mentalhealth

5 Things That Comfort Me When I’m Feeling Low

mental health

So with all this lockdown stuff my mood has been a bit of a up and down rollercoaster ride. Over the years, I’ve developed my “mental health toolkit.” When I notice things are going down hill here are some things that give me great comfort.

Walks

I enjoy going for walks with my dog Mango especially in the nice weather. With lockdown I have found that I’m on the screen for a much long time. However if I was at college I would be doing dance classes and moving around a lot more. I find taking Mango on walks helps me not only get exercise and fresh air but helps with clearing my head and staying grounded. Lockdown has really made me realise how doing exercise really does help me to lift my mood back up when I’m feeling low. Going on walks helps me cope with my anxiety I find if I’m not doing much exercise my worries can build up more causing me to worry and not wanting to do much.

Just Watching The Telly

When I’m feeling low I can find comfort in watching something. As much as I love watching new shows theirs nothing better than rewatching shows that you love. When I feel low I find my concentration levels are a bit all over the place and I can’t focus. When this happens I find it hard to read a book. Which is why watching a TV show I’ve watched before is so good. It’s like I can finally rest and let go giving my head time to breathe. Like self care and love for my head. Some of the TV shows I love watching repeatedly are:

  • Miranda
  • Once Upon A Time
  • Downtown Abbey
  • Fresh Meat
  • Bridgerton

Making Plans

When my head feels all over the place one thing I like to do is write down and make a list of things I need to or want to do and achieve in the day. Writing it down helps me visual see what my head is trying to tell me at one hundred miles an hour.

Simple Routines

When I’m feeling low self care is very important sometimes you don’t feel like doing lots of things. Here are some quick, simple and kind things you could do on a down day that don’t take very long.

  • Put some of your favourite lipstick or lipgloss on
  • Make yourself a nice hot drink for example a cup of tea or hot chocolate
  • But some of your favourite body butter/ lotion on
  • Put on some nice jewellery for example a pair of small shiny earrings .

Looking Forward

When people say look forward it isn’t always about making your career plan for the next 5 years it can also be about daily, weekly things to look forward to. I try not to be hard on myself and but pressure on anything as things can change last minute! However having something positive to look forward to can really help me to try and stay in a more positive headspace. For example setting a day up to meet up with friends on FaceTime or House Party, Doing extra activities such a drama with my drama club on zoom, to buying something nice to eat that I can look forward to eating later in the week like a cheesecake.

What do you find helps your mental health?

My Top 5 Tips For Practising Self Care On A Bad Day

mental health

We all have those days when we can feel so down, that doing things for our own self care can be at it’s hardest time ever and feel impossible . This is when it is the most important time we focus on ourselves. It’s ok to put yourself first!

Sometimes when I’m having a bad day and I know I need to spend some time just focusing on me, this is when I can find it the hardest and extremely overwhelming to think of things I enjoy doing for myself. My head goes like crazy, my thoughts and emotions are rushing around me so fast I find it hard to know what to do so I just freeze.

So I thought I would share with you some of my favourite things to do when I need to put myself first. As I know when your in the thick of it, it can be very hard to come up with things you could do that just focus on you. Without you feeling guilty because you’re put yourself first!

1. I like to listen to music to help me as I find that lyrics from a song can help me not to feel alone.The lyrics can really help me to describe and express how I am feeling. This helps me to understand my emotions . I like to make playlists so that when I feel down I can quickly get to my music on the go.

2. I like to go onto Pinterest and look at my quotes board to help me feel better. I also enjoy looking for new things to add to my boards. I like using Pinterest as it is very visual and this can help me a lot when I feel down as I don’t have to read through lots of text.

3. When I feel down it can be very hard to think of all the good things that have happened. To help me through the difficult time I like to look at my photos to remind me of some of the amazing memories I have with my family and friends. To make it easier I recommend putting your photos into albums on your phone so that you can access them on the go too.

4. Journaling can be a great way to release your thoughts and emotions onto paper. This helps me to feel less scared about any worries or concerns I may have that I didn’t even know I had before I started to write.

