Taking Small Steps

People often say that the first step to recovery is acceptance. I agree, on the whole, except I’d say that tied in with acceptance are the following two things:

1. Accepting, and wanting to deal with it and,

2. Wanting to deal with it, but accepting that this will be difficult.

Some people struggle with the first, I certainly did for a short time. I wanted to cling to my depression, because in my head it was a defining aspect of who I was. However, I did eventually decide that I wanted to get better.

The second I really, really struggle with! I mentioned in my last Contented Thought post that I felt like a failure for taking an alternative course to the one I’d aimed at for so many years; well, admitting to myself that, actually, some days, I was going to find day-to-day life more difficult than other people because I felt so down also made me feel a bit useless, aggravating the perfectionist side of me. I hated that I couldn’t seem to get back on my feet straight away. I hated having to ask for help or understanding from people. And I hated the internal battle all these conflicting frustrations caused.

I had to learn to give myself credit for the little achievements I made, taking ‘Baby Steps’ each day. On some days, these steps may be very small:

• Getting out of bed
• Sending an email
• Starting that assignment, even if starting means just writing titles or bullet pointing a layout
• Doing the washing up

These seem a little insignificant, but stepping back and reflecting on these little things makes me feel like less of a failure when times get tough, giving me greater confidence to tackle bigger tasks that I would otherwise feel overwhelmed by.

Now admittedly, there is a fine balance to strike between genuinely congratulating myself for doing something that I find difficult, and becoming overly complacent by allowing myself to consider tiny things as a worthwhile tick off a list – this is a skill I am still trying to master! Learning to be gentle on myself has been one of my biggest hurdles on the road to recovery, but accepting that some days I need to take a moment to appreciate the little things I’ve done has greatly helped me move on with my life.

Soon, I will be posting about various ways I try and strike this balance – please add comments or suggestions of your own below!

Moodscope

Moodscope is a mood tracking website that I used to, and still do sometimes, use to keep a record of daily changes in my mood. It sounds a slightly bizarre concept, yes? How could recording how bad I felt each day possibly help me feel any better? Well, it did, and I shall explain how.

To track your mood, Moodscope asks you to rate twenty feelings, such as ‘nervous’, ‘jittery’ or ‘inspired’, on a scale of zero to three, where zero means ‘very slightly or not at all’ and 3 is ‘extremely’. It then uses the answers you give to calculate a percentage of how happy you feel that day and plots this on a graph. Every time you use Moodscope, it stores your scores, giving you a record over time of fluctuations in your mood. You can add comments to the graph to explain what was so good/bad about the day to explain why you are feeling the way you are, and use this to influence your choices in future. You can nominate buddies – people who you trust who will be emailed every time you record a score, so that they can keep a track of your mood as well. You can also sign up for daily emails with the Moodscope blog posts and a thought for the day. For a while, these positive messages became the highlight of my day.

So, how did this help? Aside from the daily emails giving me something positive to think about, the thing I realised using Moodscope was that my mood varied daily. This may not sound like something particularly surprising but for me, at the time, it was. I had been feeling that every day was the same amount of low, that every day I felt just as sad as I did the day before, and that I was stuck in feeling that way. And yet, here was a graph telling me that, in fact, I felt 1% better today than yesterday.

And that 1% meant to me that I wasn’t stuck, and that things could change.

10 Good Things – Week 1

This is the first of my 10 Good Things posts!  I’ve had quite a busy week – from panicked deadlines in the early hours of Monday morning, to a field trip Tuesday, Halloween party Friday and surprise work shift to cover for a friend on Saturday – so have a fair bit to choose from for this week’s post. I find that keeping busy is so important in keeping my mood lifted, as it gives me lots of little things to take pleasure in.

1. Published my first blog post! And it’s been viewed multiple times! Feeling very proud of myself
2. Eventually finished and handed in my dreaded proteins assignment
3. Made it in for a 9am lecture (unusual occurrence) AND stayed awake all the way through (practically unheard of!)
4. Managed to track down a missing parcel from home. Now that I have my walking boots at uni with me, I can’t wait to sign up for Mountaineering Club trips.
5. Grandad got the letter I sent him, which will hopefully have made him smile.
6. Made my Halloween costume, including a red ruby necklace from cardboard, tin foil, PVA glue and red food colouring. Who knew a science student could be so creative?!
7. Finally got around to food shopping and laundry, the situation was getting desperate…(!)
8. The clocks went back! An extra hour of sleep is always welcome!
9. My brother turned 18 and Dad tells me that his birthday party went well (my brother was still sleeping off the hangover at 6pm and therefore unable to comment! Bless…). I was sorry that I couldn’t make it home for the party, but glad he enjoyed himself.
10. Lastly, one of my classmates came to talk to me about depression, after noticing a Facebook post of mine that mentioned antidepressants. It turns out she’s going through a tough period herself, and she was impressed that I was so open about it. It was good to chat to her about the problems we’d both faced, and reminded me again that there are so many people who struggle despite appearances – she always seems very together in lectures.

