For a long while now my whole life has revolved around my mental health struggles. I have defined myself by the words Anxiety and Depression.
WELL, NO MORE!!!!......OK, perhaps that was slightly overdramatic. The point is I am not defined by my mental illness.
This is only something I have come to realise recently and it actually feels pretty liberating. I am the one in control (sometimes). The small steps I have been taking are having an impact. I am consciously trying not to be too hard on myself, for a long time now I have beaten myself up over my illness, as if somehow that will make it better. I have also been watching what I am eating and getting more exercise. As well as losing around a stone I feel lighter on my feet and certain tasks don't seem to have quite as much hold on my anxiety as they previously did. This is all baby steps but it is so much better than doing nothing.
I am still contending with sleep problems, some days I will sleep through the majority of it, like today. Others I wont sleep at all. Not so long ago I found myself awake all night playing fucking solitaire! It was this compulsion that I just couldn't shake. I did manage to beat it on the Master difficulty though so I guess I can now refer to myself as a solitaire master!
My focus is improving but only slightly. I have been pretty productive with my song writing. The singer/songwriter challenge coming back has helped with this, I have 4 new songs this year already.
As my mental health improves I find myself thinking about work and what I would like to do. I often find myself considering some sort of work in the mental health field. I don't really know what at present and need to do some more research. I don't have a degree which might limit me in certain fields unless I was decide to go to university. I suspect anything I was to look at would require some level of education anyway.
Part of me feels that working in this field would have a couple of benefits. I would be able to help others who are going through what I have/am going through and I would also be in a good position to keep a eye on my own MH. Perhaps this is slightly optimistic but who knows!
There are a lot of unknowns still but I am so happy to be making some progress and long may it continue.
I attended a session today as part of Brightlingsea Festival and just wanted to give it a quick shout out as I found it very helpful. It was called "How to survive when the World is going nuts" It was run by Alix Sheppard who is a big part of the Winterfest Festival. She will be recording a version of it for others to watch who couldn't attend. Be sure to check it out here (https://fb.me/e/1Xnmn4pK7) as well as many of the other events being run by Winterfest over Feb.
Anyway, the point of this post is that I appear to have more resilience than I give myself credit for.
We all do.
Much love,
Dan