This post marks the end of another week, and it's thus time to reflect. Based on the Simple Mental Health Pain Scale shared in the previous post (hereafter abbreviated SMHPS), I would say that this week has been much better than the preceding one. Earlier in that preceding week, I was still reeling from the release of my 'testament' Facebook post, and by Thursday I was having another mental health collapse (a.k.a. 'death spiral'), which finally prompted me to book the appointment with the therapist.
Having met with the therapist on Monday this week, I felt much better for the most part, despite us having only briefly gone over my history and touching on some key issues. I think just the knowledge that there will be more therapy sessions makes me calmer because I know there will at least be someone to talk and vent to. The danger, however, is that troubling issues might arise, and then given that my therapy session is still days away, be forgotten in the course of daily activities. Then the troubles remain buried in my subconscious, but I may forget to raise it in the session. I have to be sure to make notes from now on about how I'm feeling and about anything troubling me. That way, I'll be sure to remember by the time of my next session. Otherwise, any lessons or insights might be overlooked. It might be useful to spend the first few minutes of any therapy session just reviewing the past week. At any rate, it's difficult to judge accurately where this past week falls on the SMHPS, but 6 sounds pretty accurate since I still try and avoid all stressful tasks. In other news, I had the worst headache of my life on Wednesday, and it wouldn't get better despite taking ordinary painkillers and lying down. I eventually had no choice but to visit the Emergency Room, where I was placed on a drip with anti-inflammatory medication and strong painkillers. That worked, and I was prescribed the same medication in pill form. The next day it was still a little painful, so I took the pills, but subsequently didn't do the work I wanted to on a research paper, and again put off a meeting that was supposed to be on Friday. I wonder if it might have been stress related, precisely in response to that work and meeting. I also wonder if the anti-depressants I stopped taking about two weeks prior had anything to do with it.
In the meantime, I've been thinking more about the 'assignment' I have for Monday. I've put off doing it - as I do with most things (one of the issues I need to address through therapy) - but I thought the best framework might be the most straightforward, namely using the kernel contained in the previous post (more of my strengths and fewer of my weaknesses) as the foundation. There are many dimensions to happiness or being the person you always wanted to be, but I think being realistic is essential. There will never be a time when everything is 'perfect' since such perfection does not exist. Therefore, focusing on gradually reducing some of my main weaknesses and building on my strengths is a sensible plan. Of course, this means I must identify these first, which is easier said than done, especially for my strengths. I've outlined the major areas I want to work on in therapy, and these are all linked in some way to weaknesses. Perhaps strengths in this sense are the opposite of the weaknesses?
In terms of weaknesses (or perhaps one should more kindly call them challenges?), I outline the main ones below, although I'm sure there are others.
- laziness
- lack of enough self-care, including exercise
- bottling up negative emotions and experiences (perhaps in therapy I will deal with this, after all, speaking about such issues is the point of therapy)
- inability to cope with stress in a healthy manner
- escapism (not in itself a bad thing but I do it to get away from stress, mainly through video games)
- addictive aspects (especially about the abovementioned escapism)
- poor work-study-life balance
- terrible procrastination (linked to escapism)
- lack of social skills/social phobia
- loneliness (linked to social phobia), lack of friends
- not fitting in anywhere (this is not per se a weakness since conformity is its own weakness, but I want to at least feel belonging and a sense of community somewhere)
- lack of self-worth/self-confidence/self-acceptance
- internalised oppression and homophobia
- not being able to assert myself enough and avoiding conflict or confrontation completely
- not feeling good about my appearance/feeling ugly
- not believing compliments
- not being able to keep a sleep schedule or schedule of any kind (though the sleep issue is likely linked to non-24-sleep-wake syndrome)
- struggling to look people in the eyes for any length of time (liked to self-assertion and conflict avoidance and lack of self-worth, and possibly mild autism? - needs further investigation, but I can get overwhelmed by noises and sights and activity like going to a mall after a long period of staying at home - may be linked to agoraphobia and isolation too?)
