Tag Archives: mental health

Authenticity

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I don’t like scary acrylic nails or plastic shoes, and I don’t like overly photoshopped images. I don’t like artificial cherry, grape, or banana flavoring and I don’t like disingenuous compliments. I do, however, have streaks of purple in my hair and several plastic IKEA plants greening up corners of my home. So, my authenticity requirements are a little bit fluid and loose around the edges, I’m not some kind of hard ass.

Joshua Tree NP_feistyharriet_May 2016 (7)

I have struggled to fill this space lately, there have been the Big Life Things that only get a passing mention here, and Unbloggable Things that don’t get mentioned at all (let’s go to lunch, I’ll tell you ALL about it). I wonder what having this quasi-anonymous place is for, if not to be able to write about those things!? But, it’s hard to be completely authentic, even if doing so results in lower anxiety levels for me. Also, perhaps it isn’t always entirely healthy to share every thought and feeling and frustration every moment that I have it. (Besides, isn’t that what Twitter/Facebook is for?)

I feel like the last several years I’ve noticed a particular shift online AND in my real life away from the more genuine and towards something that feels more plastic-y, more artificial, more–dare I say it–“styled.” And I get it, I do. The Internet is not the same place it was 10 years ago, trolls are everywhere and you have to fiercely protect your own privacy and family. Hell, I don’t even write under my real name, I’m hardly one to complain about others who curate their outgoing messaging. But I also miss the days before the pretty filters, and the lightening-brightening tool, and the cropping out the unseemly, the messy, and the dark, in order to stay true to a “personal brand.” Whatever that means.

I know there are plenty of places where you still get the Real Deal, you see all the warts and the cracks and the scary bits of someone’s life. It’s a super vulnerable and scary thing to do, to open up and show your true self to the world. It’s probably easier to set up a nice little vignette, three paragraphs of words, or an image, and retouch it a bit to present a shined up version, the “better” version. And sometimes, we all do that. We have to, I think. We all filter ourselves as we interact with humans in our daily routine, and perhaps even more so as we put ourselves “out there” via Twitter or Instagram or blog posts or whatever. I think we’ve all found ourselves unsubscribing from a completely unfiltered feed, it’s too much, too extreme. But, do we also unsubscribe from the other end of that spectrum? Do we put so much value on the filters and the visual tricks that we lose sight of the beautiful and honest core?

The beginning of a new year–calendar or academic–is always a prime time for decluttering and simplifying my life. I unsubscribe from spammy email lists like crazy, weed out my closet, and get rid of the piles of unnecessary and unremembered stuff that tend to accumulate in the corners of my house. Simultaneously, I am also trying to clean up my own Expectations feed, to remind myself that my imperfect, feisty, sweary, nerdy, ranting, defend-the-underdog core is just fine. I need to remind myself that it is much easier to be myself, the sometimes petty, sometimes jealous, sometimes selfish, oftentimes kind (but also sometimes not, see: petty and jealous and selfish), usually nerdy, usually serious version of Harriet that has pulled me through to adulthood. I am not perfect, and that is okay. Sometimes (okay, most of the time), I’m not even trying to be perfect, and that is okay too. Year after year I get slightly better at being comfortable in my own skin, and therefore more honest and authentic about who I am and who/what is important to me; it’s a process.

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Tongue Tied

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Carrying on a conversation has never been something that is difficult for me. I love talking, I love having in-depth conversations about Real Things with new friends and old. I have a pretty low tolerance for small talk. There have been a few times this year that I’ve been tongue tied. Blocked. Unable to express all the thoughts and feels and fears that are running around inside my head. The feeling of choking on consonants and gagging on vowels, literally swallowing my words instead of letting them out can bring me literal physical pain. It’s like a smoldering in my chest, a tightness I cannot loosen, threatening to cut off my air supply. Going through days and weeks feeling like I’m slowly suffocating ramps up my anxiety and soon I’m caught–again–in the middle of a hurricane that is gaining momentum.

Deep breaths. Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat.

It seems that every time I have to go back to my own basic building blocks–things like remembering how to breathe–I get better at refreshing and moving forward. I don’t know if that’s some kind of defense mechanism where the internal warrior draws her sword and throws up the defense walls quicker; or if my armor is stronger so the blows don’t do as much damage? Or maybe my expectations for life are finally being trimmed down to size? I don’t know. I think, like all of us, I am just waiting for 2016 to be over. I am well aware that January 1 does not hold any magically fantastic solutions for moving forward, but even so, I’m looking forward to the new year.