5. Treat yourself to a warm hot drink like a nice warm mug of hot chocolate!

The House Of Extraordinary People TV Programme : Why I Think Shows Like This Are So Important

mental health

The House Of Extraordinary People Channel 5. Photo from https://www.whatsontv.co.uk/events/house-extraordinary-people-channel-5-18-mar-19/

The House Of Extraordinary People is a three part documentary on Channel 5. The show follows 9 people with unusual appearances which challenge the views on what “beauty ” is and it really means in today’s society. They live together for 10 days confronting public prejudices and facing their own biggest fears but giving each other support throughout the whole time.

From getting jobs at restaurants interacting with members of the public to going for a spa day and letting spa staff do beauty treatments on them. As well as doing a bit of speed dating.

Watching this documentary really helped me to feel more self confident in myself and I wish shows like this were more around when I was at secondary school. By watching this documentary it made me feel that I am not alone and that I’m not such an outsider. Throughout my school years I was very badly bullied because of my disability and the way I looked compared to other girls in my year. Other students made me feel like a freak. Going through all of this everyday at school and sometimes on social media made me want to end my life.

At school I felt that I had a lot of peer pressure from the way I dressed to how I had my hair or the shoes I wore to even who I was and wasn’t allowed to speak too. Otherwise I would be dropped out of what I thought at the time was my friendship group. I think even now the level of peer pressure for young people has grown massively and it will continue to do so and the pressure will get worse.

This documentary really helped me to celebrate rather than hate the things that make me unique. I think that documentary’s like this one should be shown to students in their lessons as I feel it could really help to build up confidence and self love. I also think this would help children and young adults to realise that we all come in all different shapes and sizes and we all can look different and that shouldn’t be frowned upon.

I think children should be taught about how everyone is different and beautiful in their own way at primary school as I feel this effects more younger children than we think. I also think that if children go through bad experiences because of how they or others feel about them or see them can have a huge negative impact on the child’s life many more years down the line.

Throughout my life I have had low body confidence, low self esteem, low self worth to name a few. Their were times I wished I looked more “normal” that I fitted in or that I looked like the girls in magazines to celebrities I thought were really pretty. I just hated the way I looked I found it hard to look in the mirror everything I saw on myself I hated and I wished I could change it. I feel if documentaries like this one was shown to me by school I would have understood more and believed that their is no definition on what “beautiful ” is because we all have different ways we see beauty in ourselves and others.

Lastly this show has helped me to really embrace myself for who I am on the inside it’s not only about the way we look on the outside. I believe more documentaries like this one should be made as I think it would help people of all ages with their own mental health.

Communicating With Colours

mental health

When I am at college I sometimes find expressing my emotions to others very challenging. As I can feel threatened in this environment due to my past experiences at school with being bullied. The bullying affected me so much doctors diagnosed me with PTSD. To help me process and communicate with others I sometimes use communication aids to help me express myself in ways I feel safe and comfortable to do so.

To help me communicate with others I have done Lego Therapy with my support staff but also in small groups with other students. Lego Therapy is all about trying to identify your emotions by putting a colour to it. For example my happy colour is yellow and my safe colour is green. I use Lego because sometimes I might be feeling more than one emotion so we stack the Lego bricks onto each other.

Lego helps me because in the past whilst doing this with other students I have had to do our whole week in colour. By seeing my week visually using Lego has helped me to understand that my emotions can be mixed and that is ok. Doing this has helped me to identify why I might be feeling upset and other emotions during the week. Talking it through with colours makes me feel more relaxed in sharing how I maybe feeling to others. By dong group sessions it has helped me to understand that I am not “silly” for feeling some emotions as others can feel similar emotions to me in some situations.

By using colour I have been able to cope better with my feelings and thoughts rushing around in my head at 100 miles an hour. Sometimes when this happens I don’t know what’s going on.However if I can find a colour that best describes how I am feeling this can help to slow down my thought process into a more manageable way and it becomes less scary and less overwhelming for me.

I use this to also help me to tell others how the voices I live with are making me feel. I have coloured circles attached to my bag which I take with me all the time. Each circle is a different colour with the emotion it makes me feel on it too. So if I am out and about and feel I can’t tell someone how I am I can show them the coloured circle I am feeling. By having the circles with me makes it more discreet when out and about as I don’t need to get Lego out.

I find using this resource also really useful after I have had a seizure as I can find it very hard to communicate with others because I find it hard to speak or I am hard for others to understand.

