Finding HopeMy Lockdown Favourites
Posted on July 25, 2020
As stressful (and often traumatic) as it’s been, lockdown has provided the opportunity to try out different pursuits, things that we didn’t have the time or mental energy for previously. Even though said lockdown isn’t actually over yet, I’ve been thinking about some of the things I’ve discovered or things that I’ve been finding relief in during this difficult time and thought I’d share them, in case they’re helpful or comforting to anyone else.
The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse by Charlie Mackesy – My therapist gave me this book just before lockdown and I read it all in one go. It’s comforting and inspiring and the illustrations are just stunning. But even though I’ve read it, it’s a really good book for just dipping into, for just opening at a random page, and ruminating on the message of the words – while there is progression to it, it’s not in a traditional story format so you can simply read it in this way.
My Kelsea Ballerini sweatpants – Obviously any good pair of sweatpants will do but my favourite pair come from the merch line accompanying Kelsea Ballerini’s third album. I know that a lot of people have talked about needing to get up and get dressed as they did pre-pandemic to be productive but I’m honestly more productive when I’m comfortable and these are just super soft and cosy without being too thick. I’m pretty sure they’re one of the best pieces of merch I’ve ever bought.
Kalie Shorr – I’ve loved Kalie’s music for years, especially her debut album, ‘Open Book,’ which came out last year. Her music really is unique: her lyric writing is brutally honest and perfectly balances detail and metaphor, her melodies surprising yet effortlessly catchy, and the production not only perfectly matches each song but takes you on as much as a journey throughout the album as the lyrics do. It’s one of the best albums I’ve ever heard and as a songwriter, I learn more from it every time I listen to it. I’ve been playing to it a lot during lockdown and even learning some of the songs on the piano as I try and improve my skills. It’s so cohesive, emotionally, lyrically, and sonically. It’s so utterly Kalie. I hope that, one day, I’ll be as assured of my musical identity as Kalie is.
My keyboard – I love playing the piano but between life and managing my mental health, I do often find it difficult to just sit down and play simply for the fun of it. If I have a university assignment or song idea, of course I’ll work at it until it’s perfect but I struggle to fit in time to just play because I like the sound or learn a song I love or practice a specific skill. So having this extra time has allowed me to do that. There’s also the added bonus that piano playing takes up so much concentration for me that I’m distracted from my near constant anxiety, something I’m very grateful for.
Absentia – I’ve been meaning to watch this show for ages; it’s been on my To Watch list in a number of bullet journals now. But I always felt guilty for putting the time aside to get into a new show. In these current times though, it’s been the perfect escape and I found it so addictive that I ended up watching a season a day. If you like a mix of crime show and thriller, plus an awesome, well developed female lead, then this is a show for you.
Banana Bread – It’s a bit of a lockdown cliche but seeing everyone making banana bread inspired us to make it again. I haven’t had it in years and oh my god, I’d forgotten how good it is. We went a bit overboard, probably making (and sharing) at least fifteen of them…
Fanfiction – As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’ve been struggling to really get into reading. Whether it’s my anxiety about the pandemic or my mental health in general, trying to absorb brand new characters, settings, and storylines just seems to be too much for my brain and I just can’t concentrate. Reading stories set in familiar worlds (Stargate SG-1, Sanctuary, Harry Potter, Criminal Minds, etc) with familiar characters just feels more possible and I love how they build on and fill out something that I already love. I’ve always found it to be a really good form of relaxation, a really good way of escaping reality when everything gets too much. Maybe one day I’ll make a post listing my favourites because some of them are genuinely among the best pieces of fiction I’ve ever read.
1SE App – I’ve been a fan of the 1 Second Everyday app for years but I’ve found it particularly helpful and enjoyable during lockdown. It reminds me of the good moments, that I am actually achieving things, that we are moving forward. I don’t know if lockdown is going to have a definitive end but if it does, I may post a one-second-a-day-of-every-day-in-lockdown video. Otherwise I’ll probably post the video of the whole year at the end of 2020.
Lauren Cimorelli – I have been loving Lauren Cimorelli’s recent music, especially ‘Atom Bomb’ and ‘Rabbit Hole.’ The lyrics create these beautifully dark and romantic images, they’re super catchy, and the production is awesome: vivid and chaotic but glittering and iridescent. They really inspire me to get better, particularly at production.
