Finding HopeThe Last Few Weeks…
Posted on December 1, 2018
I’m not quite sure how to describe the last few weeks. Intense, maybe. There’s been a lot going on and I’ve done things and felt things that I’ve wanted to write about but couldn’t figure out how. So I’m writing this, with the good, the bad, and the weird of the last few weeks.
So first, I got to take part in a research study for the Centre for Research in Autism and Education at University College London. I’ve written about my experience with research studies before (here) so I won’t ramble on but I love doing them. It often feels like Autism takes opportunities away from me but this allows me to do something I’d never expected and that’s really exciting. I got to put the EEG cap back on and have my brain waves monitored while I did some computer tasks. It was investigating perceptual capacity in Autism (which I’ve written more about here) and it was really fun, like a Windows computer game from the nineties. And apart from trying to get the saline gel out of my hair, it was a really great experience.
I also went and gave blood for the first time. That was very exciting! I’ve wanted to give blood for years but up until now I haven’t been well enough or I was on medication that disqualified me. So getting to do it was really exciting and a really cool experience. Everyone was really lovely and I’ve since had a text telling me where my donated blood has gone. So the whole thing was really special and I will definitely do it again.
Despite these cool and inspiring experiences, my mental health has been pretty bad: I reached a new low with my depression. I feel like I’m always saying that the current period of depression is the worst it’s ever been but for me, there are real differences: new thought patterns, new emotional states, new lines, new fears. Each period of depression has a different colour. Anyway. It’s been really bad and really hard and I’ve had some desperate moments.
Medication wise, it’s been a rollercoaster. As per usual. I got myself all but off the Amitriptyline a while ago but I just wasn’t ready to try another medication straight away. It’s a tough process and I just needed some time to feel steady, even if that was steadily bad. Maybe not the most logical decision I’ve made but it made sense to me at the time. And ultimately it doesn’t matter now. I’ve started the Clomipramine, which is what everyone wanted me to do. Finding the right medication and the right dosage can be pretty gruelling and I just needed to be in the right mental headspace. I’m not sure how I feel about the Clomipramine but it’s still early days.
And on this last Monday, I went to see Maren Morris play an amazing, intimate show at OMEARA in London. The staff were great about making it accessible and I was let in without having to queue and there was a chair reserved for me – I really, really miss the days where I could stand for hours without a problem. And the show was fantastic. Maren is one of my all time favourite artists/songwriters and it was one of the best shows I’ve ever been to.
“When this wonderful world gets heavy and I need to find my escape… yeah, I guess that’s my church.” // @marenmorris was a complete dream tonight. Beautiful, beautiful songs, singing, and stories. My little songwriter soul is so happy. (x)
It might be blurry but I love this photo of me and @richardmarcmusic after the @marenmorris show tonight. We had SUCH a good time. We’re constantly listening to her music, whether we’re in a songwriting session or just chilling out and playing Mariokart. So we were two happy beans tonight. (x)
And now it’s December. Most of my family have birthdays in December and January and of course there’s Christmas and New Year. So that’s a lot of fun things but it also means a lot of high emotion and stress. It’s a tricky time. I’ve found Christmas difficult for the last few years so I’m going to have to be careful to manage my physical and mental health throughout this period. I’m going back to the post I wrote last year about managing Christmas with anxiety and Autism – if that sounds like it might be helpful, you can find it here.
Quotes That Helped Me
Posted on November 24, 2018
Knowing me and my affinity for words, it should come as no great surprise that the quotes of other people have always played a big part in my life. I’ve collected them, filled notebooks and blogs, written them on my body… Sometimes you can’t put exactly what you’re feeling – or the encouragement you need to hear – into words but fortunately, those words are often already out there. So I thought I’d post some of the quotes that have helped me in the hope that they might help you too.
When I started pulling these together, I realised just how many I’ve collected in the past few years alone. I have more than five thousand saved on a Tumblr blog, for example. So this may become a series. These quotes are ones that have encouraged me and motivated and there is a distinct memory attached to each one, a time in my life where I saw it and it spurred me on in a way nothing else had been able to. So these ones are pretty special.
