decisions to TV storylines. And sometimes I cry for no reason at all. After twelve months of feeling incredibly disconnected from my emotions, it’s pretty overwhelming. I’ve described it as similar to turning an old tap: it’s nothing, nothing, nothing and then suddenly, it’s spilling everywhere and I’m emoting all over the place. It feels very extreme and I don’t seem to be able to control it.
But having said that, I am thinking more clearly. Up until very recently, I’ve been struggling to think, to write, to engage at all. I’m not sure I can really explain it: it’s so deeply rooted in feelings rather than words. It’s not really measurable. It’s kind of like trying to run through water: it takes so much energy to achieve so little. And once you get out of the water, moving is so easy and it’s such a relief. I’m so relieved to be able to think again. I don’t feel like I’m back to normal (and I’m still struggling in the songwriting department) but the fact that I can even write this out is a big deal.
One weird consequence of changing medications is that I want to eat all the time. I really hadn’t expected that. When I stopped taking the Venlafaxine, I was eating about one meal a day: I didn’t have much will to eat and the medication made me incredibly nauseous. And now, the urge to eat is there at all times. There have been days where I haven’t been able to concentrate because all I can think about is food. It’s causing me a lot of anxiety: firstly, because it’s a pretty extreme change (and I am NOT good with change) and secondly, because eating doesn’t satisfy the urge. I eat and it’s still there. It’s so frustrating. I’m not quite sure what to do about it.
My depression hasn’t lifted (yet?) but it has definitely shifted and in the reshuffle, my anxiety has come back in full force. I’m anxious all the time. Before, it felt like I was too disconnected from everything to really feel any anxiety but now, it’s almost overwhelming. I feel like I’m constantly running from it, filling my day with distractions to keep it at bay. But then, at night, it takes over. It’s made me anxious about going to bed and there have been more than a few occasions where I’ve accidentally stayed up all night in my attempts to distract myself. The anxieties themselves aren’t new but usually I’d only have to deal with them one at a time whereas now it’s like they’re all present all the time. It’s exhausting and scary and draining.
So it’s neither a miracle nor a disaster. And it’s better than the Venlafaxine. Other than that, I don’t know. I’m feeling very overwhelmed at the moment.
Getting Back To Gigging
Posted on July 21, 2018
Over the last twelve months, I’ve barely been performing at all. I just haven’t been up to it. My depression has been completely overwhelming and has only been compounded by trying to find a new antidepressant, what with all the side effects: at one of the few gigs I have done, I was getting so dizzy that I couldn’t stand up long enough to play three songs. So it’s been a struggle. But in the last few weeks, I’ve had two gigs – and two gigs that I really wanted to do – and so I’ve had to figure out how to do everything that that involves while still struggling the way I am. It was hard work and the heat didn’t help but I managed to do them and do them reasonably well all things considered.
The first performance was part of Brighton Soup. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, it’s a community event where four people (or organisations) pitch their ideas to improve Brighton and Hove. Everyone votes and the pitch with the most votes gets the money from the ticket sales to make their idea a reality. They invited me to play at their next event and it turned out to be such a special experience. I was so moved by all of the pitches and the general spirit in the room.
I was really anxious about performing – more than I have been in a long time – and my hands were actually shaking. I find that very disconcerting, not being in control of my body. I took a deep breath and tried to imagine it flowing through my body, imagine everything settling. That helped a bit, as did trying to really feel every line of each song as I sang it.
Before this unplanned break from performing, I felt fairly confident on stage and although I did get nervous, it all but disappeared the moment I started singing. It took longer this time but, by the time I finished my four songs, I felt like myself again. I’m not sure I could explain the process – from shaking mess to confident performer – but I could feel it happening and that, in itself, helped with my anxiety.
The second performance was at Disability Pride in Brighton. I got to play last year (despite technical difficulties, it’s still one of my favourite performing experiences) and I was SO excited to get to play again. It’s such a special event.
It turned out to be a pretty challenging gig. The acoustic stage was inside an inflatable structure, which needed a generator to remain inflated. The generator was so loud that I couldn’t hear myself at all. I was reassured by multiple people that it sounded great from the audience’s perspective, but I still really struggled with it. Had this happened a year ago when I was performing fairly regularly, it wouldn’t have bothered me as much because the more you perform, the more it gets into your muscle memory. So, if you’re struggling to hear yourself, you can rely on other parts of your body to judge how the performance is going: how your voice feels in your throat, for example. But during this ‘break’ from performing, that muscle memory has faded and so I was relying heavily on hearing myself. So it wasn’t as easy as it could’ve been. Plus it was stiflingly hot and I’ve always struggled with heat.
But having said all of that, it was one of the most supportive and most generous audiences I’ve ever played for and I felt so, so lucky to be there. I wish I could’ve given them a better performance. My sincerest thanks to everyone who made the event possible; I literally can’t put into words (I’ve been staring at the computer screen for an hour) how much it means to me.
The last few weeks have been a bit of a rollercoaster, but one that I’m really grateful for. I’d sort of forgotten how much I love performing but this has really helped to remind me.
Finding Hope 