• Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Making It Up

as we go along

  • Home education: facts and contacts.
  • About me/contact.
    • Privacy Policy
    • Affiliate links and disclosure policy.
    • Read52 – the challenge and the books.
  • Cookie Policy (UK)

depression

Pebble by pebble.

19th November 2018 by Jax Blunt 5 Comments

One year ago, I took myself to the doctors, thinking I was having a resurgence of the anxiety and depression I’ve battled all my life.

View this post on Instagram

Took a walk to the seafront and built pebble towers as the sun set. (Videos in stories if you like your waves moving. ) *Deep breath* I haven't been very well recently. For once I looked it full in the face and took myself to the doctor and I'm working (excruciatingly slowly) at putting myself back together. I'd kind of like to say more about it all, but I'm finding words a bit wriggly and hard to pin down at the moment. So I won't try today. #whpthankful for time and space to heal, and for understanding and supportive family. And for the sea and sunsets. #fb

A post shared by Jax Blunt (@liveotherwise) on Nov 19, 2017 at 8:58am PST

It took a while, but turned out the problem was actually an underactive thyroid, I wrote about it a couple weeks ago.

So what’s the problem now? Because I’m exhausted, anxious and depressed again, and I don’t know why.

I guess I probably should see if I can get my bloods checked again. Just in case the thyroid is drifting down again. And I should make sure I’m taking my multivitamins in case vitamin D is implicated again. And maybe I should increase my fluid intake in case my blood pressure is too low (we’ve POTS in the family, it makes you reevaluate fluids and salt).

But once I’ve done all those things, what next? I can try yet harder with creative endeavours (daily blogging is a pretty good start) and make sure I get outside as often as possible but when life is like wading through mud what do you do to lift your spirits?

Tweet

Filed Under: autism Tagged With: #BEDN, autism, BEDN, depression, mental health

Signs of spring?

1st March 2016 by Jax Blunt 6 Comments

  

I thought I’d got away with it this winter. I thought I’d managed to balance creativity and activity, outdoors and hibernating, my ups and downs and that I was going to make it through this winter without my annual crash.

I was wrong.

Yesterday was a day too far. Despite sunshine and pretty pictures (because of sunshine and pretty pictures?) I found myself paging through instagram wondering why other people have more followers, more likes, more comments.

Why do other bloggers win awards, get contracts, earn a living, get featured in magazines?

(Ignore with me, for a moment, that other bloggers are focused, determined, professional. That they work hard, network, *and* don’t actually all get there either. This isn’t a post about reality. )

I wallowed. I wailed. I ignored that being in pain for ten days with hip and back issues means I can’t sleep, can’t exercise, can’t focus. I ignored the fact that not running always leaves me lower. I tried to clean my way out of the slump (ah, because that *always* works) and ended up with a cleaner but messier kitchen. Because.

And today I have wept. But I’ve also cleaned, picked up, and tried to paint/letter myself an affirmation. Because I am enough, this moment, this day.

Because I will be better again.

Because I need to be.

image

 

Tweet

Filed Under: It's where it is Tagged With: autism, depression, SAD, spring

Autism, anxiety and mindfulness.

12th November 2015 by Jax Blunt 8 Comments

  

Thursdays are hard for me at the moment because I finally started attending an autism support group. Not a carers group, a post diagnosis group for myself, to help with aspects of living with aspergers.

For me, and indeed many people with ASD diagnosis, autism comes with a high level of anxiety, that feeds into bouts of clinical depression. Understanding myself, developing techniques to handle the anxiety I wrestle with on a daily basis are key to me. And one of the techniques we’re exploring is mindfulness.

A defence mechanism many people employ to cope with anxiety is avoidance. If I run away from this conversation/don’t go to this event/spend the day playing 2048 (see also obsessional behaviours, I may write on this another time) I won’t feel anxious. By the way, I’m not talking about a mild twinge of anxiety – did I remember to lock the door? Oh yes – I’m talking about the kind of anxiety that turns your insides into a pretzel, relocates your shoulders somewhere near your ears, feels like you’ve swallowed a rock that’s lodged in your throat and sets you sweating with racing heart. All at once. The kind of thing that you really do want to avoid.

