Category Archives: Mental Health

Winter Woes

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Man, I hate being sick. And I don’t do sick well, that’s to say, I’m a lousy patient. I can’t just sit and rest, I need to be doing something, like vacuuming the floor, or dusting, or cleaning, or SOMETHING!

But that something isn’t writing at the moment, which is an indicator that my mental health is declining. The fortunate thing is that I recognise this, and I am being constructive. While I’m not writing, I am editing – Compromising Positions – and it will be ready to send the editor by the middle of next month (I’m pretty sure that’s what we agreed to…I hope…)

I’m trying to be active, however this cold / flu / post covid whatever-it-is has me feeling good some days, and really crappy others. I can wake up in the morning feeling good, then go downhill, or wake up feeling really ill, and within a couple of hours, I’m feeling okay. But it is in my chest now, and it has started rattling whenever I lie down. And on a quiet stroll on Saturday, I ended up with asthma, even though I wasn’t rushing or pushing myself, and it was a comparatively short walk to what I normally do.

I’m finding funny videos to watch, and spending time with my partner, as my son is holidaying in California. I’m crafting when I feel like it, so I am doing the right things to help improve my mood. It’s just my physical health that is really bringing me down, and I can’t do anything about that.

But I’ve bitten the bullet. I’ve made a Drs appointment, even though I know she is going to say that it’s viral and there isn’t anything they can do, at least I can go in and see her and tell her how sick I am of being sick!

So how has your week been? Better than mine, I hope.

Taking Each Day as it Comes.

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It’s been a week. Really. A long week. After having covid, I seem to have picked up a post covid infection. Of course, it isn’t clear exactly where. My chest isn’t wheezing, my nose is clear, but I’m coughing up some yucky stuff.

I’ve been taking it quietly, very quietly. I haven’t been doing a lot at all. The reason is, I knew I would have an incredibly emotional day on Saturday, which was the memorial for my dear friend Aaron. And I was right, it was an emotional day. I spent the entire service in tears. I’m still feeling very raw.

To add to my emotional woes, my beloved Son is heading off on his own adventure overseas, and it’s the first time he’s left home for a significant period of time. And of course, he couldn’t just go to the North Island, or travel around the south, no, he had to decide to go to the US for a month. To say I’m nervous is an understatement, but I have to let him go and experience life on his own terms.

As a result of the recent emotional upheavels, I have not been writing, which means that my mental health is dropping, but I know and recognise that. That is the reason why I am taking each day as they come. Because I only have the day I am in. It is pretty much how I exist, and its only at the end of the day that I look at the following day, and think about what I might do for dinner (if it’s my cooking day) and make my lunch and get my work gear organised for for the following day.

So as this week begins, I will be taking it one day at a time, which means enjoying spending some time with my son before I take him to the airport on Monday afternoon.

Scrambled Brains

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I’ve just got back from a trip over to Wineborough to see my Mum, Stepmum and Dad. My Stepmum isn’t very well at the moment, so I took the opportunity to go over and catch up with them all.

My stepmum is very special to me, and her illness is very serious, and it’s been playing on my mind for a couple of weeks. To the point that my brain has become like scrambled eggs. I think it is a combination of stress and tiredness, but I notice it when I’m mentally stressed mostly, and that is, that words just don’t always come to me. The most common objects, I can look at it, and it will take me a while to figure out what it is. Case in point, I used the last of my floss the other day on my teeth and couldn’t remember for the life of me what it was called. Of course, the packaging didn’t help, it just called it floss, so I wrote it down on my shopping list as mouth floss. It took me 5 (FIVE) days to remember it was called Dental Floss!

And this sort of thing is a problem when you’re writing regularly. Sometimes you know a word, but it won’t come into your head when you need it, so you use other words that mean it, but it’s not what you want to use, and of course, when the time comes to edit, I will read it and think, what the hell am I talking about!

Do you have scrambled brain problems too? Hopefully you had a good week.

Take care out there.

Catherine

Finding Me Time

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It’s that time of the year, where I am meeting myself coming backwards at the moment. I work fulltime as a gardener, and then from late February / March I work in three evenings a week packing apples from 5 until 9pm. It is to help out a local orchard.

Then during the school term, I have pole classes on a Thursday. By the time I get to the weekend, I am busy catching up on household chores that I don’t get done during the week because I don’t have time.

And then, because I like to complicate things so much, I am also studying my final paper in my organic’s course – Composting. Which isn’t as easy as you think. We’ve had to look at how soil develops, from chemical and physical weathering of rocks. To say it is exciting is an extremely overcomplicated process. Basically it creates sand. That’s it. Not dirt, but sand.

In the mornings i squeeze in a few minutes of writing from the time my partner and son leave the house until I need to leave the house. Which sometimes is only ten minutes, but it’s better than nothing.

On Friday night, rather than sitting and staring at a screen, I decided to get out my Queen 1000 piece puzzle. And I remembered why I had put it away in the first place. It’s rather complicated, and I spent a good hour just trying to find pieces of one of the parts of the puzzle.

But you know what. I relaxed. I breathed deep and I spent some quality time doing something that I actually enjoy doing. Because you often need to find time to do the things that you enjoy doing, just to give yourself a break from other stuff going on inside your head.

