Tag: personal

Doing well (not)

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

So, my plans to be productive have fallen by the wayside already. And we are only in the first week of February. Which, has me feeling pretty depressed about things. Not that it takes much.

But setting a plan should involve understanding that things aren’t concrete. Which is something that I am trying to learn. It is disappointing when you fail to achieve something, and sometimes it feels like complete failure. And sometimes, it feels like all you get in life is failure, after failure. Like, I try to do things, but just end up going round in circles.

It is something that is very frustrating. A big thing that is a problem, is that my attention lapses too soon. So I lay out tasks to do, and do them successfully for a few days, and then get bored. I have no further motivation to do the tasks I had planned on. And, I can’t seem to stop this from happening. Which is super frustrating.

So, I am trying to change how I think about plans and goals. I need to stop thinking of them as something that can’t be change. Any goals that I have should work with me, I shouldn’t have to constantly feel like I am drowning because my aims are too out of reach. I just maybe need to learn how to plan to my needs better.

Effort

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

Everything costs effort. Doesn’t matter if it is waking up. Making breakfast. Brushing teeth. Everything costs effort. And sometimes, it’s hard to see what actually would be worth any effort at all.

For me, I find it extremely difficult to spend effort on anything which doesn’t grab my attention. So, things that should be part of a daily routine, gets forgotten about. It can happen with food, where I may get to a point of the day where I am dizzy, and realise that I haven’t eaten anything. I forget to brush my hair, and only remember when someone else comments on it. It has always been a thing that happens, and I’ve never known how to explain it to people.

Sometimes it feels like there is simply ‘too many steps’.

Normally my forgetfulness doesn’t really cause a problem, as I can function. I go to work, I do things that are ‘normal’. In fact, work is the one routine I always keep to, and whilst at work, my brain is normally on task. Effort isn’t a thing that is worried for. When I am not at work, in the mornings, in the evenings, there can be problems. I will decided I will shower, but instead stare at a wall, and by the time I get together the effort needed to get up for the shower, the moment has gone. I find it hard to reason why I should even care. It doesn’t change anything.

It sounds gross. Disgusting. And why I have sat on draughts of this post for the last week. It’s something I feel that I need to talk about, to help me work out my thoughts. I mean, that, ultimately, was always the point of me writing in a blog. Documenting my life and figuring myself out. Luckily, there are so many resources on the internet, resources that can help someone find answers.

It’s hard. Figuring out how to figure out your own mind. You just need to make yourself believe that you are worth the effort.

Understanding the brain

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

I have been recently trying to understand how my brain works.

I don’t mean, reading up on biology. I mean, trying to understand why I think the way I do. Because, as much as I don’t want to admit it, my thoughts don’t seem to be settled much in reality. Rationality is not something that normally happens in my head.

I have this constant fear that I have upset someone. That I have been rude, unintentionally. When I am trying to be factual, I just come across as rude. Then, people stop speaking to me. And I feel horrible, because I wasn’t trying to be offensive to the person, it just came off that way.

I have had mental health problems for years. Struggled with anxiety and depression since I was at High School, over 20 years ago. Appointments with countless doctors, a library’s worth of pamphlets, and therapy session, hasn’t fixed anything. I learned how to deal with anxiety and depression when it happens, but no resolution. I then feel guilty, because maybe I did something to stop all the things from working. It’s my fault.

A recent conversation with a doctor, suggested the possibility of my mental health struggles being an end result, that maybe it was how things are processed that is the problem. And that if I with that, maybe the mental stuff will improve. But, with appointments thin on the ground, I feel stuck. I resort to looking online, but online health sites can be dangerous, and filled with mis-information. So, I have always been skeptical about going searching about health stuff.

It’s pretty difficult. I finding more question, but yet to find any answers.

Not Enough Words

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I hate this.

I hate trying to find the words that convey what is going on in my head. What to say when people tell me they are happy that I have ‘beaten depression’, because I have laughed at a couple jokes.

Firstly, I’ll never blame the other person. They are being honest, they say what they feel will help. It may make sense to them, to show they are happy for progress made. It’s meant to be nice, so I try to take it at face level.

Secondly, is recognising that depression doesn’t go away, simply because you can have a laugh with some friends. Similarly, you can still suffer from anxiety, even when you speak towards a group. I have experience problems, with my mental health, for most of my life. And yet, I struggle in finding a way to explain it to people, to let them know what is going on. Nothing I think up seems to be adequate.

