Category: Mental Health

How I Take Care of Myself Every Day (Mental Illness Self-Care for Cheap)

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Here are the ways I take care of myself and work to reduce my stress every day, as someone who is in recovery with several mental illness diagnoses. Unlike many self-care ideas, most of these are completely free and the rest are cheap.

Note: This post is heavily “YMMV” (Your Mileage May Vary). Please continue to do the self-care that works for you— these are just some ideas if you’re struggling and don’t know where to start.

Wake up with time to spare.

I wake up at least two hours before I am scheduled to be anywhere. I drink coffee leisurely for at least an hour while texting friends and scrolling social media, and then do the rest of my morning tasks, like eating (see below), taking my pills (also see below), and getting dressed. I try to perform most of these tasks in the quiet of my bedroom, which has a couch to hang out on so I am not tempted to go back to sleep. The ritualized nature of my morning routine helps me immensely because:

  • The tasty coffee gives me something to look forward to when I get out of bed.
  • I do not feel rushed, frazzled, or stressed in the process of getting where I need to be.
  • I have a basic need for routine and to know in general what my day will look like when I start it, so having a morning ritual brings me a sense of comfort.

$: Coffee costs money. Alarms that help you get up on time might have a subscription fee. (I used to use one that wouldn’t stop playing the alarm unless you took a certain picture with your phone camera. Mine was set to the top of my coffee machine, so I had to get out of bed and make it to the kitchen before the alarm would shut off, but then I was all set to make my morning cup of coffee!)

Take your pills on time.

When you don’t take your pills on time, you don’t get the benefits your medications are supposed to give you— and you also invite some pretty shitty withdrawal symptoms. The severity depends on which medication you are on and how long you go without taking them, but it’s definitely noticeable. Last weekend I procrastinated getting out of bed and ended up taking my medications three hours late. I didn’t expect in that moment to spend the next eight hours back in bed with withdrawal symptoms. And to think— I used to procrastinate on taking my pills and do this to myself all the time!

$: Meds may cost money, but taking them on time does not. Set an alarm if you need to!

Go to work.

This sounds like a weird one. Going to work is self care? Yes! When the alternative is freelancing, which was terrible for my mental health, having a regular job at a regular workplace with mostly regular hours has done wonders for my stress.

Note: Not everyone is capable of working a traditional job, or at all. I am merely writing about what works for me. Absolutely no shame if your situation is different!

For me, this involves:

Getting dressed.

Leaving the house.

Taking a walk.

I walk 15 minutes to work and back on most days. (Sometimes I get a ride if the weather is awful.) If you get bored walking but you know you need the exercise, try downloading Pokemon Go. $: Free.

Socializing.

I am lucky to have a really good work environment, and my coworkers are my friends.

NOT constantly self-motivating.

When I freelanced from home, everything was up to me. I had to find my own clients on a regular basis as well as motivate myself to start and finish tasks. This resulted in me never getting anything done, losing promising clients, and having no money to take care of myself with.

Working in a more traditional workplace removes much of that stress. I show up, do my job, and then go home. I don’t think about it much when I’m not there. There’s also an element of body doubling with my coworkers that helps me a lot.

Making enough money that I don’t have to spend every second in a state of dread over my finances.

I now have enough money to pay rent and bills and also order Grubhub every once in a while, which is really all I need to survive (besides health insurance).

Write a little blurb about how you’re feeling.

This is how I do symptom tracking, because rating my mental health on a numerical scale doesn’t work for me.

I find that this helps me feel more in control of my life because not only am I noticing patterns that may emerge in my moods, I am tracking my long-term recovery progress.

If you’d like to know exactly what I track, check out this blog post.

$: This tip is not completely free, as I pay about $4 a month for the app I use.

Eat both protein and carbs.

Maybe you don’t struggle with eating enough calories like I do. Often, I will eat three carrots or a handful of raspberries and wonder why I’m hungry (and quickly wilting) half an hour later. Protein and carbs help you feel full longer and give you the calories your brain needs to work. Not every SINGLE meal or snack has to have both, but it’s proven to be a good thing for me to strive towards.

$: Obviously, food costs money, but peanut butter sandwiches are pretty cheap.

Get a good night’s sleep.

