I’m sick and tired of the changes that my mind goes through causing me to get depressed, overwhelmed, paranoid, vexed, stressed and anxious.
Popping pills every bloody morning and night. I feel like a pill popper. I’ve tried coming off them to see if I can manage without and all that does is back fire on me and I need to start taking them again in order to gain some level of balance and calm, and that process isn’t instantaneous either as it can take weeks.
I woke up in a great mood yesterday and even decided to venture out to see a few friends. One was out, the other was in and we sat and I listened. I don’t say much these days and listening to my mate go on about how he’s had enough only compounded the notion that I’m feeling the same way.
Up and Down, all the fucking time going from a good place to a place of no motivation, no drive, no incling of what the fuck I want to do, or can be bothered to do.
One way of drowning out all this unhelpful noise would be to drink booze and make myself feel happier with a good beer/wine or spirit buzz. Only that doesn’t work anymore coz of the medications that I have to take. FFS I can’t even have a drink to enjoy myself any more and the hangovers are horrendously painful. Still, I do it. Just not to excess which is something that I’ve learnt to do over time and with the help of Aspire Peterborough who taught me the dangers of drinking too much alcohol.
I’m an intelligent man. I have morals and I have an understanding that bad mental health puts limits on people. I understand this and I accept this. Only my mental health changes, from good to bad and from bad to good and sometimes it levels off and for a while there’s a balance. The problem I have is that while this sense of balance gives me time to be productive where I do look at how I can and should better myself, something always comes along that will trigger emotions which cause me to become unbalanced and unhealthy again. Lack of sleep, lack of food, too much food, stress and overwhelm all lead to feelings of anxiety, maina or depression and then I’m in a world of my own struggling to stay with it and stay positive, only getting nowhere which in itself stresses me out.
Medication helps, a lot. I’ve learnt to use the balanced times to organise and plan for the unbalanced times (this is my productivity) where I can look back at what I’ve done so I can pick up from where I left off. It’s not as simple as that though given that I don’t always recall what I’ve done unless I accidentally stumble across it (which is what happened to me a few days ago when I found a weekly planner that I’d made back on March 15th). The last time I was on top of everything was back at the beginning of March and I’d started to feel good and started a healthy eating and exercising routine, I had even tried to quit smoking. I feel back on form again now after 2 months of feeling really low after the loss of my Mum and I’m going to hopefully stay with this positive mindset.
Therapy is a great way to get things out of your head and the benefits of therapy can be enormous. It comes in different guises and the most common is talking therapy. For me it’s writing as I don’t tend to say much, especially in company (yes, I do talk to myself). Just writing this post has helped calm me down and straighten my mind out and now as I write this I’m in a nice flow with a really nice sense of being. The title of the post might give you an idea of how I was feeling before I started writing. One of the projects I have right now is finding my ‘hopeful words’, that I can use in my writing. I enjoy it. On Medium I have 204 followers, so I do have some effect, only I really don’t know what to write about. Still, it’s therapy alright, it helps and I’ll keep on doing it.
Talking of projects: I think I might have too many.
- Learning Photoshop & Illustrator
- Working with WordPress building a website for The People Project
- Writing
- Digital painting
- Self-help Courses/Webinars/Classes & Groups
- Gym
If only I could make a start would be good, and that’s where the weekly planner that I made back in March comes into focus, the only problem I can see is actually starting it and then sticking to it. Sticking at things has been a ball achingly dodgy process for me for all of my life and that includes anything and everything, from routines to relationships to even staying asleep through all of the night (at times). With the knowledge I have now about how I operate as a human being with the ups and downs and swings and roundabouts that I face mentally I can’t afford to be hard on myself so I take my time, at just about everything, I have to else I’ll get lost and panic and fuck things up. Rushing around is for fools and I used to be a big one. HA! Some would say I still am, including me.
So, getting back to this big fucking problem that I have…right now I feel good and I can honestly say that it’s not that big of a problem, certainly not a big fucking problem, just a problem, in that tomorrow I could well have a different mindset where I think and feel differently about what I’ve just said and that will determine how tomorrow will go. I have a good feeling that this good vibe will stay a while and things will progress and I’ll be able to gain some traction to what I’ve planned in the weekly planner, so, Tomorrow Will Be a Good Day ~ Sir Captain Tom Moore.
