WHY WE PUT THINGS IN BOXES

“Are you ready to talk about that yet?”

The inspiration for this post came when I was speaking with my Community Psychiatric Nurse. A little while ago she asked me for a list of the things in my life that have had an impact on my mental health. I listed things like the hallucinations, when I was bullied in High School… and the death of my cat; Dolly. We’re using each appointment to go through the list by discussing one thing at a time and at each appointment I’m asked if I’m ready to talk about Dolly yet! At yesterday’s appointment I had a realization; I wasn’t reluctant to talk about Dolly because I was worried that doing so would make me unsafe (that it would trigger thoughts of self-harm etc). I didn’t want to talk about the loss because I didn’t want to cause myself the upset. I wasn’t afraid of what that upset might cause; I was just reluctant to face the grief and sadness.

LEARNING TO BE AWARE OF YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS

subconscious

sʌbˈkɒn(t)ʃəs

adjective

adjective: subconscious; adjective: sub-conscious

1.    of or concerning the part of the mind of which one is not fully aware but which influences one's actions and feelings.

The amount of times recently that I’ve heard “yes, but do you think that maybe subconsciously…” is ridiculous! When I’m feeling angry and upset, and probably a little poorly – I think ‘how would I know if it’s subconscious?!’ And then when I’m in my ‘right mind’ and feeling sensible and proactive; I think ‘well probably… I mean, that makes a lot of sense.’

When I began hearing voices and then visually hallucinating, I questioned everything. Everything I could see. Everything I heard. So when people began talking about me having a subconscious and that there might be all sorts of thoughts and feelings, emotions and knowledge, trapped there – just out of my reach… I think I genuinely had to resist imploding!