- falling into negative spirals and not being able to break free without internalising the negativity
- not having any romantic experiences (also possibly linked to childhood emotional neglect)
- feeling the need to please others and to 'kowtow' to authority figures
- grief and many conflicting feelings around my mother's relatively recent death
- lack of boundaries
- avoiding social situations, even picking up the phone when possible (introversion contributes here, but is not bad in itself)
- self-sabotage
- negative beliefs
- feels there is a great barrier all around, limiting me, containing me, that I cannot escape
In short, in unkind moods, I might say I'm a mess, but more gently, there's much to work on. However, all of this is underpinned by my desire to live a full and happy life. How can I do so without being honest about my issues and confronting them? Many people never do this, so I must give credit to myself.
Strengths I can identify at this point include:
- intelligence
- kindness
- a desire to - as Carl Sagan put it - accept and work on uncomfortable truths instead of holding on to my dearest illusions (maybe in some sense an illusion could be that of 'learned helplessness', that I'm destined to be a victim of all these challenges and that I am doomed to die lonely and miserable - as I tell myself in my most depressive moments when I become suicidal)
- hope
- empathy
- imagination
- creativity
- good writer
One thing I must remember to do before Monday is to complete the 'wheel of life' I shared in the previous post. I know this will present a low score in all areas. Perhaps I can do it now (and my first step against procrastination can be to follow some advice I saw recently, namely if something takes less than two minutes do it immediately). Well, I took a moment and here is my wheel:
Maybe I was too generous in some respects, but it's challenging to quantify complex matters with a simple 1-10 scale.
Nevertheless, I scored myself highest in health and business/career (both 6). Healthwise, despite my depression and headaches (and underactive thyroid), I have no complaints. I am not ill or limited in some way physically, which is a considerable blessing. Still, I don't exercise, and I eat poorly; I sit all day in front of a screen, and I sleep at irregular hours (but enough). I don't go outside enough, and I don't drink enough water. Overall, a 6 seems justified.
In business/career, I gave myself a six because I like the work I'm doing, and I'm getting several publications out a year, but I suffer from incredible stress (which caused the overall 'breakdown' this year), which leads to avoidance and procrastination. I also suffer terribly from imposter syndrome, and I worry if I'm 'good enough'. I've missed deadlines and don't get paid if I don't deliver (since I'm on contract), but this is also partly a blessing since I can avoid having the stress of being paid for something and then struggling to deliver, and it's easy to resign (I've tried to a while back but my boss convinced me to try staying on - she has been very kind and accommodating but I know her boss dislikes my delays, and then she has to cover - a terrible burden on me and a vicious cycle, but it must be said their work schedules and expectations are rediculous, despite me having raised concerns and objections - maybe I did at least try to stand up for myself in some way). All in all, confusing, stressful, hopefull, exciting, frightening, and many other things at once.
On romance, I scored myself a 1, maybe a 0 is more accurate since I have never been near romance or a relationship.
On finances, I scored a 4. I have enough to live for now, but my limited funds are dwindling rapidly. Perhaps the score should have been lower. There is a possibility of inheriting something from my mother via my father, but I don't want to have any expectation because my mother left everything to my father.
Family and friends - I'm lonely and rarely speak to my broader family. In fact, I'm very removed from them, physically and in world-view. We aren't close. My dad has his positives and negatives. I have one friend and a few acquaintances, but where does one draw the distinction? Again, no-one, I see at all regularly, literally maybe once a year. The score should have been lower.
I make my own fun and recreation via gaming, but it's unbalanced and limited. My physical environment is okay, but I certainly leave things disorganised, and I avoid cleaning. Maybe things are worse than I thought. Personal growth shows prospects of improving given therapy and this act of blogging and reflecting and working on myself (I also thought, since therapy won't last forever due to finances, blogging is one way to keep giving myself some kind of outlet and voice to my feelings and thoughts). I also study but have been terribly neglecting this for a very long time. I have a great PhD supervisor, but we rarely speak because I never produce anything.
