unraveled-recovery

[unraveled-recovery]

in two days i accomplished major tasks i have been putting off for over two months. something i thought would be mind numbingly frustrating turned out to take little time or effort. if i had not let my mind and procrastination win, i would be feeling this relief weeks ago. i am paying the consequences, but am also feeling properly kicked in the ass enough to ride the high and keep crossing tasks and projects off the never ending to do list inside my head.

i don’t know why i let it win. the procrastination. when i do i am only handing power over to an entity that only lives inside the mental illness side of my mind. an evil little fuck. one who i have built up to be so mighty and powerful yet in reality, is easily moldable and within my control.

life doesn’t have to be so overwhelming. it isn’t, for many people. and it doesn’t have to be for me either.

that’s what this time is about.

figuring out how to live life as a responsible, independent adult who takes care of their own mental and physical health, while also working, socializing, and enjoying that life.

i'm not failing at this. i'm just still figuring out how to do it. my road is long and winding, it always has been, and that's okay. at the end of the day, i enjoy my scenic route.

[unraveled-recovery]

Just jealous of everyone you give attention to instead of me

[unraveled-recovery]

ari b. cofer, Unfold: Poetry + Prose

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When death finds you, may it find you alive -African Proverb

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how do you explain to family / friends that you’d love to catch up but you you’re currently busy fighting suicidal ideations and the overwhelming burden of being forced to be alive and therefore have no remaining life to give any amount of yourself to others?

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routines & different colored lenses.

while trying to navigate the world thru this new lens of ADHD and mental health recovery, something i want to make a staple in my daily routine is writing. just 10 minutes a day even, with no need to even be logical - just write. ideas can be workshopped and fine tuned at a later time, when i am mentally capable of developing them further.

journals, essays and and memoir alike can be therapeutic tools; unleashing thoughts otherwise unlocked. when the timing is right, the words flow out of me but until the right time comes, i compress those thoughts like a safe, behind lock and key.

i’m guilty of placing hardcore judgement on the former planner girls of youtube, allowing no white space in their day and having strict to do’s with set time limits composing their morning routine. it always comes off as so unnatural to me and like anything i view as unnatural, just rubs me the wrong way. in my mind, routines should be mindless and just happen. however, nothing has been happening. nothing. i am no better than anyone, for my “anything goes” mindset has only held me back thus far. so, its time to change that. its time to shift mindsets and approach things differently, thru a different lens.

i love notebooks and papers and pens. i love my hot pink filofax, filling it with my plans and thought dumps alike. i love checking off a to do list. and i (secretly at times) crave and thrive on structure. what’s wrong with creating a satisfying list i can complete each morning, to kick my day off in a way that best speaks to me and my needs for self confidence and success. my journalings don’t have to be complete thoughts. in fact, thats kind of the whole point. outputting raw emotion, both to get it out of my system and to have idea’s to be further developed when the feeling strikes. like my bank of ideas, so i don’t have to search for one in my clouded mind. as silly as it is, simply holding and writing in that perfect hot pink filofax makes me feel both happy and accomplished. writing my goals fills me with optimism. while i can be overly ambitious with to do;s / tasks at times, seeing them written out in front of me helps me keep my goals realistic and maintainable within the time i’ve alloted.

maybe one day i will change my morning writing goal to be more structured and rigid, perhaps with a word minimum? when i reach the point of having enough material i need to actually organize it like a book, attempt to tackle edits, etc i want to approach this project like an actual work that i could one day publish. i can see that being a very positive use of more structured independent work. but that’s not now, and that’s losing my point.

the whole point in taking time away from work is to mentally recover from a major mental breakdown of depression, anxiety and panic while also learning how to properly cope with this newly diagnosed adhd. what i was doing before wasn’t working for me. i crave structure, yet have none. the whole point in taking this time is to learn and achieve a maintainable way of life. i now have diagnosed and medically treated adhd. it makes sense for me to need a to do list in the morning, just to get up out of bed and moving, period. it makes sense. and its what i need. so i have to run with that. it’s not silly or taboo and even if it were, does anyone actually care? no. no i need to stop living my life, worrying how my every action could potentially be viewed by someone else.

