ALL THE DIGITAL THINGS GETTING ME THROUGH A MENTAL HEALTH RELAPSE

So, in my last two posts (here and here) I talked about how my mental health has taken a massive nose dive since February, when I relapsed in my recovery. I have been sectioned and admitted to a psychiatric hospital (Lowry Ward - Acute Admission Ward (Newcastle) - CNTW049 - Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust), restrained, given medical treatment against my will, sedated, and put under the care of the two most advanced, specialist teams in my local mental health NHS Trust (CNTW) – the ‘Step Up team’ and the Crisis Team! So, I really wanted to put together a more positive and useful post…

HELPFUL RESOURCES DURING GRIEF | IN COLLABORATION WITH ETSY UK | AD

“We don’t stop loving. We don’t forget. We don’t stop hurting. We don’t get over it. We journey forward. Living the best that we can. We hold them in our hearts. Until we’re together again”

Grieftolife.com

The loss of my bunny; Pixie (you can read more about her death here) has really shown me a lot more about grief and that has included recognising the importance of having help and support…

A huge motivation in me maintaining I’m NOT Disordered and my safety, is my hope that my experiences are helping others in some way. The notion that I didn’t go through all that I have for no reason has been massively reassuring and a positive step in my mental health recovery. It has given me hope. Hope that all those hard lessons I’ve had to learn, were worthwhile. Like they were thrown at me for a reason.

So, similarly to my mental health, I want to use my experiences around grief, loss, and bereavement to help others safely navigate (in my opinion) one of the most difficult emotions you can go through. Having lost Pixie almost two weeks ago, I’ve turned to numerous things to help and support me to cope with my grief in a healthy way, and I thought I’d share what I have found the most beneficial for my mental health:

So firstly, practical items – chosen from Etsy…

SELF-SOOTHE:

Learning the Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) skill of self-soothe in the section of the Therapy labelled ‘Distress Tolerance,’ I was initially kind of reluctant to tell people how helpful I found it because I was so worried it would give others selfish, materialistic connotations about me. As though hearing that washing my hair could help my mental health meant two things:

1.       I can’t have been that unwell if something so simple could make a difference

2.       I must be really shallow and self-obsessed if I felt I had to do something for me to help me

Gradually, though, I began to warm to the idea of telling others what I found helpful because I found that sometimes, when I was in a mental health crisis, I needed to be reminded by others of the coping skills and mechanisms that were helpful. As though my head was so focused on being unsafe that there was no room to entertain healthy thoughts like those around what I could be doing to keep myself safe. So, telling the hospital staff, and then the professionals who would continue my care in the community after being discharged, was pretty necessary and in recognizing that, I had to just swallow my pride and ignore any concerns as to what others would think of me.

WHY I DIDN’T TAKE PART IN DIGITAL DETOX DAY 2020

https://www.digitaldetoxday.org/

I first heard about Digital Detox Day when I visited Zoe Sugg’s Instagram account and read her post on the campaign she’s created alongside I Am Whole to shed light on the negative impact social media can have on your mental health and life in general. Zoe explained that the thought process behind the campaign was based on the realization that we are ‘endlessly scrolling’, comparing, judging, being cyber bullied, losing boundaries, and don’t know when to ‘switch off’ from social media. She says that all of this can be a cause of Anxiety, Depression, Sleeplessness, Loneliness, and low Self-Esteem.

Initially, I almost automatically decided to join in, read up on the campaign, and do the digital detox on September 5^th, 2020 (tomorrow). Then I started writing a post about the campaign for LEAPS (you can read the post here) and talking about my ‘digital journey’ really left me reconsidering my decision and feeling hugely tempted not to partake in the event. Writing about how I’ve progressed through social media and my blog really made me realize just how important the digital world has all become to me and that this isn’t necessarily unhealthy or unsafe.