I won’t pretend to be an expert on sleep hygiene— I am aided at night by an antidepressant that makes me sleep super well. If you’re not getting the rest you need, I recommend having a sleep study done if that is available to you.

$: Depends on how you relax best before bed. Experiment!

The Three Types of Abuse

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Abuse survivors and the professionals that work with them split up abusive behavior into emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. Emotional abuse is generally regarded, though not necessarily consciously, as the least harmful, and physical abuse is usually seen as the worst. Many survivors, when seeking to downplay their trauma to cope, will say to themselves and others, “At least he didn’t hit me.” But does it matter? These three types of abuse overlap much more than people tend to understand or appreciate, and that has important ramifications for recovery and self-awareness.

Here’s an example. (Skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to read a detailed description of abusive behavior.) My abusive ex used to hold me down despite my many, very specific verbal protests, and pluck out any body hairs I had that he didn’t like. (He was grossed out by the hair growing out of a small mole on my arm or the occasional dark chin hair.) It happened in public at least once, in the midst of friends, and made me cry in shame. What type of abuse was this? It was emotional abuse because it undermined my self-esteem and sense of autonomy. It was sexual abuse because it focused on his control of my sexual appeal and the expression of my gender identity. It was physical abuse because he was holding me down and rendering me powerless. Through this example, we can see that the lines are not so clear as we may have thought.

What about all the times I was coerced into sex? (I don’t have a specific example here, because it happened so often and in so many subtly different ways.) What kind of abuse was that? It was sexual in nature, of course, and emotionally damaging, but I would argue that since it involved bodily violation, it was physical abuse too.

Sexual abuse is not given its due as a type of physical abuse. Sexual assault is experienced as physical violence, even if it’s a result of emotional coercion. It’s a danger experienced viscerally by the body and the nervous system. It is a literal, physical violation. Physical abuse is not just raising fists with the intent to harm– it’s also about damaging someone’s sense of autonomy and agency. Sexual assault, whether the survivor is overpowered or coerced, teaches someone through intimidation that their body is not under their own control, and that’s one of the scariest experiences a human can have.

It seems to me that bruises and broken bones are easier for the public to digest as traumatizing experiences. When people hear about sexual assault, they often think, “What’s the big deal?” Sex is generally fun and harmless, right? They don’t necessarily realize that sex, which is inescapably intimate and vulnerable, can leave our bodies feeling the exact same way as other types of physical abuse.

Thoughts on Psychodynamic Therapy

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I started therapy again recently.

Therapy has never done much for me, to be completely honest. I have made a lot of progress in my seven years of recovery, but it has mainly been from a combination of medication, the support and insight of other mentally ill people, and my own damned hard work. Breakthroughs, which have always been pretty rare, seemed to happen at the kitchen table or alone in my room, not with a therapist. In fact, many of my therapists have been outright disappointing and incompetent, and I spent a lot of time teaching them about their own area of expertise. I had, for a long while, accepted that therapy was not for me.

This therapist, on the other hand, is BUILT DIFFERENT. Every single week I come away with new insight that improves my life. It’s not easy going— and I spend the majority of the sessions choked up or outright crying— but it’s finally effective.

My new therapist does psychodynamic therapy, which is not a popular type of therapy. It’s based heavily on the ideas of Freud, who until recently I considered a quack. I cannot provide a thorough definition of psychodynamic therapy as I have only just begun it, but here are some bullet points from my research:

  • Psychodynamic therapy comes from Freudian psychoanalysis, but it has been continually updated and evolved since his lifetime.
  • Psychoanalysis was super intense and often involved five days a week of therapy. Psychodynamic therapy involves much less of a weekly time commitment.
  • Unlike psychoanalysis, which necessitated the stereotypical couch, psychodynamic therapy just needs two chairs for the participants. This change reflects the newer therapy’s more equal balance of power.
  • Much of the focus is on the relationship between the client and the therapist, which is seen as a reflection of other relationships.
  • It deals with repressed emotions and the subconscious, as well as psychological defenses that help us avoid unpleasant feelings and experiences.
  • Rather than focusing on quick skills that target symptoms (like CBT or DBT), this form of therapy tries to make deep, lasting changes.
  • Like many therapies, an emphasis is placed on childhood experiences and how they have shaped the client’s life.
  • Dream analysis may be used.

