The Definition Of Relapse

Relapse, by definition is "a deterioration in someone's state of health after a temporary improvement." When you grow up with an addict, the word relapse pertains directly to using drugs or drinking alcohol again. In mental health, a relapse could be anything from engaging in behavior you felt you had control over once again, having a bad day of anxiety, or a weekend of depression. Okay, that is my mental health definition of a relapse, and also, an interesting segue into this post.

I have said that things were going good, going well and calm. I was feeling pretty okay with the flow of things in general. I wanted to blame my anxiety on the drama of the whole Hurricane Dorian watch. I wanted to say it was induced by the bad moods and general hysteria of the people around me in the world. Now that I have my head above water again, I can call it what it is: "a relapse."

My relapse was born of many triggers. Triggers are so strange. Some of them make sense when you look into them. Some of them blindside you and seemingly come out of nowhere. While the hurricane stuff did push my anxiety high, I had something come up in life on top of it all that felt as though the rug was pulled from under me and I fell down hard, left to get up with no help. This unplanned thing, this new information, sent me spinning with no focal point or way to stop from spinning out. 

I tried to stay calm and use that internal dialogue to talk myself down, but the thing about talking to yourself is, it can be kind of one-sided. With other circumstances overruling schedules, I was left alone with myself, with no one really to talk to besides my six year old and I started to shrivel. My six year old is fantastic company, but these forces made feel sad and shrinkable. You know that scene in The Little Mermaid where Ursula shows you the weird shriveled plant people? Yeah that was me, the poor, unfortunate soul. 

I reached out to some people as a sounding board but I had to be selective on who could handle my situation. In my upset I wondered how much of this internal uproar was my anxiety, how much was a bout of depression, and how much was me just overreacting. I needed someone to check me a bit and give me a real answer. There was validation the response that I got, which was my feelings were not only valid, but what I was going through was really unfair. This validation victory was short lived.

The thing about relapse, is it's familiar. When you're healing and focused on progression and you're pushing towards your goals, it's easy to look back at where you were when you were in a less great place and be like, "I hope I don't go back there. I hope I don't feel that way again. Things are so much better now, I'm not going back." When the relapse happens then you get this cloud of "How did I get here?," above you; a fog if you will.

That fog left me disoriented. Maybe it was the hurricane's fault because much like Dorian, over the weekend I just churned slowly wreaking internal havoc mentally. It came out in random crying jags, and often. I'd be in the kitchen thinking I should eat something and just think about the situation and be crying into the sink. I couldn't focus my eyes when talking to my daughter or her playdates from time to time. I felt so damned blah.

I let my daughter see me through this, though. She asked about it and I said, "Mommy is having a hard time." The one time this weekend I lost my temper, the one time I became so unhinged wasn't even at my daughter, but rather in proximity to being pushed to my max. I immediately felt like shit because I scared her when I let out a yell about being done with things and how much I just tried and kept feeling like I failed. When we both calmed down and started to re-tell the events and how mommy lost it, my daughter said, "Turns out Labor Day is a bust." Somehow this just made everything in my heart light again. Not only was it completely accurate but she made it fun and sweet.

Yesterday I was half lifted out of things. I felt a baby step forward but was still not far enough out of everything to call it, "moving on, moving up." Today, though, I feel like I'm starting to process everything more constructively. Full on steps are happening for Wednesday.

Depression and anxiety are beastly. You can go for months using your coping mechanisms, therapies, tools for self care and everything else properly and then boom, something trips you up. It's the same with drug and alcohol recovery to where you can be sober for days, months, years, and experience something that just triggers you or throws you from your cadence, and before you know it you're using again. 

It shows me how delicate the balance is. It shows me just how careful you have to be with everything. It was difficult for me to reach out and to explain the whole scenario and talk about it. It still is, honestly. It feels multi-faceted and filled with back story; overly-complicated much like Shrek with onions having layers. 

I feel as though the past 5 days for me have just been the epitome of a relapse. In my personal therapy quest my therapist reminds me that this is okay and it will happen from time to time. This is all part of the growth process and recovery from trauma, but also just a part of life in general. Not being hard on myself is a struggle. I have to admit though, this particular relapse just completely wrecked me for a couple days there.

Everything felt futile and I felt extremely alone. I started feeling slightly insane as though I had made something into a "bigger deal" than it was in reality. That's a jarring feeling, in my humble opinion. It made me feel out of control, which is something I don't do well.

There are times when your patience and "go with the flow" abilities are essential. It is all you can do. There are other times when taking control, when gripping the wheel and getting back on course is essential. This is another delicate balance.

