Home Posts tagged "mental health" (Page 4)

Tag: mental health

Bringing the Fun Back

So I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and stumbled across this: Sweet-Ass Affirmations 2 / A Card Deck for Creative Maniacs . Of course I was intrigued. I followed the link, and discovered something truly awesome. It’s an affirmation deck, which is cool. Now I don’t currently own any, nor have I really delved into them before, but hey, there’s a first time for everything. But what got my muse all a-flutter was the idea of fun and play and creative and mania and bringing out the joy in life – because, c’mon now, we all need that, but for me, I’ve been thinking about this VERY THING. It’s like the Universe is giving me a gentle nudge. Synchronicity. Because I was just thinking that I needed to make my writing fun again. I’ve been struggling for weeks on my novella. I’m in the process of loosely plotting it, building a bit of a roadmap to follow, as is my process, and I’ve found myself horribly stuck. The idea was exciting and interesting and fun months ago when I thought of it. Now? It just feels like work. It could be that everything these days feels like work. Work’s been crazy, my sleep is still not right, I haven’t been feeling good about anything, the pandemic has been getting me down (we’re still not out of the woods, but that’s another post), and I just feel very….hopeless? Pointless? Crappy? Right now. I can’t even put my finger on it,…

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Re-entry

[CW: COVID, mental health, depression, anxiety] Last spring, we watched COVID coming. First it was very far away, until suddenly it wasn’t anymore. First handwashing was enough, then it wasn’t and everyone was sent home (for certain values of “everyone”). Then it was a waiting game to see how bad the news would get here. Back then, I just…froze. (I’m a natural worrier anyway. I have a history of depression; I haven’t been diagnosed with anxiety, but I wouldn’t be surprised either.) My brain heard “pandemic” and went into hindbrain survival mode. Never mind that I’m not a health care worker, nor a front line worker, nor a hospitality worker watching my job or business evaporate. Never mind that I didn’t have any loved ones in long-term care. (I do have loved ones who are vulnerable for other reasons, though.) Never mind that I didn’t know anyone who died of it (until this year, but that’s another story). I’ll be honest: I spent more than a month barely functioning. Eventually I called my doctor and we tweaked some stuff and then I could function again, but it still wasn’t pretty. I turned into a workaholic instead (partly because my job got super busy right at the same time). I did manage to stay connected with friends online–multiple ongoing text chats, Zoom watch parties, Zoom yoga. Sometimes I didn’t feel like talking, but they understood. My mental health has been improving, mostly. But physically I became a hermit (to be fair,…

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Unfurling

Last month, I wrote about needing rest, and getting a little and realizing how just much more I needed in order to not feel exhausted anymore. Since then, I’ve been focused on taking it. That four-day weekend over Easter. Two extra days off the following week. Friday afternoon the week after, and again the week after that, and I’m plotting to take another day in the very near future. I’m finally starting to get a little more energy and willpower back. Hard to say how much of that is from the time off, how much is from having a slower and less stressful month at work (which also means the days off are easier to take), and how much is from the change in seasons…but the difference is noticeable. It’s not steady progress, for obvious reasons. I still have nights of sleeping poorly, days of exhaustion or or anxiety or despair or rage (we’re still in the throes of the third wave here, thanks in part to a really slow vaccine rollout…). I spent a month trying to write a 300-word flash fiction piece and had to give up when it just wouldn’t gel by deadline. But…I’m gradually starting to do yoga again, without dropping the near-daily nature walks that have been keeping me sane. I’ve found tiny bits of energy for non-routine “adulting” things like researching and buying a new mattress. (If you’re anything like us, a mattress is one of those things you don’t think about until it…