Isn’t It Romantic – I’m not usually a huge fan of romantic comedies but me and my uni friends have been having regular movie nights, taking turns to choose the movie. I can’t remember who chose this one and I was prepared to simply watch it and then forget about it but I absolutely loved it, so much so that I’ve watched it three or four times since that initial viewing to show it to other people. I loved the ridiculousness of it and how it made fun of the romantic comedy genre, while still being a really fun, feel good film.
Broadchurch – My brother and his Mum watched all three series in a week and insisted that me and Mum would love it so we tried it out and got through it in even less time. It follows the partnership of the moody, complex DI Alec Hardy (played by David Tennant) and the bright and bubbly DS Ellie Miller (played by Olivia Colman) as the try to solve cases (one per series) in the small, seaside town of Broadchurch. It was thoroughly gripping and we repeatedly went to bed hours later than intended because the cliffhangers were so intense.
Taylor Swift – I know folklore only came out yesterday but I’m already completely obsessed with it and I know I’ll be listening to it daily for a LONG time. I do miss the big, bold, glittering production from her previous albums but I also love this new sound for her. I’m finding it completely impossible to choose a favourite but I absolutely adore ‘the 1,’ ‘exile (feat. Bon Iver),’ ‘my tears ricochet,’ ‘mirrorball,’ ‘this is me trying,’ ‘illicit affairs,’ ‘mad woman,’ ‘epiphany’ (although it’s actually painful in its sadness), and ‘peace.’ It’s a stunning album.
So these are some of the things that I’ve been enjoying in lockdown (the words ‘enjoying’ and ‘lockdown’ in the same sentence sound very strange). I hope these are interesting to you and if you have any favourites of your own, please share!
10 Things That Are Helping My Mental Health in Lockdown
Posted on June 13, 2020
I think probably most of us can say that we are struggling mentally in lockdown. I certainly am. I seem to be swinging wildly between overwhelmed, depressed, and anxious with no warning as to when the ground I’m standing on is going to change. It’s exhausting and kind of makes me feel sick all of the time. So I’ve put together a short list of things that are, if not helping, then managing my mental health in this emotionally turbulent time.
- Talking about how I’m feeling – I’m in lockdown with my Mum and talking to her about my anxieties and how I’m struggling with my mental health has been helpful, even if it can, in the moment, be really hard and make the emotions feel more acute. But after all this time, my Mum is very skilled at helping me with my mental health so when I get into such a state that I can’t think properly, she’s very good at helping me through it.
- Keeping a diary – I always keep a diary but I’m finding it particularly useful at the moment. Emptying my brain and getting all of my thoughts down on paper lifts a little of the weight I feel like I’m carrying. It just makes me feel a little bit lighter, like I can breathe more easily, and that’s invaluable right now.
- My cats – Obviously my cats have no idea that we’re in the middle of a pandemic so they’re just continuing to do all of their cat things: playing together, chasing bugs in the garden, playing with their toys, and sleeping all snuggled up together. It’s a good distraction and a very mindful one. Everything they do is entirely in the moment and it’s hard not to smile when you look at them, something I’m finding hard at the moment.
- Favourite Films and TV Shows – While getting sucked into a new TV show is a great distraction, I find that I don’t always have the concentration to keep up with new characters in a new world with an unknown storyline so I’ve been watching a lot of my old favourites, especially ones from my childhood. They’re familiar and comforting and distracting, making everything feel just a little bit less scary.
- Video calls with friends and family – I hate not being able to see my family and friends in person, hate not being able to hug them and just hang out with them for no particular reason other than just being together, I’m very grateful for video calling. I’ve spent a lot of time talking and catching up with my favourite people and although I sometimes find it draining (I think, to an extent, the level of video call use just serves to be a reminder of how different everything is), I’m just really pleased to be able to see them at all. I miss hugging though. I really miss hugging.
- Reading Fanfiction – As I said with watching films and TV shows, I’m finding it really difficult to get into new books. I just don’t seem to have enough concentration to stick with new characters and settings and so on. But a technique I’ve used for a while when it comes to anxiety is reading Fanfiction. I love that you can get so many new stories but with familiar characters and overall themes and story arcs. If you’ve ever felt like a book, movie, or TV show didn’t do a good enough job with a story or that they left out something really important or you see the characters in a completely different scenario, then I highly suggest looking into Fanfiction.
- Playing an instrument – I’ve spent a lot of time at the piano over the last couple of weeks. It’s something I’d hoped to do during my empty semester but coincidentally, it’s been really good for my mental health. I love the sound of the piano (I find the lower octaves especially soothing) but I also find that playing takes up all of my brain. I often sit down to play a couple of songs and then realise that I’ve been there for over an hour. Learning new songs and figuring out new chords and progressions just pushes everything else out of my head. It’s a nice break from reality.