I don't like feeling as though I have no say in things and life just happens upon me. I no longer want to be just a viewer watching my life go by. I strive to be an active participant. I no longer just succumb to the whims of "not having a choice," or feeling like I can't have an opinion, a plan, goals and even dreams. I stayed quiet too long so now I feel like, "I'm very much allowed to say what I want to say!," at least in situations in my home and personal life.

While I feel as though this trip up in my mental health was really sucky and unfair, today I feel less wobbly about labeling it as an important learning experience. This relapse took me down for close to a week from beginning to end. Only last night did I start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I felt as though I had been staying so positive that I was bound to feel a bounce at some point. After all, it is only fair because what goes up must come down.

Relapses are rough! I don't care who you are or what your definition of relapse is but any recurring flair of uncertainty and uncomfortable-ness is less than desirable. I don't pretend to be immune. As for this particular bout, I had a pretty good run beforehand. I have some more work to do now, some "extra" added on. This is my time to really plant my roots firm and push on the growth because it is situations like this one than can make those better days sweeter when the bitter days are overly sour. 

We easily take things for granted, whether we know it or not. The bad days put the good ones in perspective so I want to give myself that win. For anyone reading this who wants to reach out and talk, I hope you do. I may have felt super alone in my down time but I know that in reality, I'm not, and neither are you. 

Thanks to my readers for being patient with me for all of this and I'm so glad I was able to share. On this September Wednesday morning, I'm grateful we have just a couple more days to the weekend! We got this!

It's Okay To Remind Yourself It's Okay

Lately my internal dialogue has been interesting. I've keyed into it now more than ever. Sometimes I'll catch myself just repeating reminders to myself under my breath. Most often it's just consistent affirmation that, "It's okay," "I'm okay," or "It will be okay."

The difference between the "okays" now and say, 4 years ago, is that they are more believable and realistic currently. I feel like during the darker times they were just a band-aid on a gushing wound. In the past, reminding myself that it "was okay" was more of an attempt to hate myself less, rather than heal and grow. Today, the okays are support and pushing my emotional and mental growth.

I would compare it to those moments during a workout where you are convinced you'll keel over and you can't finish but you tell yourself, "Nah, you got this." That basic idea is one that I have translated into every day life.

Inner dialogue is delicate because it can come across as completely crazy and almost unhinged in certain circumstances. I am going to make a blanket statement that inner dialogue or working something out in your mind, is a little different than "hearing voices" or actually talking to yourself, although I've had both of those happen in my life too.

I used to reach out to people to help remind me that it's okay which in retrospect was kind of unfair in many aspects. On the one hand, "asking for help," is awesome and sometimes necessary. On the other hand, that can put pressure on people and make them feel like an unpaid therapist.

I think we all need certain encouragement from other sources when warranted, but we also need to self care, self love and self-rely on just me, myself and I. My internal dialogue can range from, simple and silly, to completely deep and driven depending on whatever it is that I am sorting out.

It could be a rationalization for an unanswered question. It can be an encouragement to breathe deep and know that the anxious feelings will surpass from a work exchange or life exchange. It can be finding a solution to a problem. It can be feeling inferior or attacked even. All of these moments have my inner self working for me.

These moments are also like "self-check ins." Sometimes they get the hamster wheels working to find out what actually bothered me. The "okays" come often when faced with triggers. Finding my triggers has been quite an experience. I'm not sure I will ever unveil them all. I compare it to a fossil dig; there could be some stuff layers and layers down that will never fully uncovered.

It can also feel very uncomfortable to dig into that part of myself because triggers can be mean and ugly and can take you to a place you didn't want to go. I had felt triggered earlier this week and I gave myself the, "Okay, so what was really your issue with the subject at hand?" It wound me into this whole, issue of speaking outside of personal experience, judgement on others, addiction and recovery misunderstanding, the issue of forgiveness, the issue of struggling in relationships and then all the way around to women's rights issues and the societal norms for women. I was completely heated about this trigger of just feeling "not okay" with what was put before me.

I almost wrote some big, bad, blog about it but realized it would serve no one but me because my triggers are my own and while I can share them, they often won't be the same as anyone else's. I also didn't want to just pour out some bitter diatribe about things that left a bad taste in my mouth. Everyone has those moments and exchanges from time to time. It's human and again, totally okay.

It's not only extremely okay to remind yourself of the "okay-ness," but I feel it extremely necessary. Life gets overwhelming in a mere moment. You can be having a routine day and get upsetting news of any kind and feel as though nothing is remotely okay. You can be having a boring day and have one minor thing trip you up and you feel wobbly. These are the moments my internal dialogue kicks in and says, "Yeah that's frustrating and really horrible, you can sit with this a moment but it will be okay. It's okay to be defeated right now."

Recently I have been in love with my ability to allow myself to be human because that hasn't been the case over the past handful of years. I had held myself to impossible standards that broke me and I slowly picked up the rubble. So now, being so human and loving myself more through it feels peaceful and calm.

