Mental health 'zines.

Dazed has a piece up on mental health 'zines worth checking out. 

I've been thinking a lot about taking my creative time more seriously, about really putting in the time and the word, so exploring ways in which I can write, design and illustrate is something that's been on my mind.

Buddies of mine have been making 'zines forever, it just never really clicked with me.

Seeing such amazing work makes me reconsider what it is I can really accomplish through 'zine making. Sharing my stories in a really personal way might be good for me.

I was especially drawn to shit's fucked. 

The illustrations are beautiful.

I'm checking out the site that sells it. I might order a few. Check it out!

Things are weird with me lately! I feel like I,m in a haze! I don't know what's going on! I feel like I need a good re-centring.

Any recommendations?

On disrupting patterns and déjà-vu.

I had a session with Ranjana yesterday. It was hard. Not because of something necessarily difficult to discuss or move through, but because I'm really tired these days, and yesterday I was a little despondent. She even called me on it. I tried to explain that it was difficult for me to engage her, and that sometimes I get stuck in myself, and that she might need to pull me out. She said she felt she needed to lead the conversations. I agreed.

Oooooof. I just ha a déjà-vu and now I'm nauseous and confused.

That was a nice little pause. I checked out Wikipedia, and it basically goes over a lot of the assumed reasons behind déjà-vu but there doesn't seem to be any real data about it.

For me, I think they're things I've dreamed that I remember / overlap with something as it's happening. Sometimes I'll remember the dream as the déjà-vu is happening, and it's overwhelming and I get nauseous.

All of this, the ways in which we don't understand something that two-thirds of people experience, something routine yet almost metaphysical and magical, is extremely interesting to me. We just know so little about the brain, and it just seems like there is so much left to unlock. Déjà-vu feels like something else. Like something outside of the conscious, left-brain/right-brain experience.

A déjà-vu is such an odd, out of body experience, it's no wonder that in the past it was attributed to be prophetic. Left alone in the woods - I would have accepted it as being something bordering superstition and instinct.

Off-topic!

Yesterday's session was good. Ranjana talked to me about patterns of thinking, and ways of talking to myself. For this week, she'd like me to make a point of doing things for myself, out of pleasure and self-care, and not as acts seen through a lens of negativity.

For example, I explained to her how I often self-isolate when I'm feeling overwhelmed. I describe this as a type of quarantine. A quarantine, to me, because during this time I'm despondent, detached, and so internally distraught that I might not be particularly open or pleasant for those around me.

Ranjana re-framed that as maybe just needing some alone time, and just telling yourself, "I'm going to go read for an hour," and it ending there. It being something you're doing for yourself, because in that instance it's what you want for yourself.

We talked about cognitive behavioural therapy, and what I've read on the subject. I said that I read a few books, some being too clinical and difficult for me to really relate to and absorb. That conversation lead to a funny exchange:

R: You're very conscious. You're very bright. You're not like other depressed people. 

K: Well those things and depression aren't mutually exclusive.

R: I know, but with you, it's different.

What does that mean!? Ranjana sometimes says things bluntly, and then when I challenge her on it she explains it. But this was at the end of the session, while she was filling out my receipt. I told her there is a seemingly high depression rate with authors, artists, comedians and creatives of all types. That maybe my being highly sensitive mutated into something darker through trauma. . . . But we didn't talk about it much. Time was up.

She then gave me a piece of writing. Why Habits Are Hard to Change by Dr. Kelly McGonigal, written sometime in 2010. The article discuses a research study that showed participants a tennis match, and gave them a computer program that made default in or out calls. They were to then accept the default call (is the ball in or out) or actively disengage from he default call.

These brain analyses suggest that going against the default in difficult decisions requires some kind of extra motivation or confidence. Otherwise, the decider in our mind is puzzled, and the doer in our mind is paralyzed. 

Knowing this can help explain why changing habits can be so difficult. If you aren't sure why you're changing, don't fully believe you're making the right choice, or question whether what you're doing will work, you're likely to settle back on your automatic behaviors. That's why self-efficacy-the belief that you can make a change and overcome obstacles-is one of the best predictors of successful change. The decider and the doer need a boost of confidence.

All of this makes sense, being depressed comes with an automatic assumption that things will not get better, and that you're doomed and hexed. Ranjana was trying to get me to see how making active choices can lead to changes. She referred to it as "making a dent" which I appreciated. One dent at a time. Let some light in.

So next time you're trying to make a change, figure out what your current default is, and remind yourself exactly why it isn't working. Then look for ways to change your default (clean out your fridge, set up direct deposit) so you don't have to fight the old default as often. And feel free to be your own cheerleader when the going gets rough. Look for the first evidence (a pound lost here, a dwindling credit card statement there) that what you're doing is paying off. The status quo is seductive, and we all need a little encouragement to lift our fingers off the keyboard.

I mean, the concept of "being your own cheerleader" when you're already down or in the midst of a depressive episode is laughable. But I can understand the value in re-setting habits and trying to re-route patterns that are disruptive or painful. But it's so very difficult. If you're in a painful space, the default also represents a tried and true way to self-sooth. Maybe it isn't ideal, but it's known and there's comfort in that.

I don't know where to begin with all this. I can try to make dents, and I have been, but it's a big ask. It's so much work. I'm so tired.

On the echoes of trauma.

