It's the start of something new!
Greetings and Salutations!
Welcome to Blog Post #1! This Blog is going to be a mix of different topics, including my personal journey, LAD-centric topics like tips and tricks, and guest LAD bloggers. I am going to try to use the Tags and Categories here to help organize everything, to make it as easy as possible to find what you are interested in.
You know, I thought long and hard about what I wanted my first blog post to be about. I thought I had settled on telling the origin story of LAD, but I have decided to do something that many, many people have a hard time doing…
I am going to talk about my own mental health.
Too often, we stay silent about our struggles with mental health. We keep all of the feelings locked up inside and throw away the key.
We have our reasons for it. Some of us may feel like we don’t want to be a burden to others. For others, they struggle with how to bring it up and talk about what they are going through. Sometimes it is the stupid stigma around mental illness that keeps people from speaking out.
For me, my difficulties in reaching out when I am battling depression doesn’t come from worrying about being labelled as weak, nor does it come from the stigma. My difficulties in reaching out or telling others stem from the fact that I have absolutely no idea what brings it on, or what to do stop these dark, negative feelings. I think it would be so much easier to cope and battle out of a spiral of depression if I had some inkling as to why I feel this way.
When I am struggling, my mind seems to have the same conversation with itself:
Mind Side 1 - “Wow, I am definitely finding this bout of depression and anxiety to be overwhelming. I should probably talk to my family about how I am feeling”.
Mind Side 2 - “Yeah, but what do you say when they ask why you are feeling this way? Nothing seems to have triggered this, and by letting them know you are struggling they are going to want to help, as most people want to do when you reach out. There isn’t anything to talk about, because you don’t know why you feel this way, and there isn’t anything you can think of that is going to help in this moment. So, why do you want to let someone know you are struggling? It almost sounds like you are just looking for pity or sympathy…”
Mind Side 1 - “Oh, I definitely am not looking for pity or sympathy…and I don’t want to worry people or be a burden because we are all battling stuff. Maybe I should just keep it to myself, for a few days at least, and see how we feel then.”
Days then turn into weeks, and suddenly you realize that you are a month into your current spiral.
When I say that I don’t know what brings these episodes on, I truly mean that I have absolutely no idea why I struggle like this. I really wish I knew what triggers it, because then I could avoid the situations or find ways to fight back. My latest spiral started right at the beginning of the month, June 1st, after a really successful and productive end of the month with LAD. Letters were completely cleared out, with no backlog, and everything was going at a perfect pace. Then things fell apart overnight, with no warning or triggers that I know of.
My depression has this effect of productivity paralysis on me. Tasks that would normally take 30 minutes all of a sudden take 2-3 hours…or never get completed at all. During this time I have fallen so behind on every aspect of my life…work, LAD, home…and the more I fall behind the more paralyzed I feel. This has a very powerful negative effect on me, because I feel like I am letting so many people down by not getting stuff done. It makes me feel like I am a fraud, and that I have no business trying to run LAD. Those feelings of imposter syndrome reverberate so heavily in me during these times.
Those feelings don’t exactly help pick you up and pull you out of a spiral.
I know that these feelings are not true, and even when I am at my lowest I recognize it as lies that my brain is telling me…but that recognition alone doesn’t help enough to break the cycle. Unfortunately I have not had the best experiences when it comes to medication on my journey (a story for another post), and my social anxiety really makes it difficult to find any healing in talking with a counselor or therapist (yet another story for another post). This means that I have to do more to find ways to break out of the spirals…to find what works for me. Typically for me this means focusing on self care and waiting out the storm.
I have decided today to actually listen to my own advice that I give to others. So often we give out amazing, excellent advice but do not follow it ourselves.
Keep moving forward
What does that really mean though, to keep moving forward? Well, it starts with momentum.
For me, it is to make a conscious effort throughout the day to not be stagnant. I recognize that I can’t expect to make any progress with my mental health if I stay in exactly the same spot that I am in. So, if I am feeling lost and wanting to just go take a nap and sleep away the depression, I instead try to do something to keep moving. Maybe it is putting on shoes and walking to the mailbox to get the mail. Sometimes it is going to a store like Target and walking through the office supplies area, or to Joanne’s and walking through the craft supplies. Those choices to keep moving can have an amazing, healing effect.
Sometimes moving forward can be just completing an easy task, like just trying to get through the next 5 emails. There may be 200 emails waiting, but keeping the task at a manageable expectation helps. I usually find that after the 5 emails, I am ready to take on some more, even. Little steps can pay big dividends down the road.
Eventually, everything lines up and the round of depression goes away, and I return to my normally productive self. Even then, though, I am puzzled at what fueled the depression to go away. Nothing specific ever seems to be the catalyst for pulling out of it, just like there seems to be no catalyst that started it. That makes it difficult because I just can’t follow what I did the last time to break out of it.
So, I have started today with ensuring that I am moving forward. I made the effort to finally figure out how to start this blog, and now am getting the first post out there. I got out of the house and was able to walk around EPCOT for a few hours with the family today, enjoying the fresh air. All throughout the day I kept reminding myself to keep moving forward.
One last thing to remember…
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step
Hopefully the little steps I have taken today help put me in the right direction to exit this block of depression. Tomorrow will be filled with more steps forward, lots of self-care, and compassion towards myself that I am doing the very best that I can do. Will it cure my depression? Probably not, but I will be that much closer to winning this battle.