MENTAL HEALTH & CREATIVITY | IN COLLABORATION WITH TIME TO CHANGE STORYCAMP 2020

We’ve reached the end of Time To Change’s Storycamp this year and the final briefing is all about creativity with the intention of content creators deciding on their own theme; but I liked the idea of just writing about creativity and how it can impact mental health…


I’d say that I’ve always been creative; when I was little, I used to love cutting things out of magazines and catalogues and making collages from them with my Nana. But I think my biggest creative outlet was through writing. I used to write so many short stories – mainly about horses because I was absolutely obsessed with them and took riding lessons for a while – that my Mum and Nana would read. I’d watch their reactions; a laugh or a smile, and it taught me the power words can have over the reader’s thoughts and feelings.


As I got older, I began developing a fascination with the idea of working in Fashion and decided to opt for Textiles as an exam subject in High School. Unfortunately, the subject’s Teacher was probably the least encouraging person in the world! The criticism she was full of was never constructive, and she was forever filling my head with doubts on my ability in the subject. I became so sceptical that by the end of the exams I had lost all interest and passion for drawing or being creative in any way.

FIVE THINGS THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC HAS TAUGHT ME

You may have read Martin Baker’s guest post on his five things? The actual plan was to publish a post with both of ours, but Martin’s was finished sooner so I decided to post it alone and before my own.


I was recently in A&E (Accident and Emergency) with suspected liver failure but it – thankfully – turned out to be a really bad bout of gastroenteritis(!) and I was talking to one of the Doctors about the pandemic. She asked why I’d self-harmed a little while ago and my reason was something that’s actually stopped happening because of the UK lockdown! We laughed about how there’s been positives (is that the right word?) to the entire Pandemic and all the consequences that have come from it. And this inspired these posts... I’m definitely one of those ‘look-on-the-bright-side’ type of people and I’m definitely a ‘glass-half-full’ girl so for me, I find it helpful to look for positives and benefits from difficult situations in order to make them more bearable and easier to cope with.


After over a week of the UK lockdown, I received a letter telling me that because of my Asthma, I’m in the ‘extremely vulnerable’ category and am more likely to be admitted to Hospital if I contracted the Coronavirus. The letter instructed me to isolate for a further twelve weeks from the day of receiving the letter! This meant that whilst a lot of people are probably on Week Two or longer by now, I’m only just onto Week One (I only received the letter on Tuesday 31^st March)! So, I really do need something positive to think about and thought that finally writing this post might be a good idea...

“I DON’T KNOW IF ‘PROUD’ IS THE RIGHT WORD” | FOUR WAYS TO COPE WITH A HOSPITAL ADMISSION

Last weekend I began hallucinating again and – at their command – I took an overdose. I was in Hospital for over twenty-four hours and the only drama was caused by my veins; and a conversation with the Psychiatric Liaison Team about it, left me inspired to write this post!


As the overdose had been in response to the voices and not a suicide attempt, I took myself to A&E and agreed to have the lengthy antidote treatment known as Parvolex. Ironically, when I actually want the treatment and co-operate, my veins collapse and become generally useless so that it can’t be administered! The Doctors had many attempts and even called an Anesthetist with the ultrasound machine to try to insert the cannula, but they had no success, so my blood test was repeated. It was at this point that my co-operation was tested, and the Doctor made a comment “the tests will be ok unless you’ve actually taken as many as you say you have.” In the past, I’d have taken great offence by interpreting this as him basically calling me a liar! I’d have refused blood tests and treatment and left the Hospital – probably against medical advice and possible chased by security! Instead, I took the attitude that I’d let them do the blood tests and once he saw the results, they would prove I wasn’t lying. And that, would be much more gratifying!


After proving I hadn’t lied, I had to see the Psychiatric Liaison Team before I could go home and I told them that I wasn’t sure if ‘pride’ was the right word for it but that I was glad there hadn’t been any of the usual drama of me running away or refusing treatment. They told me that I could say I was proud of myself for it and that it shows that even though I was there for overdosing, I had come a long way over the years and could still be counted as being in recovery. But I don’t think the peaceful admission was due to my mental state; I think some of it came because of the things I’ve learnt that help me during a hospital admission.