I am working on my lists, I live and die by lists these days, I am determined to attack 2017 with a gusto not seen for many many years. I’m not talking about one particular thing, or a neat list of resolutions, I am making plans to improve my work life, my personal life, my relationships, the works. I am getting better at keeping my lists manageable and in order, and getting better at seeing a long-term plan and drawing in the building blocks to get there. This is all still a work in progress, the plans and the lists, but I’m hoping in a few weeks I’ll be able to start sharing. For me, getting it all out in the open is the only way to break the gag.

So. That’s how I’ve been*. How are you?

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*This speechless, voiceless feeling is not something just from the last few days; it’s been lurking and growing for months, tightening it’s grasp with long weasely fingers sneaking into many areas of my mind and heart. However, I was finally able to give it a name, and naming the monster has, in a small way, helped me break free from it.

Not yet. But, soon.

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For months I have been struggling, I’ve written about that struggle here a little, and I’ve internalized it a lot. I’ve suffocated panic attacks, and also let them destroy me in the dark hours in the middle of the night, leaving me exhausted but finally able to sleep. I’ve sobbed through books and songs that are not sad, I’ve been desperate for understanding. I managed to allow myself a little bit of hope. My struggles are not on a single track, it seems an entire web of hurt and pain and fear has been slowly closing in on me, slowly squashing the happy and sunny parts of my life, replacing it with dead shadows. I want to be clear that this is not entirely political, but the combination of politics, the hurts of humanity, my own relationships and my own demons. It is a very complicated web that I am tangled in, and it seems the struggle has only made the tangle messier.

For me, that web all came crashing down last Tuesday, watching in horror, sobbing in anger and fear, as state after state turned red. There are a lot of shitty things in the world, and also a lot of goodness. But on Tuesday night The Shit won. When you’re already walking on a tight rope, trying to balance and measure every step, it doesn’t take much to make you fall. I wore black the next day, in mourning. I have retreated some more, probably to a scary degree, actually. I am grieving the loss of so many things, and I cannot be comforted.

My entire life I’ve taught my heart to throw up walls, to grow spikes, to protect itself. For the majority of my adult life I’ve tried to remind myself not to build the wall and cultivate the spikes. I’m a warrior who is at war with herself. Years ago I received a piece of advice I think of often, but sometimes am incapable of the required follow through: Insulate yourself from the hurts of the world so that you may move forward shielded by your own, conscious strength. I’m still not 100% sure what that means, how do you insulate something without burying it in impenetrable layers? How do you move forward without turning into a prickly monster?

This is a puzzle I continually solve and then forget the answer. So I have to start at the beginning, again and again. It is exhausting. My unexpected, very emotional spiral immediately following the 2016 election is another setback for me, I’ve taken some time to be angry, and sad, and depressed. I’m not quite to the acceptance stage yet, I’m resolved to never refer to him as “President” but I’m also not (seriously) planning to move to New Zealand or Sweden or The Bahamas. But I am closer to moving forward. There is work to do, and I will sign up for all of it.

I’m not ready yet to sound my battle cry, I’m still picking up the pieces. But, soon.

Soon.

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When life throws lemons, crawl under something sturdy and stay there

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That time when you knew you were falling to pieces, but you kept pushing on anyway, hoping that faking it would eventually lead to making it. It’s worked before, why not now?

Yeah. Not working.

I hit a major wall a few weeks ago, not a wall that led to the depths of despair, I can be surprisingly functional when everything is turning to shit. But the wall after things are starting to feel like they are headed in the right direction, and then suddenly everything is too overwhelming to even think about.

I can hardly convince yourself to get off the couch (or off the floor of the shower, my happy place where I do some of my best arguing / thinking / plotting / solution-izing). I just…can’t. I have been powering through for so long, I needed some time and space to be still. And the stillness takes priority over anything else: the gym, or painting, or yoga, or cooking something delicious, things I truly find joy in doing.

I’m listening to a time management book right now during my commute, and the idea of planning out my time sounds fantastic, I could get so much more done! With the right list I can fit in ALL THE THINGS that have been neglected! I decided to write a list of ideas. I love lists! I love checking things off lists! However, tonight I honestly spent 30 minutes sitting on the couch, struggling to write a single thing on that list. Not a damn thing. It seems productivity is just not in the cards for me just yet.

It has been kind of nice to be a little removed from the Rat Race. I have hundreds of unread notifications on Facebook (I can’t until after the election, I just can’t), I haven’t opened my feed reader in weeks even though I’ve missed catching up and peering in to your lives. I have, however, managed to cut down my Twitter feed considerably, and I figured out how to unsubscribe from Instagram stories.

So hey, actually, let’s give me a little gold star sticker for two pieces of productivity.

[insert sparkly gold star emoji here]

[yes, I am asking you to use your old school imagination because the idea of scrolling for the perfect, hilarious gold star gif is giving me anxiety….and anxiety about being awarded already-earned gold stars is the absolute opposite of the point of earning gold stars.]