- Time away from social media – I’m definitely guilty of spending too much time on social media at the moment, terrified to miss out on important information (I absolutely do not trust the government to be giving us the full story, ever really but especially right now). But that’s leading to a lot of fear spirals so I’m trying my hardest to spend real time away from my phone and social media, checking it once a day at most. It’s complicated since part of my job involves the use of social media but with the disruption to the music industry at this time, I’m not too worried about that right now. My mental health has to be my priority.
- Decluttering – This is another thing I’d hoped to do during my empty semester and, depending on my mood, it’s not always possible but when I do feel up to it, I’m finding that going through my things and creating space in my room seems to create space in my life and my head too. I can’t do it for long periods because I start to experience decision fatigue and get really indecisive but creating order and having some control when I feel so out of control has been both satisfying and soothing.
- Preparing for my next university module – Something I was worried about before the pandemic was being prepared for this next module in my Masters degree, which involves a level of musical theory that I’m not sure I’m comfortable with at this point. So I’d wanted to do some work on that and my attempts at this have actually been good for my anxiety: focusing on a completely separate anxiety has been a good distraction and preparing for a future post-pandemic has been good for my mental health too. It helps me remember that this isn’t forever.
It’s also worth mentioning that I have an anti-anxiety medication that I take as needed, which is pretty much all the time right now. My psychiatrist is aware of this and supports it. This has been hugely helpful and has halted many a panic spiral for which I’m really grateful. Being constantly overwhelmed by anxiety is exhausting and only makes it harder to cope with everything going on.
As I said, I don’t know if these things are helping or just maintaining my mental state but honestly, I think the only thing that’s really going to help my mental health is life returning to somewhat normal: being able to continue our lives and do the things we love to do without a thick fear of being infected. I want to feel safe again. I want to hug people, go back to university, go back to the gym. Maybe I’ll write a post about all the things I want to do when it’s safe again.
Books, Films, and TV of 2018
Posted on December 15, 2018
So the year is drawing to a close and I wanted to do a round up of the media I have consumed and enjoyed. Last year, I wrote a post called 2017 in Songs and I’m working on the 2018 edition but I also wanted to do something more because I read and saw a lot of good stuff this year. So let’s go…
BOOKS
It was one of my new years resolutions to read more books this year and I set a very achievable goal of five. I didn’t want to end up stressing about it and I’ve actually managed to read about double that. So I’m very proud of myself. Most of them I enjoyed but here are the ones that really stood out:
Turtles All The Way Down by John Green
The first book I read this year was Turtles All The Way Down by John Green. I could write pages and pages about this book (and I did) but I’ll keep it short. It follows sixteen-year-old Aza who struggles with OCD and anxiety as she juggles school and friends and investigating the disappearance of the local billionaire. I fell in love with this book from the first page; I loved the way Aza described her experience and I related to it so strongly. There’s something about the way John Green writes that really speaks to me and the story doesn’t rest on Aza’s mental health for the plot: it’s intertwined with several different storylines. I really liked that; it felt very true to life. Having felt very alienated by the books I had been reading previously, this was the total opposite. One of my favourite books ever.
“In some ways, pain is the opposite of language… And we’re such language based creatures that to some extent we cannot know what we cannot name. And so we assume it isn’t real. We refer to it with catch-all terms, like crazy or chronic pain, terms that both ostracize and minimize. The term chronic pain captures nothing of the grinding, constant, ceaseless, inescapable hurt. And the term crazy arrives at us with none of the terror and worry you live with. Nor do either of those terms connote the courage people in such pains exemplify.”
What We Buried by Caitlyn Siehl
I read several poetry books this year but this was easily my favourite. I loved it from the first poem. I love the way she writes – the language she uses and the way she punctuates the words – and the empowered feeling you get from reading the poems. I highlight my favourite passages in books and this one has a lot of highlighting!
“This is where we heal. This is where we hide. This is where we are found.”
Do No Harm by Henry Marsh
I’ve really struggled to read fiction this year (Turtles All The Way Down was the exception) so I delved into the world of non-fiction and ended up reading and loving this book. Henry Marsh is a neurosurgeon and the book is a collection of his patients and his experiences. He has a very gentle way of writing that I loved and when I finished it, I had this odd feeling that I understood my own brain a little bit better.