I am now able to use this if I need to when I’m out and about with support workers, my family and friends. Using Lego has helped me a lot in understanding emotions and that it is ok to have mixed emotions!

The Power of a Smile

mental health

Just because someone is smiling that doesn’t mean they are happy or ok. A smile has the power to hide the most saddest and darkest most painful feels , thoughts and emotions to the outside world; to others nothing seems wrong but inside you are a mix of emotions all going at 100 miles an hour. A smile can be like a shield you use to protect yourself from the outside world and everyday situations.

In the past I used to smile and try and look happy to the outside world but actually I was in  such a dark and scary place that I didn’t know how to get out of.

At school I was getting bullied constantly every time someone said something horrible and upsetting to me I would try and not show them how much hurt they were giving me. I didn’t want to look hurt because I knew that they would carry on, laugh and it would probably get worse. I felt suicidal and just wanted it to stop I saw no light at the end of the tunnel.

I remember trying to tell adults I trusted what was going on however I was terrified because I knew if the bullies found out something even worse was going to happen so I just smiled and tried to look cheerful. I did tell some teachers what was going on but they didn’t believe me or they would tell me everyone gets bullied and that I should feel sorry for the people bullying me, other teachers tried to help but couldn’t.

For me I found out that a smile could be so powerful because by smiling it used to trick me into thinking everything was fine and that it was completely normal to be getting bullied by lots of people on a daily basis.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is just because someone looks happy to you doesn’t mean they are. We are all fighting things others can’t see or don’t know about. For me a smile was my way of trying to cope with things the best way I could.

The Self-Love Journey

mental health

 

Today is self-love day; for me self-love is a very difficult emotional journey as I have low self-esteem and low confidence due to past experiences.  I often think people around me are talking negatively about me, I might be in a queue waiting  to pay for something or I might just be walking to my class at college. I sometimes feel that I am too short or that I should be thinner.  Self-love is so hard for me a because I can be positive about others but when I look at myself in the mirror I just see and think negatively  for example the voices in my head say “Bryony you’re not tall enough” or “Bryony your outfit would look so much better if  you were a small size.

At school I was bullied by some kids because I have curly hair so for a long while I hated having curly hair and the voices in my head would be like ” Bryony why do you have such frizzy hair it’s not all long and smooth it’s just a heap of frizz”.

Even though I have a long way to still go with my own self-love journey I thought I would share with you some of the things I try to show myself self-love and be more body positive.

 

  1. I love to  just  watch a TV program I like or go on YouTube and watch my favourite YouTubers.

 2. I enjoy taking my dog for a walk and bringing my camera along too so I can practice my photography.

3. I enjoy trying out new makeup looks or trying out my new makeup products.

4. I enjoy watching one of my favourite films such as Mamma Mia or The Greatest Showman

5. If  I have had a long day I enjoy having a lovely bubble bath sometimes adding in a Lush bath bomb.

6.  I enjoy sometimes just doing some home baking and baking.

7. I really enjoy just sitting  down and read a book or doing word searches.

 

With my past care coordinator we recently came up with the idea that I should try each day to say something positive about myself too myself. For example” Bryony I like the way you have done your hair today or” that colour top really suits you”. We also spoke about writing these statements down so when I am in a low place I can look at them.

 

One of my favourite quotes!

Let’s Talk Mental Health

mental health

WARNING: You may find this triggering or upsetting to read!

On the 7th February 2019;Time to Change had TimetoTalk Day. This was a movement all about raising awareness of the importance of talking to others about mental health.

So it got me thinking and inspired me to write this blog post; in this post I will be writing about how opening up about the difficulties I was facing lead to me getting help.

I still remember the day I first told my mum about what was going on and how I was feeling. I was having dinner at the kitchen table like normal and then I just started crying went into the living room and that’s when it all came out. It was finally out in the open everything from how low I was feeling and that all I could see was darkness and I felt trapped I just wanted to end it all. I opened up about the visions I was seeing and the voices I was hearing and my nightmares.

I was so scared to tell anyone as I thought they would find me a complete freak. At the time this all started happening I was also getting bullied by lots of different people at school and it had been going on for years. I didn’t want to tell anyone as I knew if the bullies found out they would bully me even more.