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In which I realize, despite my best intentions, I am a complete and total stress case.

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Point Bonita California_feistyharriet_July 2015 (10)

Of late I have had a lot of stuffs going on in my physical and emotional life. This year (and last year) have been ones of complete upheaval and constant change; my anxiety levels are up, my stress levels are up, and I can feel myself starting to unravel.

Out of curiosity, I decided to take one of those online tests to measure the amount of stress in your life; not like, a Cosmo quiz, but a more legit one, from the American Institute of Stress. I’m sure there are questions about the scientific validity of such a thing, but I decided to do it anyway to at least give myself a good idea of where my stress levels were relative to that of a healthy, normal human.

So, you go through the list, count up all the points for things that apply to you for the last 12 months, and then figure out where your score falls.

  • 150 points or less: you are totally chill and there is very little chance that stress is affecting you in any serious way.
  • 150 – 300 points: you have some significant stress in your life, and, if you don’t take steps to chill the hell out, within the next 2 years it’s likely that you will suffer some kind of major health breakdown as a result.
  • Over 300 points: Uh, you have Issues, and also an 80% chance of having that major breakdown sometime in the coming months. Time to step back and reevaluate. Now. Reevaluate now!

My score: 642.

Basically, I’m a walking time-bomb of anxiety. Part of this I knew already, but I was legitimately shocked to see how high my stress levels were, and how long I’ve assumed it’s just normal to have that kind of anxiety and upheaval on a daily basis.

I wish I could tell you that since taking this quiz I’ve completely changed how I run my life to reduce my overall stress and anxiety…but that’s not true either. Being aware of my number is helpful, but truly, it’s only helpful if I use that awareness to do something about the ticking anxiety bomb in my chest.

I can’t do anything about the major life upheaval stuff except wait it out. I can’t un-move, un-take a new job, change some of the big pieces that have added stress and frustration and anxiety into my life. It is what it is, and I just got the unlucky set of cards to get all that stuff all at once.

But I’ve been doing little things that I hope make a difference:

  • I have been puttering around with my plants in the garden, I count 9 tiny baby cucumbers, I’ve already harvested kale for some salads, and the lettuce patch is growing nicely. I often think those little boxes of veggies are the only thing I love about being outside here (for the record, it’s still in the 90s everyday, which is 10-15 degrees too hot for my outside comfort. WHERE ARE YOU, WINTER!?).
  • I have been quite careful about what I put into my body for the last 6 months. I eat very little sugar or white starchy food, I don’t skip meals, and I drink lots of water. I also have treats every so often, I’m not living a diet of austerity, but I have tried to keep my blood sugars more even, and I hope that helps me keep balanced overall.
  • I have stayed far, far away from Facebook for weeks. I honestly don’t know if I’ll sign back on until after the election. I consume my other social media feeds carefully and try really hard to stay away from rhetorical tornadoes because I just cannot deal with so much blatant stupidity and ignorance. I’m sure I’ve missed a lot of lovely things as well, but until I have the bandwidth to clean up some of my feeds (block, unfriend, hide, block, block, block), I’m just going to steer clear.
  • I still go to the gym a few times a week, usually for about 90 minutes. I can’t actually tell a big positive difference when I go, but if I miss too many days in a row I get jumpy and antsy and the hamsters in my brain start reeling out of control. So, I gym.
  • I’ve been listening to audiobooks like it’s my damn job; 2 hours (or more) every day during my commute, plus at the gym, plus usually when I run errands as well. I listen to most books at double speed and am churning through them like crazy, three or four a week is pretty normal, plus the paper books I’m reading. It’s easy to escape into those pages and stories and characters and facts, and it helps keep my brain calm and focused instead of wandering and spinning without something to grab on to (or, whipping itself into a ragey frenzy while sitting in endless rush hour traffic. Audiobooks all the way!).
  • I try to make plans in advance and keep meticulous check lists. I have a constant grocery list on the fridge, right next to the menu list which is a complete meal plan for the week, including notes about what I need to take out of the freezer for the next day, or other prep. I keep a list for work tasks, one for household chores, one for blog post ideas, another for budget and savings requirements, and another for fun things I’d like to do or try, so if I have an hour I simply check the list and pick one instead of spending 20 or 30 minutes trying to figure out how to effectively use my time. Plans often change, and I’m not a super stickler on sticking to The List, but having that plan in place to start with greatly reduces the anxiety of figuring out where to start.

What do you do to keep yourself balanced? Do you think you have too much stress in your life? What are things that you feel you can legitimately drop? Must keep? How do you keep on adulting with too many things in your court and not enough time or energy to deal with them?

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