“…More than that, the operation involved the brain, the mysterious substrate of all thought and feeling, of all that was important in human life – a mystery, it seemed to me, as great as the stars at night and the universe around us. The operation was elegant, delicate, dangerous and full of profound meaning. What could be finer, I thought? I had the strange feeling that this was what I had wanted to do all my life, even though it was only now that I had realised it. It was love at first sight.”
FILM
I’m not much of a film watcher – for some reason, watching a film feels like more of a commitment than starting a TV show. But I made an effort this year to watch more films and watch more than just the things that I naturally gravitate towards. Having said that, my favourite films of the year are all pretty representative of my taste in films…
Wonder Woman
I grew up watching Justice League on television with my Dad and with my brother so those superhero stories are very important to me. I wasn’t ready to watch it right away but when I did, I loved it. And I feel like my Dad would’ve loved it as well. It looked beautiful and the acting was beautiful and I loved every second of it.
Edge of Tomorrow
In a dystopian future, humans are fighting an alien race called Mimics. When one man starts to experience the same day over and over again, it gives him an unforeseen advantage in battle. I am a sucker for this kind of film (and a strong female character!) and I’ve watched it multiple times since my first viewing.
Love, Simon
I read the book that this film was based on (Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli) and loved it so I was really looking forward to the film. It follows Simon Spier, who is keeping a secret from everyone he knows: he’s gay. But when a classmate threatens to out him, everything changes and he is forced to choose between his friends and the anonymous classmate he’s fallen in love with over email.
TV
It’s one of my favourite things to curl up with a good TV show and binge watch the whole thing in one day.
Queer Eye
Is there anyone who doesn’t love Queer Eye? It wasn’t something I expected to love but the overflowing positivity just captured my heart. While the physical makeovers in these men might be the most obvious changes made, the emotional one is the most powerful. There is little (if any) media that encourages men to take care of themselves and be kind to themselves and so this show is a big deal. I have to admit that I haven’t finished it yet but that’s only because I don’t want to have no new episodes to watch.
Frequency
If you love sci fi and police dramas (like me), then this is the show for you. After a freak lightning storm, police detective Raimy Sullivan is able to communicate with her father in the past via an old radio. An attempt to save his life causes devastating changes in the present and between them, they have to try and fix the timeline. It’s addictive and intense and I loved every second of it.
Episodes
During some downtime (and some much needed rest time) in Nashville, my friend Richard introduced me to this show and I am so, so grateful. It’s a comedy about two English television writers – a married couple – going to the US to recreate their hit show. As you can imagine, it doesn’t go exactly as planned. Because of the blend of British humour and American humour, I feel like there’s something for everyone: it’s dry, it’s direct, it’s subtle, it’s not subtle, all at the same time. I love it so much that I’m in the process of watching again, with multiple different people because I know they’ll love it too.
Burden of Truth
So I watched all ten episodes in one day because it’s that good. A successful lawyer returns to her hometown to uncover the truth behind a group of teenage girls getting sick. It’s full of twists and turns, family secrets, and some great LGBT representation. I’d write more but I don’t want to give anything away!
The Split
Another legal drama, this one about a family firm that begins when the eldest daughter, Hannah, leaves to work for a rival firm. The six part series follows their cases and their relationships and the return of the father who has been absent for thirty years. It stars Nicola Walker who I have loved ever since I first saw her in Spooks (as Ruth Evershed) as well as Stephen Mangan, who stars in Episodes.
Unforgotten
More Nicola Walker! I loved the first two series of Unforgotten so I was very excited to see the third and it absolutely lived up to my expectations. Each series features a handful of different characters and their lives are weaved together until we understand a historic crime and despite this format, each series has been different and surprising and heart wrenching. Nicola Walker in particular was fantastic and I really, really loved that they explored the toll that such a difficult job can take.
Agents of Shield Season 5
I have mentioned my love of Agents of Shield before and that was only strengthened by this latest season. Daisy Johnson is my hero and it was awesome to see her be even more interesting and amazing in this season. And it’s been renewed for a sixth and seventh season!
Lucifer
Another awesome recommendation from Richard. The devil decides to take a holiday from hell and takes over a nightclub in LA (and it turns out he’s hilarious). He teams up with a police detective and shenanigans ensue. I love it. It’s funny and smart and thought provoking: there are some great questions about god and religion and faith in there. All of the characters are interesting and complex and I don’t want to get to the end. Fortunately there’s a new season on the way.
So there you go. My books, films, and TV of 2018. Hopefully there’s something in here that appeals. What have you been reading and watching this year?
Finding Hope 