What did you do this week that you did for yourself?

Take care out there

Catherine

Unstoppable

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Sia’s song, Unstoppable has been playing in my head lately, and while it is a conflicted song, it’s the chorus that makes me feel so positive and well… unstoppable!

‘I’m unstoppable, I’m like a Porsche without the brakes. I’m invincible, and I will win every single game. I’m so powerful I don’t need batteries to play. I’m so confident, yeah, I’m unstoppable today.’

The actual verses are about how she puts on a happy face to get through the day, and no one really knows what she is going through.

I actually feel like this is describing depression.’ Break down, only alone will I cry out loud’, ‘I put my armour on, show you how strong I am’, ‘Tell you what you want to hear.’

If this sounds like you, there are people out there who can help you. I got help, and while people hassle me about being on medication, I have a quality of life I wouldn’t otherwise have. Talk to your friends, your boss, someone you trust. I went down the route of green prescription first, but it didn’t work. I tried it for a year, that’s how long I tried to make it work, but it didn’t.

And now, I am unstoppable. I am invincible (to a degree, lol). I’m powerful and I am confident, because I am who I chose to be, which is me. A wonderfully created weirdo who likes to laugh at people doing stupid things!

What are you doing today to make you confident in who you are?

Kia Kaha

Winning All Around

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I’m on a winning streak. My mental health is improving, work was great, and I’m writing AND editing!

Work was so incredible this week. I did so much more than just weeding, and it was so stinking hot, that we were finishing work early. We were busting a gut to get jobs done, but it was a great week.

Then, my Doctor contacted me to say the referral had been declined, but that they suggested putting me back on my original medication. So, I said great, and as I had some here already, I’ve been taking it all week. I actually feel like I am climbing out of the hole and coming up to 100% again. It makes such a difference; I’m not bursting into tears for no reason now. I’m tired from physical work rather than mental exhaustion, and yes, they are different. Mental exhaustion I get weepy, my body gets heavy and it’s like my brain and body aren’t co-operating. Totally different from being physically tired.

I started with a group called 100 days of Writing, and it’s been so positive and fun. It’s broken down into chunks of ten-day blocks, so I finished my first block this week just been, and I’d written about eight thousand words in my current work in progress, which is my Dragon’s Lore story. And I have been editing Secondhand Daughter, averaging about a chapter and a half each day. So happy with progress. And we get to encourage each other with our writing on a Facebook group.

What did you do this week that made you a winner?

Kia Kaha

Catherine

In a Holding Pattern

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This week has been particularly hard with my mental health. I have good moments, but being in a downer mood is really hard. It affects so many aspects of my daily life.

I’m not sleeping well, in fact I have to take a sleeping pill (or half of one) twice a week now, instead of once a week.

I’m forgetting simple words, and I know this sounds really bizarre, but for someone who is a wordsmith, it is incredibly frustrating. And it can be something as simple as someone’s name. I can see their face in my head, but I can’t remember their name for the life of me, and the harder I try, the more it seems to slip into the ether of my brain.

I have been editing, but I need to be in a positive mood, otherwise I think it is crap and want to delete the entire book, which isn’t a safe place to be.

I feel so blocked creatively. It’s hard to be in my head right now, because there is so much I want to do, and I can only do it when I’m in a positive mindset, otherwise the entire project is not worth doing.

It isn’t going to last forever, I know that. It’s just until we can find a solution, which we are working on (me and my doctor is the ‘we’ I am talking about.) In the meantime, I have a wonderful support network around me, in particular my partner, Mr H, my son, and my Mum is over at the moment, so that has been really lovely to catch up and spend time with her.

So, until I have a solution, it is just a holding pattern in my life, but that’s okay, because I know that this isn’t permanent.

Knowing my Limits

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This week has been… well challenging. Monday was a long day at work, and by the time I got home I was burning with anger. Tuesday, that anger hadn’t subsided much, which was unusual. Normally when I’m angry, I vent, its gone. But no, this stuck around.

Wednesday, I couldn’t get out of my own way. I hadn’t slept for two days (due to the unknown anger) and needed a day off. Mentally, I was struggling. You see, my mental health has declined because of a medical condition. By the end of the day, I had messaged my Doctor and told her I needed to see her, before March, which was the next available appointment.

Thursday, I had it together enough to know that I was okay. And went to work, Friday was okay too. Saturday,I got out for a walk and today is, of course, Sunday.

You see, when I wrote Why Wednesday, it was last Sunday, and I decided that I needed to write something, so I wrote about my mental health and depression, which I was diagnosed with 12 years ago. I didn’t realise that I would be suffering a decline by Wednesday.

I recognised it late – normally things happen that make me aware that my mental health is deteriorating, like no interest in writing, lack of sleep, or oversleeping, crying for no real reason. It wasn’t until Wednesday lunchtime that I knew I had to go for a walk and do something to get out of my own head. It worked though, and by Wednesday night I was feeling better.

My doctor messaged me to tell me she will call me on a certain date, and we will be able to discuss options then. Until then, I am in a holding pattern, keeping busy, walking (exercising), being creative in other ways (redesigning book covers / creating Christmas presents etc, and watching funny videos.

Hopefully I will be feeling better by Christmas time and able to celebrate and enjoy the festive season.