Tag: creativity

Did I actually just enjoy something?!

Since I came back from my lovely weekend stay with my friend L and her family a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been thinking back to it thankfully and often. In that weekend I felt genuinely positive emotions that have been absent for me for a long time (we’re talking years). Things like happiness at my goddaughters’ interest and excitement at our little activities and projects.  Their unboundedly curious questions showing perspectives so different from mine, especially different from my exhausted autopilot. Time with L. and real thankfulness for the strength and comfort her non-judgmental empathy gave me and really wanting to be there for her too, glad to be able to talk and share in her life, worries, joys, and so on.

Yes, the hard things were still there too. Voices, doubts, exhaustion, anxiety, it doesn’t magically go away. But the good experiences were so unusual for me that they particularly give me pause and I am all the more grateful for them.

Their good is lasting beyond the days I spent with L (nearly 2 weeks so now) in a way that’s more than just a happy memory. Perhaps it’s because it isn’t just a memory in my factual thought; it’s an emotional memory too. That’s stronger and more active and has a more continously creative effect on how I feel. I’m enjoying it and trying to nurture it, in thought and in prayer and in trying to build up some more creative, good experiences, especially where I can give or share something to someone else in even a small way. One thing I’ve been doing in recent days is making greetings cards, which I used to love but had completely lost all motivation or creativity to do. And I’m actually enjoying it, even looking forward to it. I can’t think when I last genuinely looked forward to an activity like this.

Maybe I’m starting to understand what a doctor told me when I was an inpatient in 2014 – that the more good experiences and memories you create, they can slowly begin to replace the terrible re-experiencing of traumatic past events and the automatic nature of obsessional thoughts and the power of the voices. I could not understand how this could work at the time though I really wanted to believe it. Later, in the most desperate times I was furious if anyone began to suggest anything like it. The suggestion seemed to trivialise the terror I was locked into. Yet now, I think I might be beginning to understand it.

Ginny xxx

The penguins look a bit funny round here this week (On calming colouring)

The penguins look a bit funny round here this week (On calming colouring)

I’ve posted before about enjoying colouring as therapy. I’ve now built up quite a collection of “colouring books for grown-ups”. Here are some crazy penguins I did today. This book has smaller pictures than I usually do but it is great to take with you if you’re on the move or for a quick distraction. I find it works better than reading to combat anxiety whilst, for example, waiting for hospital appointments. My good friend R. gave me that idea.

If I’m waiting for someone or something, my anxiety increases ridiculously. I’m never quite sure why. I’ve only just started to become aware of it. I feel the physical symptoms of the emotion before the mental ones – becoming hot and sweaty, or alternatively cold; shaking; finding my breathing tight and constrained; being restless. I’ve identified before that uncertainty over times and meetings with people is very stressful for me. Perhaps part of the reason why is that since childhood, if someone is running late I’ve always imagined something awful has happened to them, like a road accident. I think that stemmed from some of my mother’s threats when I was a young child, usually made when my father was at work and she was at home with me, that if my father ever found out what I was doing to her he would be so upset that he would have a car accident or a heart attack – then she’d phone him and tell him what I’d been doing to her (though it later turned out a lot of the time she was only pretending to phone him)  – so if he was ever late I’d become frightened the threatened accident had occurred. But I think a good part of it is just my inability to cope with uncertainty.

Anyhow, colouring calms the anxiety more effectively than reading, or counting backwards, or counting objects or colours and so on. Perhaps because you are physically engaged in doing something and have to make a certain amount of decisions about the colours to use and so on. And it has the added bonus that you can turn your picture into something pretty in the end – frame larger designs, or make cards out of them.

I often pass the evenings this way too, when I’m too tired to do much else.

Ginny xx

This week, I will…

I’m trying to turn things around. It feels as though things have been spiralling down and down since Christmas. Since I spoke to the police, I think things are starting to shift almost imperceptibly. It is true it hasn’t been easy and I cannot change the hurt, but I think there are a few positive things I can try to keep doing, which I have given up on in the last months because it was just too dark and painful.

Inspired by one of a2eternity’s posts (you can visit her wonderfully frank and brave blog at https://a2eternity.wordpress.com/ ) I am making a list of some things that I am going to commit to trying to do this week:

  • Every day before bed, I will write down 5 things that I am thankful for in that day.
  • I will do something creative every day – a bit of my colouring books, make a card, take a photo, write a card to a friend, whatever it be.
  • I will do something positive for my body every day (like do my makeup, have a nice bath with some bath foam, put on some moisturiser) even when I am hearing voices telling me how ugly, foul and disgusting I am.
  • I will choose a passage from the Bible that encourages me with hope in God’s unconditional love for us. Whenever the voices tell me to hurt myself, whenever I hear them saying I’m evil and a fake, when the flashbacks come, I will repeat this line in place of what the voices say.
  • Something that I have meant to do for a long time: I will think about what I could put in my memory box and find a box to use (I’ll post again about what this is for, later in the week).