I seem to be able to explain ‘bits’. Like, why I may be feeling a particular way on a particular day. But, the overall way my mind seems to twist things, is a much more difficult concept to grasp for myself, let alone trying to help someone else understand.

For years, I plodded on. I suffered with depression and anxiety, but tried to plod on. I didn’t know what else to do. It’s only fairly recently that I was recommended to try to figure out why I am the way I am. Actually recognise the behaviours, rather than simply ignore them. A lot of the time it’s like aiming to climb a mountain, but walking into a brick wall every time you try.

I am trying to focus on learning more about my depression and anxiety. Because if I can understand it, myself, maybe I can explain it better. Maybe.

Life Ambitions

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

What do you want out of life? A new car, a family, out of debt, a home of your own… there is a lot you may want out of life. And, it can be daunting to know how to get what you want out of life.

I remember being at school and being told that I had to decided what I wanted to do then and there. My panicked brain jumped from journalist to teacher to Veterinary Nurse to an artist. It was a manic time, and I felt like I was running down the clock in a game of ‘pick the career’. My friends all knew what they wanted, I didn’t. I knew that I wanted to do something I liked, but I have never tested well. So a lot of decisions were made for me. I felt I had to jump straight into further education, when I already had a bad experience at school. I attended college, failed, attended another college, failed there too.

I’ll say one thing, it all didn’t help with my self esteem.

When my friends were finishing University, and starting meaningful careers, I worked in a call centre. With anxiety and depression running my life, rather than aspirations of a long term career. This sense of being an utter failure, made me lose confidence in everything. I felt like I had let down so many people. Even now, I work in a warehouse, whilst others do jobs they love, things they were good at. Like, I have no shot at progression, despite trying to get some. The feeling of not being good enough, is constant.

Sometimes I wish, school had managed expectations better. It would save me a lot of heartache, if working a job was just as important as having a career. Because, society need those lower paid jobs as much as the high flying careers. There is no failure in holding down a job. And schools still don’t say this. So kids work at McDonald’s feel like they have let down their families, which is so wrong. Education is amazing, but it shouldn’t be people’s first step in the real world.

I wish I could do something I was passionate about. Reading, writing, and art. At the moment, I can be as passionate as I want, I do not have the attention span for any of it. And, that is how my life goes. I feel like my life is like a rollercoaster. It has ups and downs, but ultimately I am just going round and round, not really going anywhere.

But still being here, in spite of everything, is a win better than any career. A lot of people aren’t that lucky.

Forget Me Not

~ Sue ~ 2 Comments

I have completely forgotten to post on here. I have no real excuses, just that time has got away from me. As it has the tendency to do, sometimes. I have committed to this blog for another year, as my payment for the domain has been made again. So, although I may be absent, I won’t be gone.

Thanks to my anxiety, I am very bad at relaxing. I always have to be doing something. When I am not busy, the negative thoughts can take over. I am trying to get used to being relaxed, without feeling any negativity about doing so. Which is easier said than done.

I have been on holiday this week. No work, no full week, just relaxing. Which has been hard. I have been doing some reading, learning some Gaelic, just taking things a bit slower. It has been nice. This has been my first proper time off in 2021. It was needed, because everything at work was getting on my nerves.

I am off work next week too, so I hope this relaxation can continue.

TikTok

~ Sue ~ 1 Comment

I have been frequenting TikTok recently. People will sneer, as they have done already, as it is a ‘child’s app’.

No social media app is suitable for children to be left alone on. All parents should be aware of the content their child consumes, as you would if the child was playing outside. It is just as dangerous. There are people who will take advantage, as there is in the real world. Social media is even more dangerous, as people can pretend to be someone else, and get close to a child.

Since last year, with the first lockdown, TikTok became super popular. With people downloading the app in their millions, to beat boredom. Small 15 second videos can be uploaded by anyone. People talk about personal problems, hobbies, show a talent, discuss politics, anything. And it’s one of the few things my bad attention span is able to deal with.

I started making my own videos. Just moaning about life. Talking about my mental health and my struggles in losing weight. It’s so fast to do. And I think that is key to me using the app regularly. I find with a lot of social media, you are encouraged to edit everything, like a quest for perfection. I find, that 15 seconds is so quick. I can make a quick point, and upload before I can think too much. And I find it quite cathartic.

Oops

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

I forget to write.

That’s nothing. Sometimes I forget to do basic things like clean up after myself and basic hygiene.