I don’t know if my therapist is so great because of the psychodynamic framework, or if he’s just really good at his profession. It’s probably a combination of both. He goes above and beyond when it comes to learning and perfecting his craft, and it has paid off in improvements to MY life.

If you have done psychodynamic therapy and you want to let me know how it went for you, you can comment or email me at joelsherwoodblogger@gmail.com !

Motivation Hack

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Last week I decided to discuss motivation issues with my therapist again, which had previously gone poorly after he said that nobody does anything they don’t want to do, which confused and irritated me. Then I figured out he was re-framing things and also telling the truth.

Even when I have mixed feelings on something and would RATHER rot in bed, I’m doing it because there is some reason I WANT to do it.

For example, I do dishes because I WANT to help out the other people in my house. I go to work because I WANT to live independently.

This re-framing helped me hugely. Whenever I felt that internal resistance that says “lay in bed forever and starve,” I would say to myself “I WANT to take a shower because I want to be clean. I would even include fun stuff like “I WANT to make tea because it’s warm.”

I was really happy with this for like three days, but unfortunately the magic has started to wear off, so I have now switched to “I’m CHOOSING to do … because …” and it feels almost as good and is maybe a little more validating of my ambivalence.

I hope this helps someone else!

Lying to Others vs Lying to Yourself

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Something paraphrased from a book I’m reading (Lies We Tell Ourselves by Jon Frederickson), mixed with my own thoughts:

You can always lie to other people. There are many completely valid reasons to do so. Maybe you’re trying to be diplomatic, or you’re just not ready to tell the truth. Yes, it can cause interpersonal issues and it’s not usually the best choice morally either, but the option is always there in an emergency.

However, what REALLY creates problems in your psyche and messes you up is LYING TO YOURSELF. If you get in this habit (and most of us do) you can lose touch with yourself and your needs entirely. It’s impossible to be authentic to yourself and to other people when you don’t even know what your inner truth really is. Being yourself is so important because it’s who you are neurologically, psychologically, and socially wired to be. Basically, it’s impossible to be happy and functional if you’re denying your own reality and gaslighting yourself.

I’ve noticed that when I think I don’t know how I’m feeling or what’s “wrong” with me, I’m usually lying to myself about knowing the answer. Maybe I’m hungry even though I just ate two hours ago, so I feel like I “shouldn’t” be. Maybe I’m missing someone who I know is kind of awful. Instead of being in denial about how I feel, I’ve been working on being honest with myself. If you catch yourself in a lie to yourself, remember to be gentle and curious when you’re investigating and sussing out the truth.

Also, remember that you don’t have to act on every whim, even when you’re admitting them to yourself. You don’t HAVE to text your ex just because you want to. You don’t HAVE to eat M&Ms until you throw up. Just admit to yourself that you want to and see if some problem-solving is in order. (Can you text your best friend instead? Can you have just a handful of candy? What is the smart choice, knowing what you know about what you really want?)

Put on a fake smile if you need to, but don’t mistake that for true happiness.

What To Buy To Help Your Mental Health

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There is only one thing you need to buy to improve your mental health: a notebook.

Get something that meets your needs, but isn’t so precious that you will never write in it. My personal preference is the dot-grid journals from Michael’s, which are pretty cheap, but you may find that a large spiral notebook or a sketchbook meets your needs better. It honestly doesn’t really matter.

Actually, you don’t even need to buy a notebook if you would feel more comfortable using something digital, like a notes app or a word processor. It’s up to you— just make sure you get ahold of something you can organize easily and that you will actually use regularly.

(I have experimented with both analog and digital mental health journals and am currently using both in slightly different ways!)

Here’s the key: write with purpose. Instead of a journal where you might vent for catharsis or just record the happenings of the day, zoom in on your mental health.