I've made crap choices. I've hurt people I love a lot. I've spent years in fear of what others would think, "if they knew," about hurdles, frustrations and my realities. Now that I've spent hard time healing, I like knowing that, not only are those dark times "okay" and overcome-able, but anything in the future is "okay" and deal-with-able too. 

Reminding yourself of "the okay" doesn't feel selfish to me. I suppose it could be in some circumstances but I think we need self-affirmation from time to time. We naturally seek outside validation, whether we admit it or not, so being okay with yourself should be a positive (mostly).

Everything is a delicate balance. I admitted a few months ago that there were periods of my depression when things were rough, and where it was legitimately terrible and hopeless feeling, but I couldn't allow myself to "live there." I could pass through but not unpack. What did my therapist say to that? "That's okay, that makes sense." The okay-ness affirmed and validated by a third party, then allowed me to look into myself and say, "yes, that is okay."

It is okay. Tell yourself that. Write it down. Read it again. It is all okay. It will all be okay. It is my core belief that it is okay to remind yourself, as much as needed, that it's okay. This may not be a "thing" for you. This may not seem alright or attainable, which is fine. To each their own, but I encourage anyone, especially those feeling anxious, to try some internal dialogue about "the okays," and see where it takes you.

My journey has been uncomfortable, strange, wobbly, bumpy and fearful. My journey is still evolving, but small steps for me have had huge gains and I keep those victories with me for the bad days. Keep going, readers! We're one day closer to the weekend!

My Gypsy Tendencies

My best friend always calls me a gypsy. I'm guessing she feels I have a nomadic and free-spirited nature but after growing up in the same place for my childhood, it's honestly quite strange that I've ended up that way. When we went to New York on our trip she said it just solidified my gypsy ways.

My dad helped me see most of the United States on many a road trip by the time I was 16. My mom loves the beach so we did the Bahamas and frequent Florida trips in my youth as well. My uncle gave me all Pennsylvania history lessons and living in PA all those years kept me well versed in all civil war and American beginnings via field trips to Gettysburg, DC and Philly.

College brought me the travel bug because I just desperately wanted to experience other places so I got myself a study abroad trip to Europe based out of London and fell in love. I'm dying to go back someday because it was the best three months of exploration, travel, art and history.

My best friend also asked me politely if I ever sit still, and the answer is no. When I'm busy I feel I'm at my best because I can't get caught up mentally or emotionally in unnecessary things. On vacation I wasn't attached to my phone unless I needed directions or was taking too many pictures. I wasn't obsessing about lost and faded friends, unanswered texts, and affording my second Starbucks that day. I just wanted to "be" for a little bit and enjoy being away from home.

I spent 13 years watching Baltimore grow because we frequented it often in my youth. It was the biggest city that my dad actually enjoyed taking us to and we found secret spots we loved. Of course now it's different but also impressive as to what has stayed the same.

Ten years ago in March of 2009 I took myself to New York as a college graduation present. At that time my cousin was going to college at Fordham and living in a crappy apartment in the Bronx with 3 or 4 roommates, his description not mine. He now lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter. Both visits he was the tour guide and both visits were incredible.

I don't tend to get overwhelmed or anxious in big cities oddly. I am usually just in awe and so eager to explore I can somehow hone my anxious, obsessive tendencies into some clarity and finding ways to get us to what we want to do. I'm already dying to go back and see more, more, more.

When I started moving I never expected it to become the lifestyle it molded into. I think that I just had to learn to physically move on and also liked changing my horizons. I liked knowing that I could have a new space and new place to make mine; a blank slate. I liked seeing new things and exploring new areas. In 8 years in Eugene, I lived about 7 different places all across the city but only in Eugene, somehow never in Springfield or even Portland.

When we came to Florida it took us about 6 long years to find where we wanted to make "home," and now I'm ready to dig in for a long run until this kid is outta high school. My gypsy ways will have to be strictly for vacations only.

This past week, being all over had its elements of exhaustion and disorientation but also kept things fun and interesting. I had my moments of down time and relaxation, and I had my moments to push through and have fun.

During my times of struggle, my gypsy tendencies work against me. I was dying for a real trip and to see real things and feeling angry and trapped. Now I can better appreciate things. During my periods of growth and healing my gypsy tendencies work for me. I'm able to plan well and enjoy any time, no matter how short, in the space and place we're in because I know how lucky am I that we even get to share such experiences.

I always attribute my gypsy-ness to my trauma. For most of my childhood I thought you would just live the same place as your whole family always. Most everyone was a thirty minute drive at most. And you can go away to college but then you could just come home and start a family. When my mom left, that entire idea was shattered. She wanted out and she left and I kind of followed because if my parents weren't together, what was home? I just decided to embrace the new and try and piece things back together with familiarity of "stuff" rather than places.