To be honest it was a sigh of relief when I finally was able to tell someone about everything. I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. Through opening up about what was going on I slowly began to realise the darkness I was facing I didn’t have to go through it alone or keep it a secret from everyone and pretend everything was ok when it wasn’t. I also realised that the people who truly care and love me didn’t see me as a freak they wanted to support me in getting help.

Even though it was terrifying for me to tell my mum as I didn’t want to upset her as well as this I found it scary to get it out in the open. I’m glad I did because even though I still suffer with my mental health on a daily basis with depression, PTSD, my voices and more I feel like more people can help support me daily. I have worked on lots of different things with lots of different types of professionals making myself what I like to call my “tool box “as I have learnt lots of different types of strategies for coping for different things and communicating with my voices. In the past I have made a Self-Care Box or little reminder cards I can use or have positive statements on a piece of small card so I can look at it if I have low self-esteem or low confidence to name a couple. I now feel less alone!

You can find out more about the movement here: https://www.time-to-change.org.uk/time-talk-day/support-time-talk-day-online

How Performing Arts Helps My Mental Health

mental health

I have been a Performing Arts Student at my local Stagecoach School for the past 3 years. I have found that Performing Arts has a really positive impact on my mental health. As you may know I have mental health problems; sometimes this can be very hard to tell or explain to someone anything about my difficulties.

However Performing Arts has helped me to express my feelings and emotions in many different ways both physically and verbally. Through doing workshops in dance and movement I have been able to express how I am without having to speak all the time. I also find that dance can help me to identify how I am feeling and by doing this I can start to make more sense of my emotions and I start to feel less anxious and scared.

I enjoy singing lessons as I find that sometimes when learning a song the words really “speak” to me and I feel more connected with the song. This not only helps me to perform it better and with more emotion but I start to feel less alone. Sometimes when I singing a song I try to focus on the song’s lyrics and try to relate the song back to an experience I have had. This can help my PTSD as I do sometimes use this as a way of helping me trying to process a traumatic event from my past. I have tried this in past sessions with my psychologist.

In my acting classes I enjoy being” other people” but I have found if possible trying to use my experiences in acting has really helped me to process negative experiences. I find when I use my experiences in acting it helps me to tell the story more and the audience starts to feel more involved with the show.

I find doing Performing Arts a creative, good and safe way to express myself and to challenge my past experiences such as being bullied in a positive way!

Performing Arts is helping me with my on going journey to growing in confidence and not have such low levels of self-esteem.

Performing Arts has such a positive impact on my mental health , in the future I would love to do acting professionally!

Did you know about Stagecoach Performing Arts School and Young Minds Charity’s Partnership, to find out about this amazing partnership please check out: https://www.stagecoach.co.uk/about-us/our-charity-partner

My Journey With PTSD

mental health

Please be aware this is just about my experience and that I am not a medical professional!

Back in 2015 I was diagnosed with PTSD; I remember being asked what I knew about the condition and to be honest I knew soldiers could be diagnosed with PTSD and that you have flashbacks to past events but that was about it. I never thought I could be diagnosed with it because of the horrible things I went through with being bullied at school.

Through the years of living with PTSD I have learnt quite a lot about my condition on a daily basis and also hearing the myths about PTSD. I thought I would share with you things I learnt about it through living with the condition in everyday life.

1. Anyone can be diagnosed with PTSD not just soldiers.

2. Triggers can happen even through the smallest of things. For example I sometimes get triggers if I see a young person messing about with their mates. For me this can take me back to my experiences of getting bullied quickly. Sometimes the flashbacks just come and I don’t know why.

3. PTSD does not have to come immediately after you have gone through something traumatic. I was diagnosed with PTSD from being bullied when I was in school but now I am not getting bullied by others but it still affects me to this day. I find it hard to trust people in college as I don’t know if they are being genuine.

4. I remember when I once told a teacher that I had PTSD and that’s why I was in a bit of a panic they said to me ” get over it and could I really blame them for picking on me. “At the time I felt so stupid and weak. But now I realise that having mental health problems doesn’t make you weak at all in fact I would say on the good days I have it has helped me to realise having mental health problems is not weak at all and it doesn’t define you !