Here are some ideas for your mental health notebook:

  • Conduct mental health experiments and write about them. This might be my most important tip. For example, try drinking less coffee for a month and devote a page to tracking how you feel. Change up your exercise routine and write about how it affects your mental state.
  • Write scripts where you use CBT or DBT skills.
  • Take notes during therapy so you can remember what you talked about and any conclusions you came to.
  • Include your therapy homework and what you learned.
  • Track the severity of your symptoms over time. Include notes about life circumstances that may have played a part.
  • Write down mental health goals (make sure they are measurable!) and track your progress.
  • Print out and paste in mental health resources you may find on the internet, like a feelings wheel.
  • Record and fine-tune self-care routines, like an exercise plan or what to do while drinking your morning coffee to help you have a good day.
  • Include a regularly-updated list of things you love about yourself.
  • Write down quotes that motivate you! Don’t go bonkers with this— sometimes fewer is better, to ensure focus. My favorite quote to focus on is “I’m doing my best and I can do better!”
  • Track your triggers. Write down any extreme emotions you have and what caused them. You might also make a list of triggers that you already know about, maybe with a plan for avoiding them.
  • Track changes in any medication you might take and how you feel before and after.
  • Write a WRAP or a safety plan for crises. If you decide to make this part of your notebook and not a separate document, remember to keep your notebook somewhere accessible and clearly mark your WRAP/safety plan (maybe with those little sticky flags?)
  • Experiment with gratitude lists.
  • Conduct weekly or monthly reviews to help you troubleshoot.
  • Include a list of values or priorities to refer to when you make decisions.
  • Record the names of your favorite meditations (whether you’re using YouTube or an app) so that you can come back to them.
  • Check off days that you forget your medication and write about what happened.
  • Write down journal prompts that focus on mental health and then answer them.

Got any more ideas? Please leave them in the comments so others can benefit too!

Trauma & Resilience

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I did an online course in trauma-informed peer practice and I watched a video that was supposedly about personal resilience. In it, they interviewed a few people who had undergone horrific events that then went on to live great lives. Ostensibly, they were great examples of personal resilience in the face of tragedy.

One of the interviews really struck me. They talked to a guy who had had his leg blown off by a landmine while camping in Israel, who then went on to found an organization for other amputees. That’s great, but I don’t think he is truly an example of resilience in the face of trauma. In fact, while the incident was obviously shocking and painful, I don’t think his experience was trauma at all.

Judith Herman (1992) and others have defined trauma as “the inability to cope” with an event or situation. It’s the internal response, not the external circumstances, that trauma is made of. It doesn’t matter how someone else would feel about the event— if it overwhelms YOUR ability to cope, it’s Trauma with a capital T. This is key. This is my thesis here.

If you aren’t having symptoms that affect your mental health in some way, then it wasn’t truly trauma. (Obviously you don’t have to be DIAGNOSED/DIAGNOSABLE, but you WILL have some kind of post-traumatic reaction.) It doesn’t matter what happens—if you immediately stand up and dust yourself off, it wasn’t trauma.

For review, here are the symptoms of post-traumatic stress. People who have undergone trauma, and therefore have overwhelmed their ability to cope, will experience at least some of these problems.

  • intrusion (unwanted upsetting memories, nightmares, flashbacks, emotional distress after exposure to traumatic reminders, physical reactivity after exposure to traumatic reminders)
  • avoidance of trauma-related thoughts or feelings, or external reminders
  • negative alterations in cognition or mood (inability to recall key features of the trauma, overly negative thoughts and assumptions about oneself or the world, exaggerated blame of self or others for causing the trauma, negative mood, decreased interest in activities, feeling isolated, difficulty experiencing positive mood)
  • alterations in arousal and reactivity (irritability or aggression, risky or destructive behavior, hypervigilance, heightened startle reaction, difficulty concentrating, difficulty sleeping)

These are the types of reactions that “resilient” people avoid. However, what makes the difference? My argument is that it is not a matter of personal “character,” or even “positivity” or “optimism.” It’s societal and it’s privileged-based. How “well” someone reactions to bad situations and events depends on three main factors:

  1. How early in their lives the trauma/traumatic stress started
  2. How much other stress they’re under (for example, from microaggressions related to oppression)
  3. What sort of supportive allyship they have during the event and its aftermath

The guy who got his leg blown off by a landmine experienced anxiety, stress, dissociation, and shock at the time of the event. But that isn’t enough—he was able to cope. He had the benefit of (what I presume to be) a relatively well-off childhood (since they mentioned that his father was the president of a hospital in Massachusetts). (Note: Interpersonal abuse can still happen in well-off families, of course, but he was free of some of the inherent stresses of poverty.) He stayed in a hospital in Israel with other people (soldiers) who were injured in combat. Through them, he had a support system. When he recovered physically, he came home and resumed a NORMAL life, and then—seeking deeper meaning—he decided to start his organization.

