Tag: panic attacks

Practising Positive Affirmations

During a chat with a friend about mental health, she suggested writing positive affirmations daily.

Three nice things about myself – every… single… day!? It is SO hard.

I have an automatic response to regularly beat myself up, despite what I achieve. I’ll be honest it annoys the fuck out of me – but I still do it! Say for example; I complete a piece of work that achieves a really high score; I will still focus on the one grammatical error that is pointed out.

I am having to slowly train my brain to stop myself doing this. I know it isn’t going to be easy; particularly when I have a bad day.

A great deal of my therapy centres around the way I treat myself.

I am often told of my hypocritical positioning. I would never dream of treating others the way I treat myself; it’s harsh. So why do I do it to myself!!?? I’m certainly a hypocrite. It is years of self inflicted torment that I am trying to undo. Positive affirmations are only one small portion of this.

So I am trying it! I am a week into my positive affirmations. It’s actually quite lovely. I forgot what I had wrote on the first few days, so I just flicked back and it made me smile. I am super hopeful that continuing to do this will give me a book full of amazing things about myself.

I’m guessing that doing this alongside therapy will hopefully change my outlook and perceptions about myself. I hate that I treat myself this way; I would be devastated if my children did this to themselves. A habit can be broken. Taking tiny baby steps!!

x

Social Media Control

The number one reason I deleted Facebook: my mental health.

I was suffering. The constant negativity. The inaccuracies about current affairs. The pandemic. The bitching. The arguing. The ‘I’m doing better than you’ bullshit.

I deleted it to protect myself. I am vulnerable right now, more so back then – but it still remains.

At first I felt I was missing out, that feeling slowly dissipated. I decided that if people wanted to know what’s going on with me, they can get in touch – old school. This has actually helped build relationships with family members!

I logged on today to download my photo’s and videos – I have found it really hard not having access to photo’s, particularly as one of my therapy sessions included selecting 3 photo’s from the past!! (I had to call on my best friend to send some over.)

I’m so pleased I have got access to the photographs and videos now, lot’s of lovely memories and silly moments.

The first thing I noticed when I logged in was the top post on my news feed. A friend talking about the buebonic plague. I mean – fucking hell – that is not what I need right now. I didn’t read it properly; it vaguely debunked myths about the new plague hysteria.

I am all for people debunking myths, I really am. However, I found this behaviour is what led to my ‘downfall’ in social media land. I was constantly chasing people trying to educate them about the inaccuracies they posted. No, I wasn’t a member of the grammar police, I’m not one of them… I mean fake news, bad sources and sharing bullshit claims.

A lot of it at the time centred around the British public’s initial reaction to Covid-19. People became hysterical – making up stories and sharing ‘articles’ that had no factual content. This led me to have a severe panic attack during and after a regular appointment for therapy.

Other posts focused on race, religion and ethnicity. Now, bear in mind that I take pride in my close circle of friends – they are good people. I don’t associate with racists – but some people do. For example; a friend would post a killer article about the plight of refugees. I love that, educating their followers with a news feed full of beautiful accurate information. The problem I found was THEIR followers – commenting and trying to dissect things that were facts and when they failed, resorting to racism and xenophobia.

When I Initially deleted my account, I convinced myself it was because of the bad things happening; Covid, racism, sexism etc.

After a few months of reflection I realise it is not the subject matter of these things that cause me the problems. It is the way people use information and twist, contort and change it to suit their ideals.

I have learnt to search out the facts, educate myself and stop myself over-thinking by making assumptions. I love to learn about difficult topics, it is the only way I feel I can progress as a person.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I understand bad things happen and that they will affect me in one way or another. How I allow them to affect me is totally different though.

If I choose to read the bullshit posted on social media- I am part of the problem. If I choose to read from legitimate sources (not newspapers, folks) then I am allowing myself to develop. Then I get to choose if I am scared. I get to make that decision myself.

I suppose the outcomes of my experience are that;

-Reflection is really important. Always look back at where you were and see how you have developed.

-Allowing such a huge amount of information into your daily life can have dramatic consequences. I feel lighter since deactivation.

-Obtaining information from reputable sources – IE; people with lived experiences, scientists, non-biased news articles – is CRUCIAL to how you attach emotion to problems.

-I have SO much more time for myself and my family. I have time to reflect, to write, to clean more things, to walk more. That time used to be used exercising my thumb.

-If there is one bit of advice I can give it is – try! If you feel social media is a problem in your life and is dragging you down then deactivate for a while. It doesn’t have to be forever. I’m not completely social media free but I certainly choose my content wisely now – it is having a noticeable affect.

xo