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Tag: hope

WHEN HOPE FEELS DEAD

Navigating a lifetime of depression is like being an avid bushwalker and mountain climber. For years on end the scenery is stunning, the flora and fauna breathtaking and the hard yards well rewarded. For short periods of time steep, rocky, unnavigable mountains appear that seem interminable and impossible to navigate. Clambering over invisible rocks always happens in the dark and every inch of your body screams, No! I can’t do it any more! There are people at the summit cheering, saying, Come on – not far now! You know there are people below struggling on the same mountain, or back in the safety of the pretty woods. But on that dark mountain, you’re alone, lost in that sense of hopelessness – completely reliant on voices from afar – and the squabble between the angels on your shoulders.

TIME OUT

Meditation and mindfulness are the buzzwords of the decade. The practice of taking time out to check in with mind, body and spirit – to let go of the past and future for a few moments – is no longer limited to Buddhist monks, or yogis in search of spiritual nirvana. It’s mainstream practice, taught to children in schools and discussed in workplaces, gyms, therapy, and the media.

THE EATING DISORDER VOICE

People with eating disorders often talk about the eating disorder voice that natters away, telling us what to do. Or not. Undermining recovery. Making us doubt ourselves. But I wonder what that means to someone without an eating disorder voice? Or even what it means to other eating disordered people – I doubt we’re all the same.

ROLL ON 2019

For me – I feel good about 2019. I choose to believe the worst of my grief and issues are behind me and my journey forward is now much closer to everyone else – ie I’m sure I won’t get everything right but I’ll try not to make a royal fuck up every time a little snag comes my way. I’m calling resolutions ‘goals’ this year.

IT’S TIME

If you’d told me three years ago that my poor, long suffering psychologist would still be listening to my woes at the end of 2018, I would have said, No way! (Possibly in much stronger language.) But here we are, 42 months later, and I still grace her couch on a regular basis. And not just for the lols.

THE GIRL I USED TO BE

Decades of maladaptive coping mechanisms crashed down around my ears, and the words severe depression and chronic anxiety were bandied about – in relation to me. I was in the depths of self-induced starvation, self-harming, highly suicidal, too depressed to function, and suffering the physical misery of high anxiety – pounding heart, shaking hands, internal catastrophising, panic attacks. I’d become one of “those people”.

HYPERVIGILANCE

Hypervigilance – it’s been around forever, of that I have no doubt. But it’s not a word I ever heard mentioned in all my many years of formal education. For a more thorough definition, have a look here, but whether or not it’s something you personally have experience with, doesn’t negate the fact there are a lot of people out there standing on guard, waiting for the next blow to fall. I’m one of those persons. It’s a bit unfun. For me personally, it’s not related to PTSD – I haven’t been subjected to military combat or sexual assault, and for that I’m very grateful. But for one reason or another my nature and nurture cooked up a little concoction that makes me hypervigilant – all the time. What does that mean? It means I’m always on guard.