“Do it or don’t do it – you will regret both.” – Søren Kierkegaard
“The bravest thing I ever did was continuing my life when I wanted to die.” – Juliette Lewis
“The poison leaves bit by bit, not all at one. Be patient. You are healing.” – Yasmin Mogahed
“Recovery does not mean losing what makes being you special. Recovery means losing what makes being you painful.” – Unknown
“Take a shower, wash off the day. Drink a glass of water. Make the room dark. Lie down and close your eyes. Notice the silence. Notice your heart. Still beating. Still fighting. You made it, after all. You made it another day. And you can make it one more. You’re doing just fine.” – Charlotte Eriksson
“Let it hurt. Let it bleed. Let it heal. And let it go.” – Nikita Gill
“How much can you change and get away with it, before you turn into someone else, before it’s some kind of murder?” – Richard Siken
“Start now. Start where you are. Start with fear. Start with pain. Start with doubt. Start with hands shaking. Start with voice trembling, but start. Start and don’t stop. Start where you are, with what you have. Just… start.” – Ijeoma Umebinyuo
“It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.” – E. E. Cummings
“I closed the box and put it in a closet. There is no real way to deal with everything we lose.” – Joan Didion
“What happens when people open their hearts? They get better.” – Haruki Murakami
“But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in.” – Junot Díaz
“There is so much stubborn hope in the human heart.” – Albert Camus
“Thinking is my fighting.” – Virginia Woolf
“Every time we attend a therapy session, take our prescribed medication, get out of bed, shower, eat a healthy meal, spend time with other people, exercise, or ask for help, we are fighting. Each step in recovery is an act of defiance toward our mental illness leading us to hope.” – Michelle Stepp
“I must endure, and endure, and still endure.” – Tennessee Williams
“You are not going nowhere just because you haven’t arrived at your final destination.” – Taylor Swift
“What did you do today?
Existed quietly within myself.
What will you do tomorrow.
Exist with some degree of force.” – Trista Mateer
“Hang on. It gets easier, and then it gets okay, and then it feels like freedom.” – Taylor Swift
“You are not what happened to you. You are what you chose to become after what happened to you.” – Selena Gomez
“Life is tough, my darling, but so are you.” – Stephanie Bennett-Henry
“I rise from my worst disasters, I turn, I change.” – Virginia Woolf
“My life has changed, and I’m changing with it.” – Sophie Kinsella
“You know who’s going to give you everything? Yourself.” – Diane Von Furstenberg
“Be as fearless as the women whose stories you have applauded.” – Hillary Clinton
“I can’t abandon
the person I used to be
so I carry her.” – Unknown
“Today, just like yesterday, I woke up, picked up my pen and notebook and kept on writing.” – Laura Jane Grace
“I’ve had the wind knocked out of me, but never the hurricane.” – Jeffrey McDaniel
I’m always adding to my collection so if you guys have any quotes that have inspired you, please let me know. We could probably all do with a little more inspiration in our lives.
Another Anna Akana Video I’m Grateful For
Posted on November 17, 2018
In the middle of my recent bout of depression – the worst one I’ve had – at my lowest point, an Anna Akana video appeared in my YouTube subscriptions. It was called ‘the voice’ and it was about her new short film that was being released the next day.
She talks about how, while 2017 was the best year of her life, her depression was also at its worst. There was a voice – that felt like it was in the room with her – telling her to kill herself. And it got to the point where she had a plan for how she was going to go through with it, which is a major red flag.
“I was just so in pain and I just felt like I had nothing and like I was nobody and I wasn’t worth anything at all and I literally… I have this big whiteboard on my wall and I wrote out DO NOT KILL YOURSELF, like all across it. I put it on post it notes and I put it on my bathroom mirror and like… everyday when the voice came and I would be like ‘SHUT THE FUCK UP!’”
While she still struggles with depression, she says she’s out the other side of that particular battle and she credits getting through to all the mental health education that’s out there and all the things you have to do everyday, hoping that they add up. She also made this new short film, pouring everything into it because she needed something to remind herself of why she’s here. It’s about the moments she wanted to die and all the things she had to live for. I would include it in the post but I just really want to focus on this introduction video (but you can find the short film here). Maybe I’ll write a full post about it when I’ve sorted out all my feelings about it.
I am so grateful for this video. Talking about this stuff is so hard and so to have this raw and uncut video where she talks about this experience but also how she got through it was and is so important to me. It’s helped me in this incredibly hard period and so I wanted to share it here.
“Please don’t kill yourself if you’re also suicidal… just don’t do it. There’s a lot… there’s a lot of great things to live for.”
Finding Hope 