Here’s to thankfulness.

Ginny xxx

Back to work

I go back to work tomorrow after a few days’ annual leave. I’m really anxious right now. It’s harder than usual for me to go out at the moment. I’m better than in the last few days where I was crying all the time, but still feel dangerously out of control and shaky. This makes me feel like I have to double check how I’m behaving and what I’m saying all the more and the thoughts and voices in my head are all the stronger – you’re stupid, freak, ugly, fake, selfish, why did you say that, stop talking, deceitful, it’s your fault, disgusting, you’ve made it all up, why did you do that, not good enough, they know how bad you are now, they’re angry with you….it would all have been fine without you, everyone knows it’s your fault – until the frightening emptiness comes back and I just want to sleep.

I know it’ll just get worse if I don’t go to work and it does no good to think about all this. I need to turn outwards, look at everyone else, work, try to do good, try to do my job, try to just ignore the ache and the anxiety, not let it take everything over.

I’m going to try to do some things immediately to overcome it. I’m going to call a friend who I know has been having a bad time recently, having recently lost a friend of hers; I’m going to try to make some cards in preparation for a charity fundraiser in the Spring; I’m going to prepare my clothes for work tomorrow. I’m going to be thankful for having a job to go to.

Ginny xxx

On panic, lemons and stitching patterns

On panic, lemons and stitching patterns

I’ve posted before about how I find that colouring intricate patterns can be very calming.

When I was an inpatient I drew and painted a few times, which I had not done for many years. I go through phases of doing a lot of cross-stitch embroidery or making greetings cards. It seems to be something that I do a lot of and then leave for a while then return to it. Sometimes I find it helpful and calming but other times, I really want to be able to do it but am not able to. If I try to push myself to, it just doesn’t work – I go wrong all the time when I try to follow a pattern, or I just can’t put together anything pretty. Then far from helping I feel dragged down lower. It’s as if when I am completely drained and lacking in emotional / mental energy, there is nothing with which to be creative. In those states I often need to sleep, or paradoxically, to do something physical like getting outside and walking.

I’ve been on two different wards as an inpatient. One of them had a variety of craft activities available and support to use them and discover and learn new ideas for projects. For example we learnt to make plaited bracelets, worked together to put together a collage display, coloured stained-glass window images, and so on. The peer support worker spent a lot of time facilitating these activities. The other ward did not really have such resources and there was nobody to support these kinds of activities. The first ward seemed much more an environment in which it was possible to focus on having hope of getting better and learning skills to cope. Of course the access to creative materials was not the only reason (I think the work of the peer support worker was very important and I will post about that separately). However I think it made considerable difference to how the days passed.

I think in working with simple materials to create something beautiful, you can empty your mind, practise mindfulness techniques, slow some of the frantic anxiety as you become absorbed in the task. The concentration it requires and the different sensations you encounter – textures of fabric and materials, sounds, colours, deciding how to combine them, perhaps repetitive and rhythmic motions, the sense of putting together something lovely from all the separate parts – all of this helps occupy your mind. In  a similar way to distraction techniques, by filling your mind with all these sensations, they can become the focus, rather than obsessional thoughts, sadness, anger and so on. It does not solve anything but can replace some of the intensity of an emotion for a time. I can find it helpful in trying to delay self-harming as well as in times of generalised anxiety or after panic attacks. My friend who suffers with an eating disorder said that in particular having something to do with her hands can calm her after eating and help her resist the urge to binge-eat and/or purge.

My clinicians explained that there is a limited number of sensations the body and mind can experience at any one time. In personality disorder, our emotions may reach a higher level more quickly and in this heightened state, we cannot think rationally or mentalise or make good decisions. We cannot see outside of the emotion. It also takes longer than it does in most people for the level of emotion to fall. One thing that can help the emotion to fall, to get to a level where we can start to mentalise, use distraction techniques or choose to do other things that help us, is to “shock” the body with another strong sensation. For example, putting your hands under very cold water, holding ice, or (this one works well for me) eating something with a sharp taste. I use pieces of lemon, or lemon juice, with a sharp and bitter taste. This can help to lead you out of extreme distress or a panic attack, to the point that you can then address how you are feeling with other techniques. Then continuing to do something that gives positive sensations can continue to calm you – for example, something self-soothing like hugging a soft pillow or wrapping up in a soft blanket, or perhaps one of the creative activities which provides a range of tactile sensations.