He didn’t grow up in a war-torn area and step on the landmine—he was on vacation from his peaceful home in Massachusetts. His traumatic event happened his junior year of college at Brown University, not at age five. And he had the support system of the soldiers who knew what it was like to lose a body part and still be kickin’. The recovery had little to do with his personal moral character, and much more to do with his circumstances that helped him cope so well. He had NO symptoms of post-traumatic stress, as they made sure to note in the segment that he went back to his life at college and continued just as he had been, sans leg. And he was praised for it on national TV. This is not a matter of semantics. Examples of positivity culture like this, that explain reactions to trauma as a matter of personal character, are actively HARMFUL to people recovering from traumatic events. While of course healing can and will almost always happen after a traumatic event, if you don’t react “badly,” it’s not trauma.

This is not gatekeeping, either. I’m not out here saying to survivors, “Your trauma wasn’t really trauma. You’re not suffering enough.” I AM saying, in the face of untraumatized professionals and other gawkers , that personal resilience in the face of trauma is out of our individual control. It’s not something negative about our character if we don’t react “well” to bad things. It just means we’re more vulnerable, in a way influenced by societal conditions and systems of privilege.

MENTAL HEALTH JOURNEYS ARE LONG TERM.

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Please remember that no matter where you are in your recovery/reclamation/journey towards healthier functioning, these things take time.

If you rush, you will get discouraged. If you expect immediate improvement, you will probably be stymied. Start with baby steps and harm reduction. Make one good choice, and then another. It starts out hard but it gets easier the further you go.

Making Good Choices on the Regular!

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Recovery/reclamation (my preferred term for improving your brain) is about making good choices consistently.

Maybe don’t worry about making the perfect choice because, unfortunately, then you might get stuck.

When you are confronted with a crossroads, make it a habit to take a breath (easier said than done) and make a good choice instead of a bad one.

You cannot magically stop yourself from being mentally ill. It’s just not gonna happen. But you can minimize your symptoms by, for example:

  • eating consistently and in reasonably healthy ways
  • prioritizing healthy relationships over unhealthy ones
  • going for a walk when it’s nice out
  • meditating or doing stretches when it’s nice out
  • avoiding self-sabotage in general

Taking that pause definitely takes practice, but you can always do baby steps! Start with making a good choice when it’s easy and move on to when it’s harder!

I have made a lot of bad choices. Just in general. But they were the best choices I knew how to make at the time and I am still truckin’ and makin’ good choices as much as possible, just like I always have been. I’m just better at it now!

Addendum: Sometimes bad choices feel like good choices. You can be on the lookout for this if something feels too good to be true. Real happiness and healthiness (in the brain and in relationships) feels steady-good and sometimes hard but ultimately worth it.

My Introduction to CBT

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While I have been a proponent of the related Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) for years, I always scorned Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT). The basic premise of CBT is that thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are all related and interdependent. It’s very hard to change your feelings directly, so instead, practitioners of CBT focus on changing thoughts and behaviors. Those things can, in turn, influence and ideally clear up unpleasant and unhelpful feelings. For example, if you feel like a failure, it may help you to think “I have achieved so much” and behave in ways that challenge you to achieve even more.

At its worst, CBT is a demand to “just think and behave differently,” as if it is that easy. When thought replacement and Behavior Activation are the only focus of a professional who thinks they understand CBT, the entire process can feel invalidating, unhelpful, and victim-blaming. This was my experience of CBT until very recently— I felt that since I have an extreme need for validation, CBT was my worst enemy.

Recently, however, I gave CBT another try, and guess what? It worked— immediately. The key is that this time around I am validating my feelings before I restructure them. For example, “It’s hard to feel like a failure, but I have achieved lots of things and can do this!”

Here’s a link to a short online course you can take to introduce yourself to CBT: https://www.getselfhelp.co.uk/cbt-self-help-course-step-1/