Hello to you all....and welcome. By creating this blog, I hope to create a safe spot where people with mental health conditions will feel free to come and share with others. As you might know all too well, we all go through our ups and downs, our good days and our bad days, and our steps forward and our steps back. I am here for you as you go through these trials and tribulations, and I think you will find that others will be here for you too. Please feel free to publish, morning, noon, and night...but be aware that I have this blog on a setting where I leaf through comments, just to keep out people who might have some bad intentions (such as making fun of people with mental illnesses)...so it might take a few hours before your comments get published.
I want to let you know that I come from a school of thought where I have learned that recovery from mental illness IS possible. "Recovery" is not meant in the classic sense of the word--meaning "cured"--but is meant in the sense that people with mental illness are able to live meaningful, fulfilling lives out in the community, able to function without their mental illness impairing them on a daily basis. This is a state that is not easy to achieve, but one that is well worth striving for. I am currently in the midst of my personal journey toward recovery, and am learning different things about myself every day that help me to take steps further and further in a positive direction. Even making this blog is one of those steps. Reaching out to others and socializing--even online--is a great way to help yourself achieve recovery. I encourage you all to share various steps that you may encounter along your own personal journey to recovery--what works and what doesn't, what helps and what hinders. It can even just start with what makes you get out of bed in the morning! I am looking forward to hearing from you and listening to what you have to say. Each person's journey is important, and we all have a lot to contribute to each others' recovery journeys. Please comment below--let me know who you are, and what's on your mind.
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I feel a little funny being the first one to post, but I wanted to say that I think this website is a great idea! Peer support is so important, and I think we can all learn a lot from each other. Although I don't want to get into anything really deep right now, I want to say that I look forward to meeting others, and I hope a lot of other people will start posting on this website soon! Best of luck to you!
ReplyDeleteAs a mental health professional with many years of experience I applaud you for creating this blog and for supporting both the concept of recovery (which is real) - and for supporting other people fighting the proverbial good fight. It is essnetial to never lose hope and to keep moving forward - no matter how small or large a step is, each one counts toward creating a life worth living! Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThank you both so very much for joining this forum and contributing your input. Supporting one another, and helping each other through that good fight is what it's all about.
ReplyDeleteI want to say that it's great to hear the mention of the word "hope" because it's what keeps that Flame going...even if it's just a flicker of one positive thought in our darkest of dark moments. Hope is what gives us a future, and helps us envision recovery for ourselves. Hope is what enabled me to create this blog for you to enjoy, as a vision to help people recover.
I encourage all of you to hope and dream. Write what you hope to see from this website/blog. Write what you hope to see from yourselves as you recover.
Thank you for your contributions.
Congrats to you, Sabrina for creating this blog. I'm new to the whole blog concept but quite experienced with the concept of recovery. I'm glad you've created a forum for folks to share. I'm continuing my recovery journey and peer support is my greatest tool in the shed. Looking forward to hearing what others are saying.
ReplyDeleteAs you suggested: How ARE folks getting out of bed in the morning? That continues, even after a few years in recovery, to be a challenge. Also, any thoughts on thwarting or dealing with distorted thinking?
Wow! This is off to a great start! Thanks for the congrats!
ReplyDeleteLet me just say that I have been struggling with getting out of bed for years and years. It's only in the last year or two that I have actually gotten a somewhat shakey grasp on getting up in the morning with the rest of the world. And lately, I've been struggling. But...let me see if I can let you in on a few tricks of the trade from when things were a little LESS shakey.
A) Set an alarm and DO NOT HIT SNOOZE!!!! Not even once! You have to tell yourself before you go to bed the night before (or before your nighttime meds kick in) that when that alarm goes off in the morning, you are going to get the heck out of bed and you are NOT going back! Jerry Seinfeld once did the opener of his show (the stand-up routine part) about how snooze alarms are the worst invention ever. They set people up to fail at waking up before they even have a fighting chance!
B) Take your meds right away! This way, if you have meds that help get you pumped and energized for the day, they will immediately be flowing through your system.
C) Get dressed and go out for a morning walk as soon as possible (no need to shower just yet). There's something about sunlight and the air on your face that wakes you up. You don't have to go for a long walk or a fast walk. Just enough so that you're out an about for a few minutes and shock your system a little bit.
D) Then shower when you get back. Getting into the habit of regular cleanliness (which I am not ALWAYS in when I am feeling less well, trust me) is a good thing. There's something about the crispness of being fresh and clean that helps you face the day better.
And that should about do it for getting up and out of bed. Now, this is what I preach, but not always what I practice. Remember, we are humans, and are not perfect. If you can do this for one day out of the week for now, you're doing all right in my book. Try it once. Maybe you'll like it so much you'll try it again sometime soon. And maybe again after that. But don't be hard on yourself if you don't fall into a regular routine every day. This is something that I personally struggle with. Actually if anyone has any input as to how they have managed to get themselves into a daily routine if they are the type who is normally resistant to structure, I'd love some insight.
But...please....also continue to offer help to the above anonymous poster. Perhaps more about folks getting out of bed....or some suggestions on distorted thinking?
Thanks for posting!
WOW! Reaching out and connecting so important to recovery. Like life itself, recovery is best traveled with others, and telling your story is spiritual medicine for the person sharing him or her self.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who I helps to manage a recovery web site myself, I will enthusiastically share the location of this blog for all to find. With the world so full of stigma and and “HopeStealers”, there simply can't be enough recovery resources and sharing blogs, for thus of us who have the passion and purpose to make recovery a reality for all who seek it.
I'm so glad you posted! Please let us know about YOUR recovery website, so I can post a link to it. I am planning to have a section for links to other recovery and mental health sites, so I would love for yours to be up there! Glad we can be in this together!
ReplyDeleteI am sending this to Anonymous of March 30th, who
ReplyDeleteasked about distorted thinking.As you can understand, it is not an easy topic to respond to,but I'll try my best. I will assume, Anonymous that you are referring to yourself? I have had distorted thinking after I had a serious
surgery, and was all alone, scared, helpless, and didn't know which way to turn. But I had it at
other times of my life as well. Without surgery.
I accused people, when I was to blame. I at times,was very angry, at other times,very depressed.That is how I won the label of being bipolar.Anyways to sum things up, I landed on a psychiatric ward, more times than I care to remember, with torturous "treatment" that I also
try to forget, but never can. Over time, the distorted thinking gradually corrected itself. I
felt it was worth it to try harder in an attempt to control these thoughts, rather than repeat incarceration. One important form of help I gave myself was Buddhism. I am not a religious person, but it is a practical philosophy of life, which gave me strength, hope and peace, in my most difficult hours. I'll close with a favourite
few lines from my Buddhist book:
(quote) DO NOT TRY TO GET RID OF THOUGHTS,
BUT RATHER SEE THEIR TRUE NATURE.
THOUGHTS WILL RUN US AROUND IN CIRCLES IF WE LET
THEM. BUT REALLY THEY ARE LIKE DREAM IMAGES.
THEY ARE LIKE AN ILLUSION--NOT REALLY ALL THAT SOLID. THEY ARE, AS WE SAY, JUST THINKING.(unquote)