i also know i need to start my day by consuming positive versus negative content first thing in the morning. this one feels like a compromise because it is a compromise. i want to be that person who doesn’t touch their phone until their morning routine is complete, whatever that routine consists of. but that feels too strict and rigid, to the point where i don’t do it. i love being a rule follower but when its self imposed rules that are too strict and seemingly don’t really serve a purpose, i’m the first to cave, almost instantly. lifting that restricton and shifting my mindset feels like a more sustainable shift that really places a choice on myself - to consume content that is going to be healthy for my mind, to get me ready to start my day. whether that be reading a book, an article, the news, weather….just anything that isn’t mindlessly scrolling social media with no purpose, or internet sleuthing for things that theres honestly no answers to even find so i just piece together this false narrative that explains the finding, upsets me to a unsettling degree, and holds no degree of truth in the first place. that’s clearly toxic, and consuming tuch toxins first thing in the morning only sets me up for a day filled with toxic habits and behaviors, derailing whatever progress i have managed to make.

i’m rambling now. but i’m ready to tackle sunday. i’m ready to tackle this week. and i’m ready to re teach my brain, so healthy habits and coping skills are already naturally engrained in my life, not something i am constantly fighting uphill to achieve.

[unraveled-recovery]

another sleepless night

no where near paradise.

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“You can’t control how they treat you, but you can control if you accept it.”

— Charles Orlando

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i think and overthink too much, about everything. forever scripting fictional scenarios in my mind. explanations for silence and absences. some scenarios are obviously more logical than others, yet i often find myself in the most absurd unrealistic never going to happen situations in my mind, feeling triggered and upset by my own mental creation.

“Stop thinking so much. You’re breaking your own heart.”

— Unknown

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[old] pages.

sometimes it feels wasteful keeping old planners and pages. i love all things stationary, paper, pens, markers, highlighters, you name it - i'm that girl. i have a hoarding and while i've certainly over bought my fair share, i do get quite a bit of use out of my messy collection. writing and rewriting to do lists or appointments in various forms and styles - daily pages, weekly page, a different weekly layout page, multiple monthly views, you name it. i like seeing how the same information looks laid out and sectioned off in different ways. seeing where blocks of free time lie. sometimes the act of writing things out so many times is enough to remember my burden of a to do list. hell, that used to be all i needed. but my brain is too jumbled now - if its not written down, it won't happen.

i like looking back at old pages and seeing bullet points of my day. the ambitious to do lists that seemingly would never be complete, tasks carrying over days, weeks, months later. i'll jot down seemingly pointless facts - what my work assignment was that day, a quote from whatever form of media i was consuming, did i take Benadryl or my migraine pill that day, was my mental health feeling particularly triggered for some reason, etc.

the notes i jot can be seemingly pointless to even myself. both in the moment while writing and referring back to old pages. sometimes, i just have an uncontrollable urge to put pen to paper while simultaneously not knowing what to even write.

living in this time and space of recovery, i am realizing how important it is for me to prioritize keeping up with my planner. the visual check mark of completing a task, no matter how seemingly small, brings a feeling of accomplishment that can carry some momentum, helping me through the tasks i tend to struggle with the most. i can see the tasks that always get left as standing to do's and the lists that were never touched because my brain dump was too ambitious and never realistic.

i need to prioritize going back through the fragments of thoughts messily jotted in the corners of old pages. while doing so, i realized this significant mental breakdown gave warning signs long before it got to that point. as far back as january, i was having panic attacks, consuming my body and mind. emotional blackouts and migraines i gave to myself from stress and overwhelming anxiety of not wanting to go to work.

i didn't realize how persistent (tor significant) my mind was until i saw it, page after page.

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just inhale.

when i smoke, nothing seems to bother me. it's a feeling comparable to nothing else.

i inhale and instantaneously feel relief. as though a literal, physical weight has been removed from my shoulders, i can feel them become lighter, naturally forcing good posture as i grow 2 inches in height, sitting or standing.

one puff is all it takes to slow the rapid circles of thought, bouncing off every crevise of my brain at racing speeds.

i can walk through situations constantly racing in my mind without that constant feeling of impending doom and overwhelming fear. my thoughts are more rational as my capability to think things through one step at a time becomes top notch.

i inhale and instantly bring myself down to a mental safe space i am unable to find otherwise.

i just wish i could live in this safe space forever.

[unraveled-recovery]

“Stop thinking so much. You’re breaking your own heart.”