The problem with avoidance is that all it does is put the problem off, whatever the problem happens to be. And very often, putting the problem off, increases it. Fail to deal with your bills? Red bill, followed by threatening letters, probably with extra charges. Anxiety exponentially increased. So the trick here is to learn to manage the anxiety sufficiently to be able to deal with whatever the issue at hand is. I have been failing at this for years, so any and all tips gratefully accepted.

This morning (before group) in a moment of anxiety, I turned to look out of the window, caught sight of some gorgeous blossom in the morning light, took a deep breath and calmed. Which echoed beautifully the mindfulness technique that we tried in group today, where we were each given an object and talked through looking at it.

It turns out that my photography and drawing give me a huge reservoir of mindfulness to draw on. Looking for light, being in that moment of beauty, taking a step outside myself to really see the world around me, all of this helps. Learning to look, setting aside the flight reaction, focussing on the light is a technique that I can apply at pretty much any point. You can spend a long, or as short a time as you need gazing at whatever item you choose, until your body gets over that physiological response, you’ve gathered your energy and you can have another crack at whatever it was set you off in the first place.

Recurring unmanageable anxiety was a large part of my motivation for seeking an ASD diagnosis. I hoped that understanding where it all came from might give me more successful strategies than bouncing on and off medication. (I am fully aware that medication helps many people. I don’t criticise that, if anything I’m slightly jealous. Nothing I’ve tried over the years since I was first prescribed tablets when I was about 15? has ever been particularly successful, probably at least partly because the people prescribing weren’t getting to the bottom of what causes the anxiety for me. Which is pretty much everything.)

The picture above is of a flower I found just outside the room we met in. Not perfect, bent and folded by life. Aren’t we all? The light was glorious, creating hard, almost tangible edges to the shadows. And this moment is added to my memories, to sustain me when I need it. 

Today’s session felt practical and positive. It may have taken me a year to take the leap, but I’m glad I’m finally taking part in the group support.

Further reading:

The most recent instalment of my experience of autism past diagnosis “Getting up, going on” You can find everything I’ve written on autism by checking out the autism tag, linked below the post.

Previous book reviews on related topics.

Nerdy, shy and socially unacceptable
Nerdy, shy and socially unacceptable
Pretending to be normal
Pretending to be normal
From here to maternity by Lana Grant
From here to maternity

Tweet

Filed Under: autism, It's where it is Tagged With: anxiety, aspergers., autism, depression, diagnosis, mental health, support group

Make like a pair of curtains

31st October 2012 by Jax Blunt 2 Comments

And pull yourself together.

I would never say it to anyone else. But i can choose to say it to myself.

I started well.

Nike running shoes

Ran a mile. Not fast at all, but steadily. Was grateful for my gloves once I’d fished them out from behind the piano. And then got home, warded off the incipient headache with a large glass of water and enjoyed a shower.

Tangle teezer, pink travel version

After the shower, another huge step forward. I actually managed to completely detangle my hair. You may be beginning to understand how badly I’ve been letting things go. My hair tangles easily and sometimes it is all too easy to just keep shoving it up in a pony tail.

Then I went food shopping, on my own. Oh the joy of being able to dash around a supermarket and get what we need without endless debates or having to amuse the toddler. And it meant I could concentrate on keeping a running total: I was mere pence out at the till.

Came home and baked banana bread and made my own soup. Comfort food.

Broccoli and not quite stilton soup.

And then the day escaped me. I packaged up the Ebay parcels but ran out of time before swimming to post them. We were in plenty of time for Big’s swim session, but because I’d changed the routine by wimping out of cooking yesterday we didn’t get fish and chips tonight. So we came home earlier to have chance to cook and that meant the evening went pear shaped in the grand way.

I enjoyed my dinner, and so did the smaller children.

Tomorrow is another day. It will start with Ebay parcel posting.

Tweet

Filed Under: It's where it is Tagged With: depression, exercise, food

Primary Sidebar

This site contains affiliate links.

Archives

Categories

Affiliate search on bookshop

Footer

Copyright © 2022 · Lifestyle Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Manage Cookie Consent
We use cookies to optimise our website and our service.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
Preferences
{title} {title} {title}