When my brain don’t work like it used to before, and I can’t even spell my name…

Content Warning: mental health, intrusive thoughts, anxiety, ptsd, burnout.

This is week eight of my recovery journey. I’ve been learning to slow down, to feel my feelings, to release them, whilst also accepting that I’m not mentally or emotionally where I need to be yet. And that’s ok.

The blog that follows (the stuff in italics) was written in the moment, live so to speak, as I tried to function. I wanted to record it as best I could to try make sense of it with a clearer head. The italics have not been edited. This is an example of a bad day for me. I am working on not getting frustrated with myself when days like these arise, whilst reminding myself it’s all part of the process. But that’s hard because I set high expectations on myself which is not always a good thing. Pondering following the italicised record.

23rd November 2022

I often find myself wandering around the house. I feel like I want to do “something” but at the same time feel an incapacitation to follow through.

My bedroom is a riot with clean clothes in piles, waiting to be put away. The kitchen has dishes to be put into the dishwasher. There is plenty house work I could do.

But I want to make bread.

But to make bread I need to clean the kitchen.

And to clean the kitchen I have to get dressed. My oodie’s sleeves are too long and get in the way.

But getting dressed feels like a mission. I know I just need to Chuck on a pair of leggings and a top, but I feel, I am, dysfunctional.

I have a craving for sponge. I’ve looked up a simple recipe for queen cakes. But I need milk. So I need to go to the shop. I now sit and weigh out how much I want queen cakes against how much I don’t want to go to the shop. I try to probe why I don’t want to go to the shop but can find no logical reason. I’m still in my pjs and oodie so again, would need to get dressed, but if i’m going to get dressed anyway to make bread then it shouldn’t matter as it’s going to happen regardless. Right?

Im sitting on the bed typing this between moments of zoning out and empty head. It’s like my brain is short-circuiting. Like it just stops. Resets. Then tries to work. And it does to a point, but I’m a quarter of the brain from before. That’s probably being generous. It took me 10minutes the other day to spell my name. I wish I was joking.

My sister appears. She looks quizzically at me and asks if i’m ok. I tell her i’m writing a stream of consciousness. I guess I think that by recording moments like these (and journalling), I can look back and see how far I’ve come when I’m further down recovery road, and also because they are honest insights into what I think and feel. and also because they feel fucking mental.

There is so much about recovery that’s hard. One of those things is the feeling that I’m so far away from “me”. The functional, positive, outgoing, me. The me that would jump out of bed in the morning for a run, or yoga, then get ready for work, before spending the day teaching and learning. That all feels miles away from where I am at the moment.

The other things I find challenging are

• There’s no time limit on how long this will take.
• Being honest with myself and accepting I’m not ok.
• Letting people show up for me. I’m not used to being vulnerable and having to lean or be supported by others.
• The negative self talk. It’s absolutely true that if a friend of mine was going through what I am, I wouldn’t dream of saying things like “you’re being dramatic”, “just get on with it”, “there’s nothing wrong with you”. And yet, I hear these and have to quiet these comments regularly and I know they aren’t true, but I still hear them.

I did some work around this with my therapist and came to the conclusion that the voice in my head that puts pressure on me to be fine and back to work thinks it’s being helpful because I’ve become so used to working in a heightened state of stress and pressure that I’ve created a false reality that I work best under pressure. When actually that’s not true. That was a big revelation.

Regardless of the challenges, I do know with complete certainty that I’ll get through this and out the other side stronger and more at peace than I’ve ever been. That keeps me going. For now I’m continuing to take it a day at a time. Setting mini targets each day, journalling, and doing small things to help me find my happy moments, or even a momentary boost on the lower days.

True life is lived when tiny changes occur.

Leo Tolstoy

Always taking it one day at a time. Sending out love and solidarity to anyone else in the same boat. It sucks, but it only sucks for now.

This has been a SmartPonders.

Thanks for reading.

Steph x