There is also something encouraging to me in being able to create a picture, object, etc, which is useful or attractive or perhaps can be given as a gift to someone else, even when we are really not feeling great. It’s another way to make it true that the overwhelming emotions are not all that there is and to start to hope that there could be some good somewhere in me.

Ginny

xXx

Making it home

Today, I had some new furniture delivered – fantastic bargains in a local furniture charity shop. (The large number of charity shops round here is a particular blessing for those of us on a tight budget and possibly more creativity than money 🙂 .) So I spent the best part of the day re-arranging and cleaning and installing the items.

I have been in my flat several months now and it is my first place of my own, as opposed to renting a single room as lodger. I am thankful beyond words to finally have a housing association flat. Without this I would never have been able to afford to rent a whole flat as rents are incredibly high here. I cannot believe this place should be mine and thank the Lord for it every day.

I was a lodger in a family home before moving here. The family could not have been nicer and gave me privacy but I was struggling a lot, just as I had been in all my previous properties. That was probably one reason I moved around so much. Apart from financial issues or having to move when jobs ended and new jobs started, getting to a new place sometimes provided a temporary illusion of escape. When the illusion came crashing down it would just be worse than ever.

Anyhow, at the last place my OCD and obsessional thoughts were very hard to cope with and hide and my anxiety was increased because there was a young baby in the household, which seemed to increase my fears that I would cause people harm. At my worst times, which was becoming most of the time, I would dread bumping into anyone in the shared kitchen and having to speak, so I just stopped preparing food. The close proximity to others made me want to run and hide. So hide I did, in my room, which was the only place to spend time anyway, since there was not a shared lounge, only a kitchen (and bathroom, but that’s not exactly the place for small talk or hanging out). Then once I was in my room for any length of time, I felt trapped. The panic attacks, flashbacks and terrifying thoughts would come and there was literally nowhere to run.  There was not anywhere to go to get a breathing space or a different environment or to be in a different place for a while to help me step out of what was happening in my head. I’d lie on the bed or sit on the chair and do my best to employ the distraction or self-soothing techniques the clinicians told me but feel I was just suffocating in the world inside my head.

I can’t say how helpful it now is to have more space. It turns out that it really is true that you rest better when the bedroom is set apart as a relaxing place. I have the space I need in the kitchen to cook when I am able to. It is rare that I am able to at the moment, for many reasons, but the fact that I have my own kitchen does at least increase the likelihood that I will prepare food. My lounge is cosy and I’m even so fortunate as to have a view out to the communal garden. I have a very tiny garden and a flowerbed and although I do not enjoy gardening, I do like to keep it tidy and there is a certain satisfaction in pulling the weeds from the earth to let the little plants breathe.

In some way, I can begin to make this flat my own. Having a place where I can start to feel safe in the space, make some choices about how to lay it out, use my creativity to make it the way that I enjoy and even bring other people into it, makes it a home. Caring for it (cleaning, tidying, doing the little flower bed outside, feeling thankful for what I have) gives a constructive focus.

Much as I was longing for a home for a long time, I am still surprised at the difference that it makes to have one. Often I do not realise the value of doing something quite simple towards making it more of a home – such as tidying and choosing how to arrange things, as I did today, or perhaps painting the walls the colour that you like. Even on the very bad days, being in this home makes it slightly better, somehow. Maybe it’s a little bit less scary, a little bit safer, a little less unpredictable, a little more space, or a little bit more of beautiful or positive things around me.

Thank you dear Lord, for HOME.

Ginny xx

 

My new way to relax

swirls

Currently, one of my preferred ways to relax whilst I’m alone at home watching TV or the like, is colouring in complex swirly patterns like this one. It can switch off some of the thoughts for a while, passes time and gives a creative focus outside of oneself, even a way to practice mindfulness. The results can even be used for something pretty, for instance, made into pictures or coasters. Seeing something lovely that you have managed to create, despite perhaps feeling depressed or low, can be encouraging. It is a relatively cheap hobby, especially as at the moment we seem to be fortunate that there is a range of “colouring books for grown-ups” around, often to be found in discount book stores / stationers’ / supermarkets. No doubt you could find template patterns on line as well, which could work if you have access to a printer. Then all that is required is a packet of crayons or coloured pens (note to self, curb tendency to multi-buy pretty pens!).

Happy colouring! 🙂

Ginny xx