My husband gives me a hard time because of how many things are "mine," versus his in different contexts, but for me it's all about the stuff that is "home." Our dining room table will always be "mine" even though it is used as "ours." I was given that by a family I was the nanny for and it has lived with me in every place since I moved out and it always will.

I love to travel and experience and have fun. I wish to do more of it but am grateful for every experience I've had and we are planning to have. I'm a firm believer in "next time" and revisiting places. Maybe I can gypsy it because home is more about familiar people and some familiar artifacts rather than an actual building. Maybe I'm just growing into going with the flow enough that I can spread my wings and fly higher and more often.

For now I like my gypsy tendencies and embrace them. I'm excited to see where they take me.

The Wonderful Thing About Triggers

No, TRIGGERS, not Tiggers! But what a wonderful alliteration, no? So here we begin for a Monday.

Being "Triggered," is now almost a trendy thing, and there are all forms of it. Some things can bring flashbacks, some can spark anxiety or prey on depression, some can make you want to eat all things, but triggers are real, and often tough to navigate.

In my early experiences for depression and anxiety therapy, they advocate you identify your triggers. This has been a new journey in all walks of my person life and it is both awakening and exhausting simultaneously.

Side comments and sarcasm can trigger. Sometimes things hit a nerve right? For me, I get triggered when I have someone who is extremely drunk or clearly high on pills/meth/cocaine bombard my bubble when I'm not expecting this. See, if I go to a bar or an establishment where alcoholics and addicts just are, I can adjust my expectations properly. If I am anywhere in broad daylight, especially around children, it always takes me aback, not that a parent might have wine or a beer near kiddos, but that someone could be unabashedly wasted around the smaller youth. These are triggers for me.

I know they are triggers for others as well and they can really mess with you at times. When I get triggered I either have a shorter fuse for patience, or I just sink a bit mentally. I feel like I have to mentally talk myself out of the funk until I can handle the situation at hand. It often feels uncomfortable and exhausting.

We don't like to talk about our feelings do we? This is the very foundation of the world of therapy and its profits because we pay to have someone draw it out of us. Navigating all of this stuff often makes us feel like we are in the woods with no compass and no signal for GPS. 

Triggers can come out of nowhere too, which can feel like a metaphorical throat punch that knocks the wind out of you, depending on the situation. I'd recently experienced a trigger where my husband was playfully poking fun at me about being a mean grouch but it took me back "Stranger Things" style to the black-back-rounded, wet floor vignette of watching an older alcohol-fueled argument of being yelled at for being "mean, mean, mean," and other not nice words and it just stopped me in my tracks. I kind of had to sit down and close my eyes and remind myself that's not where we are.

My husband explained a trigger to me where he gets uncomfortable with class birthday parties at people's homes serving alcohol. He said, "If you throw a BBQ for your friends with kids and serve alcohol, no biggie, you know everyone on that list and are offering food and refreshments. If you have a family and friends birthday party for your kid where you personally know all the parents, and you have alcohol available, whatever. But when you invite strangers into your house, people you don't know well, you invite and entire classroom and their parents to accompany them, and you have beer next to the Capri Sun, I think that's a little weird." I keyed into this and saw what he was talking about and I for one don't drink around people I just don't know well. Knowing the triggers, we find our way to deal.

Admitting triggers is tough, especially in a world where mental health awareness is still becoming mainstream. I think so many people just take it as another form of "sensitivity," to life but mental health matters are real and deserve some patience and respect.

I get very triggered amidst the disregard and disrespect for mental health as well. It isn't as intensive as some other instances, but triggered, nonetheless. I feel like some people get the idea to test the boundaries and I'd like to ask, please don't!

 

I've been on this planet 34 years and my mother JUST NOW has started acknowledging my anxiety, depression and related issues as more than just "a hard time," or "over-sensitivity." This is a whole new thing for us and sometimes it gets weird.

This isn't some PSA about walking on eggshells, either. I've lived that way. It's incredibly not worth it. This is about the general respect and awareness that everyone handles their lives and their struggles in completely different ways so generally be patient, be kind, and give them a little space on things.

I've had to use my patience and kindness dutifully lately and as of last night, I had to learn to respect the space as I have also needed my space respected. The wonderful thing about triggers though, is they are a gateway to better connection, and better understanding. A simple, "What triggered you?," can go a long way and getting an explanation can help you be more communicative and mindful for future interactions. This is a PROCESS, people! It is a process that takes time and energy. It's also not a "fix," but it can still mend broken fences, if you will. 

So to kick off a week I suggest you share and ask about triggers with those you know have heaviness in their minds. Try it and report back!