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Time to Rest

I’m sure I speak for many of us when I say I’m tired. It’s been a long and extremely stressful winter; for some of us, it’s been traumatic. Social media is showing me memories from this time last year, when there was an outburst of online creativity and caring and memes. We poured our fear and anxious energy into action. We didn’t realize then just how long a marathon we were in for, did we? This weekend, I had four days off work in a row, for the first time since Christmas. (I’m Canadian, so we get Good Friday off, and some sectors also get the following Monday.) I was prepared to crash for two days. Which I did, and thoroughly enjoyed it. On Friday and Saturday, I lounged around in bed, finished a book (reading, not writing, alas), went for some walks, ordered pizza, and that was pretty much it. I was not prepared to crash for three days. But that happened anyway. On Sunday, my big accomplishment was dragging my own butt and my husband’s out to the backyard with a picnic blanket so we could enjoy the beautiful weather. On the fourth day, Monday, I ran around like a madwoman (I have a mental disorder, I can say that) to try and accomplish at least some of the things I’d hoped to catch up on…like housework and dealing with all the vegetables we had just optimistically had delivered Somehow it took me all afternoon to make carrot…

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Just Keep Swimming, Again

It’s now well and truly into 2021, dear readers, and we’re still here! But wait…where is the new and shining not-2020-anymore we were promised? Politics has settled down, that’s huge. But the pandemic just keeps throwing new curveballs our way, winter is still happening, we still can’t travel or even (depending on where you are) socialize in person. It’s tough being human in this environment, and unfortunately for our devoted fans, writers are also humans. Writing has gotten much harder for many of us. Unfortunately for our loved ones, we’re happier and less neurotic when we’re able to write. But being sad or anxious or stressed makes it harder to write…you can see the problem. Seems like every year around this time, I blog about going back to writerly basics: write the smallest amount possible, write something fun, trick the brain into being creative again. In November, three of us wrote 100 words a day. In December, I did it again. 6000 words in two months is not a lot, but it was the best I’d managed all year. It was going so well that for January, I decided to inch the goal up to 4000 words. Then, of course, January knocked the wind out of me, as it always does. I wrote zero words of fiction. I did, however, determinedly do a lot of brainstorming and planning for my novel in progress. (I had hit my usual wall of just-under-20K where the beginning fizzles out and I realize I…

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Comfort Everything

Apropos of nothing at all, I’m going to share some of the things that have gotten me through this year so far, the things I turn to when I really need a pick-me-up. Virtual concerts. Since touring isn’t an option for musicians right now, a lot of them are doing virtual concerts…which means I get to enjoy tons of live music that I’d never hear otherwise. It doesn’t make up for not having contra dance (which almost always has live music), but it helps. My favourite has been a weekly series of old-time/trad/folk music concerts (fiddle, mandolin, guitar, piano, sometimes banjo, sometimes singing) by dynamic duo Jay Ungar and Molly Mason on Facebook. The two of them have a calming presence and a rapport that’s a joy to watch. Here’s their Halloween special. Another new discovery is an a capella group called Windborne. Online chats. I generally prefer text chat over video chat, maybe because I’ve been doing it so long (since the 90s on Yahoo!). There’s been an ongoing chat with some of my dance friends, where we dip in and out to share our struggles (and boy have there been struggles) and our joys. I have an extrovert friend who (bless her) will periodically poke me on chat to see how I’m doing, and she keeps doing it even though I rarely initiate. And I’ve mentioned before how our regular Turtleduck Press chats are keeping me grounded. Comfort reading. One doesn’t become an author without madly loving books,…

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The Little Things

It’s Week Twenty since everything shut down here in Toronto. We’re still tiptoeing towards reopening…as a city, that is. Personally, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. As I’ve written before, I’m finding the pandemic hard to deal with, even if my personal situation is about as lucky as it’s possible to be. I mean, it’s a freaking PANDEMIC (with a side of dumpster fire). Hard not to be glued to the news; hard to find equanimity. My job has also been really intense for just about the same length of time, meaning I haven’t been getting a chance to rest or process the torrent of news. Still, there are things that are helping, a bit. Here are a few of them… Sunsets. My home office (where I both work and play) faces west, with a fairly unobstructed view. When the sky starts to change colour, I try to remember to stop what I’m doing and watch. We’ve had some gorgeous sunsets this summer…or maybe it’s just that I’m noticing them more. Duolingo. I started using this language-learning app back in November, to brush up on my university Norwegian…for a family trip we were going to take to Norway this summer. Obviously the trip didn’t happen, but I’m over 240 days in and still going. (I have missed a day here and there, but Duo lets you accumulate points that you can use if you skip a day, so my streak looks unbroken.) I’m really enjoying learning a language again, and…