— Unknown

[unraveled-recovery]

terminated.

such a harsh sounding word. yet, feeling so surreal in this moment i can't feel the intended pain the word carries. i should feel as though one thousand knives are stabbing me as my body is frozen still. it still hasn't hit me that this is my reality. i can't accept or comprehend the necessary next steps i must take. that's been my problem all along, though. the people who could have helped guide me through this process simply did not. i let myself be vulnerable and i was let down in one of the biggest ways possible. and i just can't stop kicking myself for that. for opening my mouth. and sharing my perspective. and attempting to find a "solution". it was never going to be a solution, though. those quotations are intentional. we were slapping bandaids over the true problem(s) in that office, just like that job was just another bandaid of itself. i knew this particular bandaid wasn't going to last long and was constantly irritating me before falling out at the most inopportune time. i'm over bandaids, i'm ready to let the healing process play out at last.

[unraveled-recovery]

beyond the gray sky; ch 4.

coming into this job, i had already set boundaries within my own mind. i wasn't here to make friends, i was here to work and to do my job well, then go home and not have to think about what happened 9-5.

with no true peers by definition, it seemingly made the *not here to make friends* part easy. even with the nosy and overbearing questions, offering uneducated opinions and judgements, and even their demands for errands, i was able to turn my brain off to all of that when i went home and simply not dwell or worry about it.

my time off the clock was my time.

despite mentions of prior office parties, things seems too unorganized and up in the air to even worry about a party happening. vacations greatly limited options and we entered the new year without mention of a date. it felt like i was out of the woods on that one.

not so fast.

the dreaded office party would be the end of January. and it would combine seemingly all my triggers in one place. i was going to be trapped in a situation surrounded by food i couldn't eat and drinks and i simply wasn't in the mood to drink. i would have to get a real get and a joke gift, putting in time, money and effort. i would be surrounded by people who don't care about me or my mental health and would have no idea, nor would they care, just how heightened i would be and how much anxiety it was bringing me already.

while not seemingly pivotal at the time, this marked a pretty significant mental shift for me.

i wouldn't be sucked into the spiral of true breakdown, yet, but i was heading downhill, faster than i was ready to admit.

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i made it worse again, what else is new

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beyond the gray sky, ch 5.

cruella & cronyism.

cruella became a nickname simply because it was so fitting. a light hearted dig at a textbook big mouthed nosy bully, she was in on the joke and nailed the cruella deville halloween costume. it wasn't just a playful joke, though.

despite her bitching that "we are a clinical team", she certainly doesn't carry her weight nor is she a supportive team member. on any given day, you can count on C to fall asleep at her desk. sometime for real, sometimes fake. leaving her fingers on the keyboard to try and trick anyone who passes by and at times, i swear i hear her tapping at that keyboard despite her head being down and eyes closed. if an opportunity arises to rudely judge and criticize her co-workers, however, C's head suddenly snaps up, alert enough to make a critical comment as to how those of us actually awake and alert are handing a situation. somehow, she is always the most right and refuses to hear anyone else and their reason.

despite living 4 minutes from the office, C can somehow never manage to show up to work on time. on any given day i can count on a text with some bullshit about why she is going to be late, sent *after* work has already started and i am already there, covering for her. it seemingly doesn't matter that i have my own work to do and already had a mental plan as to how i will tackle the day. that all goes out the window when there's patients in the waiting room and no medical assistants in sight.

i'll anxiously do a quick run through the chart, attempting to determine why this patient is here and if i need to do any additional screenings or tests. i bring the patient in and go through the necessary checklist as quickly but accurately as possible before returning to my desk to a/ calm down and b/ actually start my own work day. most days its only then that i will notice that whatever bullshit excuse is sitting in my messages, asking telling me to cover for her.

unfortunately, due to the dynamics of our roles and certificates / licensing, there is a lot i can do for C while there is little she can do to help me in exchange.

when she does show up there is no "good morning" or "thanks for covering me". just a blunt, rude "is the first patient in?" the only acknowledgment of my helping her is her critique of my performance. "why didn't you get xyz? why are they in that room?". it just never ends.

while she'll laughingly ask from time to time "do you really think i'm mean?" i brace myself for her to ask me. i won't say it independently but when prompted, i'm not going to hold back. luckily though, she doesn't care about my opinion, and only asks the minions she know all take her side. that's how this office because the way it is today. selective accountability and a model that feels it screams cronyism.

[unraveled-recovery]

“Just because the past didn’t turn out like you wanted it to, doesn’t mean your future can’t be better than you ever imagined.”

— Unknown