I've been thinking about memory and trauma a lot lately. Why is it that certain things are fixed into my brain. Why is it that certain memories have had such an impact on me? It’s as if the memories have pooled, and during the course of the depressive episode of my 20’s became this large body of water I don’t remember crossing. And this water, unmoved and untouched, has become stagnant. So here I am, on the other side of it, trying to figure out how the hell I got to where I am, and how to navigate my way forward.

I use to think this meant going back, trying to return to how things were, but now I know better. There is no going back. I am a totally different person to the micro level. You don’t survive a sickness untouched. Your cells have mutated. You've adapted.

But moving forward isn't as easy as it sounds. Patterns and habits exist. A decade of negligence to parts of me needs addressing. Waking up is painful. Uncomfortable. Takes energy.

“One step at a time.”

“One day at a time.”

Focusing on the management of my life, on surviving one day at a time has gotten me through a lot. But it’s also meant my vision of the future is extremely limited.

I lose the entirety of my 20’s to depression and anxiety. I hold pockets of memory here and there. All of it is a haze. A deep, thick cloud I surface from occasionally. It’s become a joke to some of my friends, “you don’t remember anything!” they'll say, recounting the time I slept through our being lost in a national park.

The reality seems to be that I don’t remember significant periods of that time in my life because my focus of surviving one day at a time meant every day was nearly identical. My only comfort was in sleep and unconsciousness. My work and school memories are cloudy at best. I kept telling myself as long as I was in school, I was mildly productive.

My recession from life, my attempt at protecting myself back-fired. I gained weight. I became physically unhealthy. I detached from my sexual self. I became so internalized, it took years to re-form my voice. To hear myself.

How can a memory of someone be so traumatic? At some point, aren't they just a ghost? This event has become exponentially larger as it transitioned to something resembling myth. At some point it just represented the feelings it engenders, doesn't it?

Your ghost reminds me of shame. Of rejection. Of pain. Of me being on my own. 

How do I let go? How do painful memories become less intrusive?

I think a large part of my problem is my disengagement from my life. Ten years of memories didn't happen. I wasn't out. I wasn't dating. I wasn't travelling. I wasn't socializing. I was surviving myself. Because of this, I wasn't making new memories. New references.

My references, my memories were these old ghosts.

There’s shame tied to my inability to let things go; these memories that have festered into larger villains then they originally were. Why can’t I be lighter? Easier?

Makes me think of Jenny Lewis’ She’s Not Me.

she's not me, she's easy

I am not easy. lol. I can’t be! Look how fucking dark and incessant my brain is! Sure, in real life, I'm comical. I'm clever. But how can anyone fall in love with me, when I'm so heavy? How can someone truly know me and still want to be with me?

Stagnant pools of memory, and heavy fucking baggage.

It's like I'm a junior adult. Sure, on paper I'm 31, but I'm lacking a decade of the formative experiences my peers have. First apartments. Room-mates. Casual sex. Parties. Drinking. Exploring with drugs. International travel. Basically 100 different kinds of socializing. Dating mainly. 

Socially stunted and romantically retarded. 

That's me. I'm trying my best to figure out how to move forward. I don't want to feel like there's no way out of this. 

It's going to be so much work. 

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness.

I just recently finished Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan. It was an intense read. First, because I read it in two days so I took it all in at once, and second because there were pieces here and there that poked certain parts of me.

Brain on Fire is part memoir and part investigation into a psychotic break caused by an extremely rare autoimmune disease. Cahalan is able to re-create periods of her life she has no recollection of, through the accounts of her father, mother, partner, brother and friends. Since she’s a reporter by trade, she’s able to access and include her medical reports, doctor notations and even video from a hospital ward she was in prior to her diagnosis.

There are more than a few things that poked the bear…

First, the initial few days where she knows something is wrong and nobody is hearing her, are really difficult to read. Luckily, Cahalan seems to have some good friends and works in a supportive environment, because I can only imagine what a shit-show that could have been (and is for many people suffering from non-obvious conditions). The feeling of, “I'm not right, something is wrong, I feel off,” is unsettling, but when it’s psychologically it’s exponentially more terrifying.

As Cahalan goes deeper into her story, untangling what she can, I can’t help but pull from my own experience when empathizing with her. There are significant periods of my life I do not remember. There are events and situations friends remember that I do not. There is a decade of my life that is imbued by a haze that only occasionally clears.

There are times when I feel so drained and disconnected, that it isn't hard to imagine being one notch further along, and that notch being what gets me hospitalized. I often seek mental health services when I'm on an upswing. When I'm down and out, I self-protect to such a degree that I isolate and hibernate until I have the energy to return to the world. But on those days, the days where I'm the lowest, most basic version of myself, I don’t doubt that my tone and expression would be alarming. Hospitalization stands as a possible reprieve, and a possible trauma.

Cahalan is forced to give up her apartment, and return to live with her mother. She is cared for by her parents for months. This also had me reflecting on my own situation living with my mother. Though I'm working and trying to save-up for a down payment, that rationale only goes so far. I've been such a mess for so long, I've been relegated to this decade-long childlike living situation that mirrors the feelings of infantilization and embarrassment that Cahalan describes.

Overall the book was a great read, in large part due to her prose, but maybe even more so because of how rare it is to hear the story of madness told by the one who lived it. Or lives it, presently. We are all so internalized. It’s all so frantic and immaterial. The consciousness of it slips through our fingers like mist. It takes beautiful and terrifying shapes that we want to capture and show to the world, but no matter how much we want that to happen, it’s nearly impossible. This vaporous state of being. These intangible tangents.

Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, a recommended read.