So, there’s the summary of my week. How was yours? Please add your own comments below with good things that have happened to you this week 🙂

Opening with the Weather…

Today it rained quite a bit. This is not unusual in Glasgow, where the weather is so changeable that I quickly learnt within weeks of moving here that you never, ever leave the house without a coat. No matter how sunny it is, it WILL rain at some point within the next twelve hours. Or the next hour… or half hour…

Today it was also quite sunny. This too is not unusual in Glasgow, but I’d forgive you for believing that it was the case listening to many people talk about the weather here. I personally think a fairer assessment of the weather in this city is ‘changeable’. You truly learn the meaning of the phrase ‘four seasons in one day’! It is frustrating, but (call me weird) it is one of my favourite aspects of living in Glasgow because it taught me to really appreciate the sun when it finally shows its face.

I chose to write my first blog post about the weather for two reasons:
Reason 1: I’m British and, therefore, incapable of starting anything using any topic but the weather. Sorry!
Reason 2: If you, like Glaswegians, have experienced a lot of rain in your life, you really learn to appreciate the sun. I’m not talking weather this time.

Two to three years ago, during my time at sixth form college, I got caught up in a period of depression. I won’t go into the reasons why, but it was a time when I felt as if my life had hit rock-bottom. My self-esteem was shattered, and I isolated myself from all my friends, believing that they hated me. I had wanted to be a vet since I was very small, yet I stopped trying as hard at college, believing that I wasn’t good enough for university, that I didn’t deserve to go. I was cutting myself. I had frequent thoughts of suicide. I felt as if there was nowhere for me to go.

My Mum first took me to the doctors at Christmastime in my second year; however, it took repeated visits until I eventually got put on antidepressants and into therapy. That didn’t happen until the summer holidays had begun, after my A Levels.

Somehow, I got into university, albeit on my back-up course option. I still felt like my world was shattered – having spent so many years being mentally set on Veterinary Medicine, taking an alternative course felt like a failure. It’s my parents that I have to thank for being where I am now: they sat me down and told me to go, that it might be good for me to get away, and that they’d always support me if it was within their means, if it turned out that this wasn’t the course for me. And so, still and emotional wreck, I moved 400 miles away from home in rural Southern England to Glasgow, Scotland’s biggest city, with quite a reputation! My Dad confessed later that he was terrified he was making the wrong decision the day they talked me into going – he needn’t have worried!

I struggled; it would be a massive lie to say that I didn’t. But, slowly, things started to look up. Some days were bad, but others I had to jump around my room to use up the excited, hyperactive, happy energy that overwhelmed me (I felt that to do this alone was better than to do it in front of the new friends I’d made and was trying to keep…). Often, this energy would be triggered by something as simple as the sun finally coming out and lighting up the surface of the River Kelvin as I frantically pedalled alongside it, soaked to the skin, trying to get back to halls in time for dinner. Glasgow is a beautiful city in parts, especially when the sun comes out.

One day, I was talking to a friend about who’d had similar experiences to me. She said that, once you’ve been depressed, you really appreciate what it feels like to be happy. She is right.

Living in rainy Glasgow taught me to appreciate the sun, the same way that dealing with depression taught me how wonderful it feels to be happy. I am now in my second year on the same course, and am so glad I took it. I still have my up days and my down days, but I am slowly learning to manage my tendency for depressive thoughts, and I do this by taking time to really appreciate the little things: the sun coming out after rain, the autumn colours of the trees outside my window, the buskers down Byres Road, what it feels like to truly be happy.

This blog is part of that – by posting online I have a weekly commitment to assess and appreciate these small things. But I also wanted to share my experiences with other people who feel similarly low. I hope you enjoy reading about them. It took me a while, but I did learn to smile again, and it felt like the sun coming out after months of rain.