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It’s Okay Not to Be Okay

Normally I try to stay positive on the shared blog. I’ll rant away on my own, but I want to be encouraging and welcoming here. Well, I’m still welcoming! Come, sit down, have some cocoa or a nice cold drink (spirits optional.) Put your feet up. You deserve it. Have some cookies too. You are surviving. That is enough. One of my friends is rereading comfort books from her younger days. Another is rewatching all her favorite horror movies. Another is writing fanfiction, righting the wrongs of a number of different canons. My kid is playing video games all night, and sleeping most of the day. I was going like gangbusters on my current novel, but now I’m not. I’m sleeping a lot (trying to, anyway) and watching rather a lot of Bob Ross painting. We are surviving. It feels so hard right now. And it just keeps going on. I was furloughed at the end of March, all through April and halfway through May. Returning to work felt like an end of things. The world was going back to normal. Everything would be all right. Yeah, not so much, huh? So I’m trying to take it easy. I stepped back my plans to go hard at the healthy eating, and I’m just trying to make better choices. Obviously I can’t go to the gym right now, and outside it’s 106° or so every day, so…yeah. I’m showing up for (virtual) write-ins, but I’m not getting down on myself when…

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Week Seven

We’re into Week Seven of pandemic life here in Toronto. More than that if you count the weeks of constant hand sanitizing, before schools closed and most workplaces were declared non-essential. I’m counting from when my workplace told us to start working from home full-time, and I started living my best life as a hermit. Okay, I’m kidding about that last part. The stress is taking its toll. My will-power and short-term memory are shot. Keeping the kitchen stocked with groceries is taking way too many brain cycles. I’m turning inward – I keep needing naps at odd times, I don’t want to talk to people (except my spouse, he’s allowed…), and going outside for walks is too much effort (though to be fair, we’ve had a cold and miserable spring). Yet I have no desire to watch TV, and I’m having trouble concentrating on books (!). And no, I am definitely not spending this time learning new skills or reorganizing my house. I live with many of these symptoms from depression, but I don’t think I’m depressed now. I think it’s just freakin’ hard to live through a world-altering era of massive uncertainty. (And that’s even with all the privilege I have: I’m not an essential worker, I haven’t been laid off, my workplace is set up to allow us to work from home (just in the last few years…how timely is that?!), I don’t have kids, my home is big enough that my spouse and I and his…

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Hermit Habit

As I would imagine happened to a lot of people, I was furloughed the last week of March. So I haven’t worked in almost a month. I found out today that it will be an additional two weeks, so at least six weeks of not working. It’s so weird. I’ve been working for more than thirty years. This is…even when I had my kid, I was out for only six weeks. And I was super busy that whole time, recovering and taking care of the baby. Not going to work for weeks on end? Not having vitally important stuff I need to do right now for days on end? It’s so weird. But it turns out, I’m the weird one. I like it. Turns out, I am just as much of a happy hermit as I always thought I would be. The reasons for my hermiting suck, don’t get me wrong. I am quite cognizant that others are suffering, and I look for ways to help. But me? I’m home. All the time. And I love it. You’ll be astonished to learn I’m writing a book, I’m sure. I’ve been doing write-ins two to three times a day, where I and a varying number of friends gather in a text chat and sprint for ten minutes at a time. I write from one thousand to five thousand words a day most days. It’s a ton of fun. And my book is nearly 40,000 words! Naturally, one of the first things…

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