Out of a total of 80 (with revised scores - romance 0, family and friends 3, health 5, finances 3, business 5, physical environment 4, fun 5, personal growth 5), I score myself 30.
37.5%
To paraphrase Carl, I should be able to do much better.
To return to my assignment - my ideal, happy self is someone who is braver, more adventurous, knows himself and his strengths, is healthier, more organised, is less afraid, more resilient, more confident, with more positive beliefs, makes himself heard, avoids self-sabotage (and reduces procrastination), escaped the great barrier of limiting beliefs, copes with stress and psychological shocks and stress in a healthier way, and is comfortable in his own skin. The wheel of life is actually quite useful since it outlines well where I am now, and therefore provides a useful yardstick for where I want to be. When I score higher in all the areas above I will be closer to my goal.
What then holds me back? In one sense I suppose it's all the baggage from the past. All the painful bones and ruins that were buried in the sediment of time in my mind. A large part of therapy - and becoming my ideal self - is thus undertaking an expertly-supervised archeological excavation, to uncover, identify, process, and preserve or discard all these bones and ruins. As I wrote in my testament, one cannot confront one aspect of mental illness without confronting all aspects, since they are all deeply interwoven as my list of weaknesses above shows. This is not easy to do, even with that expert supervision of a trained and compassionate therapist. And, as my case shows, even just getting to the point of seeking help can be a long and arduous journey, made all the more difficult by the stigma of mental illness, which is so easily internalised. Un-internalising all my false beliefs will be part of my journey towards healing (perhaps this is also a form of cognitive dissonance - holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously - something I must overcome). The same is true for validating and giving voice to my deepest feelings - to plumb the depths as it were. Having the skill to do this - or rather lacking it, is what holds me back. I also think negative beliefs and this feeling of having a great barrier I cannot escape must fall.
I recently saw a video on Youtube of interviews held with elderly people in 1929. One of the oldest people interviewed (aged 103), had a wonderfully simple and powerful outlook on life, that I would love to adopt on my journey towards healing. He said, simply, when asked about the future:
To return to my assignment - my ideal, happy self is someone who is braver, more adventurous, knows himself and his strengths, is healthier, more organised, is less afraid, more resilient, more confident, with more positive beliefs, makes himself heard, avoids self-sabotage (and reduces procrastination), escaped the great barrier of limiting beliefs, copes with stress and psychological shocks and stress in a healthier way, and is comfortable in his own skin. The wheel of life is actually quite useful since it outlines well where I am now, and therefore provides a useful yardstick for where I want to be. When I score higher in all the areas above I will be closer to my goal.
What then holds me back? In one sense I suppose it's all the baggage from the past. All the painful bones and ruins that were buried in the sediment of time in my mind. A large part of therapy - and becoming my ideal self - is thus undertaking an expertly-supervised archeological excavation, to uncover, identify, process, and preserve or discard all these bones and ruins. As I wrote in my testament, one cannot confront one aspect of mental illness without confronting all aspects, since they are all deeply interwoven as my list of weaknesses above shows. This is not easy to do, even with that expert supervision of a trained and compassionate therapist. And, as my case shows, even just getting to the point of seeking help can be a long and arduous journey, made all the more difficult by the stigma of mental illness, which is so easily internalised. Un-internalising all my false beliefs will be part of my journey towards healing (perhaps this is also a form of cognitive dissonance - holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously - something I must overcome). The same is true for validating and giving voice to my deepest feelings - to plumb the depths as it were. Having the skill to do this - or rather lacking it, is what holds me back. I also think negative beliefs and this feeling of having a great barrier I cannot escape must fall.
I recently saw a video on Youtube of interviews held with elderly people in 1929. One of the oldest people interviewed (aged 103), had a wonderfully simple and powerful outlook on life, that I would love to adopt on my journey towards healing. He said, simply, when asked about the future:
I don't worry about the future. I'm going to live as long as I can, and I'm happy in living.
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