I forget because I sit and stair at a wall. As if the seams of the wallpaper are going to give me the answers to life. Which would maybe be true if there was conscious thought involved. There isn’t.

A glance at my phone, can tell me that time has passed, sometimes hours. But when I think, it’s like someone has an eraser and just rubbed out what was there.

It’s frustrating, because I can’t rationalise what happens. And that causes my anxiety to spike. Causes me to worry that I’ve done something stupid.

Luckily, I am normally alone when this happens. Staring at my tv, although the screen is blank. I am also sitting, which is also good. It seems to be when my mind is not busy. It’s like it switches off.

It is annoying. I really don’t know how to make sense of how my mind works.

Because half the time, I don’t think my mind works at all.

New Habits

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

The hardest thing about life, are these assumptions that we grow up with, from childhood. This idea that everything that you learn, is the same stuff that will carry us through the rest of our lives. Whilst this may be true for some, not every behaviour that we learn is correct.

A lot of times, the behaviours that we learn, are ones that are the best for our individual situtaion that we may have been in. For example, I learned at a young age that it was easier to binge eat my feelings, rather than bother anyone with my problems. This, was something that I felt that was most convienient at the time, but in the long term, it was an issue. My behaviour around food came about in my teenage years, when I started having mental health issues. A lot of people thought it was because I was earning my own money. Whilst having money certainly didn’t help my situation, it didn’t start it. Before my first job, before I earned any of my own money, I was hiding extra food in my room, to binge on later. I was maybe 13 or 14 at the time.

When I started putting weight on, people would make fun. The thing that was my coping mechanism, a way to feel better, was now a reason to feel bad. It didn’t fix anything. It made things worse, I doubled down on what I was doing, and would eat more as I felt worse. During that time, I think that there was this attitude to ignore bullies, you don’t ‘grass’ them in. It felt shameful that these people’s silly comments were getting to me, so I used food as a release. And it never went away, it just became worse.

Over the last few years, I have been trying to work on my mental health. And much of that journey has been spoken of in this blog. It has led to me thinking about my coping mechanisms, which includes my relationship with food. I have started an account on MyFitnessPal, in the aim to record what I am eating. Because when I binge. I mindlessly eat, so I am trying to recognise every food that I eat. Something that sounds basic, but it involves relearning so much stuff.

I guess, what I want to say, is that no one is perfect. Not every behaviour that you have learned is one that will stay with you, for your entire life. Despite the belief that childhood is where you learn new things, you learn something new every single day. As they say, every day is a school day.

Fixing Myself

~ Sue ~ Leave a comment

Before I checked my blog, I couldn’t tell you when the last time I posted was. The internet has been a particularly stressful place, so far in 2021. Conspiracy theories and abuse seem to be thrown at anyone with wifi access, and it makes it difficult to create anything. It feels like anything you create for the internet, leaves you open to abuse. Which has always been a risk, but it just feels so much more intense. It doesn’t help that my last post, was about work problems. Things that had driven me to the end of my tether.

Fortunately things changed. I spoke to my manager, and they helped fix the situation. Which was good. It helped me feel confident that I wasn’t the ‘bad guy’ in the situation. I spoke to my GP over the phone, and he was happy that I had spoke up. As, we had previously spoken about me being proactive about my personal situation, and that I shouldn’t ‘suffer in silence’. So, I felt positive, my colleagues supported me, and made sure that I was okay. So I didn’t feel alone anymore.

I thought that maybe being proactive in other areas in my life would help. So, I have started trying to control my unhealthy relationship with food. So, I opened up the MyFitnessPal app on my phone, and started tracking everything. I mindlessly eat, I do it as stress relief, have done. In fact, previously my doctor likened my over-eating to self-harm, as it was a way to punish myself. So, I am writing down everything that I eat. To try and recognise what I am taking in. It is helping, I feel so good that I have kept complete track of my food intake for the last two weeks. I am tracking at around 1700 calories a day, which is a deficit, and should help me lose a wee bit of weight too. But that isn’t essential. I just want to feel better.

I then applied for a new vacancy at my work. A learning trainer, it would be a promotion. I have trained people before, and I think it is a job I would be really good at. I sent my application away over a week ago, but haven’t heard anything back yet. It’s the first time I am looking towards the future, rather than just stewing about my current situation.

So I am feeling a wee bit positive. Which is better than last time. I am trying to step back into the world a bit more, function a little better, so I’ll maybe post a wee bit more.