Resilience to be Cheerful part 3

Resilience to be Cheerful part 3

Except its really just Part 2, but that isn't a play on the Ian Dury song 'Reasons to be Cheerful Part 3', enough, okay I'll move on.

In discussions with my GP, Mental Health Nurse, Talking Therapist I recognised the need for resilience as I begun to see an ever so slight upturn in my depression and anxiety before my failed return to work in October last year before I again returned 12th November.  I was very much afraid that I would relapse again and again and again for the rest of my working life having episodes of Depression, Anxiety in 2010, 2012, 2014 and now 2015 ......... I was afraid that I would be boom and bust mentally for the years upto my retirement.  Right now I'm feeling a tad more optimistic again regards this as I have my first full time working weeks next week and the week after.  I need resilience and robustness because I don't want to be in a cycle of relapse and recovery at close proximity.  I guess I can't promise myself respite from this nor can my health professionals but I know I need to work as hard as I can to avoid that relapse cycle.

Resilience is all about me growing my capacity to handle difficulties, demands, any high pressure situations without becoming overtly stressed or triggered into depression/anxiety/mania.  I don't have a magic wand, I'm aware that I can only do what I can do and hope that it builds resilience and robustness over time.

I think from a headline position its about:-

• Not wasting energy on unimportant small matters
• Being flexible to change ( harder to do than say )
• Ian Holroyd's Bouncebackability ( football manager saying )
• Making the best of any new situation
• In all the above, seeing off the negative demon on your shoulder
• Mindful working
• Mindful living
• Seeing and understanding fight or flight respones as they arise
• Not being hard on self ( avoiding perfectionism )
• Don't judge own thoughts
• Don't get cross if you are negative, forgive yourself quickly
• Plan your day but dont Judge your day against that plan ( flexibility )
• Allow yourself happiness

There is no magic wand but all the above are going in my little red notebook.  Allowing me to focus on my best chance for resilience and robustness.

We'll see how it all goes.

Resilience is Useful .............

Resilience is Useful, Mindfulness quickie in the workplace

Im not sure how this post will work as I'm unsure that I'm resilient yet at work and home following my illness this last 7/8 months and the condition I'm now navigating.  There was a phrase in Star Trek 'Resistance is Useless' however something I have often discussed with my GP over the last 7/8 months is that I need Resilience once I'm back in the work place, I have relapsed last year far too quickly after my prior episode and I really want to be back at work, robust and resilient against stressors and challenges and my condition.

One of the things I have been trying to do at work is work mindfully, this probably sounds like a load of old tosh but having read around things and continued my dialogue with my Talking Therapist this feels the right thing to try and do and maintain it even when the work day brings a full diary.

Work is, and has always had the potential to be challenging for people.  We find ourselves in the so called 'digital age'  driven by the constant need for efficiencies and cost effectiveness.  I'm sure in some companies you could argue that this might have led to some unhealthy working practices.  There is an idea that we can multi-task but science has poo-pooed this in reality, the belief being that unless a dual task is something you have done time and time again ( sub conciously now ) then you brain is involved in context switching all the while you try to carry out 2/3 different tasks with different focuses.  The advice here is to prioritise and work on one focus at a time to get the best results.

Working mindfully is said to allow us to become more aware of our mental processes, in theory alllowing us to more easily choose the appropriate strategy for any piece of work/task.  I have a little red book that I have on my desk in plain sight in front of me, the idea being that when I am letting my jobs run away with me and I'm falling into context switching that I will remember that I need to be mindful and pull the little red notebook out and carry out a mindfulness exercise.  I'm not very good at this but I hope that I'm getting better week by week.  It also has some learnings I have made from past CBT exercises and other little quotes and notes that hopefully gee me up and help me to survive in the workplace.

One exercise I have written down is a 3 step mindfulness practice and I've been known to have to do this in the work toilets because I cant find somewhere to carry out the practice, it can be really hard to do at your desk unless its first thing in the morning and nobody hardly is in.  I'm hoping that the more I avoid context switching and the more I work mindfully the more resilient I will get and that relapse will be further and further away as I navigate my BiPolar condition.

The 3 step work mindfulness exercise boiled down.  1)  Find a comfortable upright position and avoid slouching.  Although you can do this with your eyes open at work it's probably easier to do this with your eyes shut.  Closing the eyes mean that you are avoiding visual stimulus.  Initially deal with your current thoughts and by recognising them and letting them go.   2)  Focus on your breath coming in and going out, use this as your anchor, make it your focus.   3)  Spend just a minute or two recognising how your body feels in the here and now.  Be aware of any physical sensations and accept them, good or bad, lamenting on bad sensations with not help, just let them pass over you, let them go.  Move to an acceptance that present moment sensations add no fuel to negative thoughts, in the moment you are under no threat.

I hope that makes sense.  A lot of Mindfulness authors make it sound so so simple and it isn't, I find it really hard to get to that moment of 'Now' where you are under no threat but if you can access it then it's a good tool to garner more resilience.

This is a bit more of a lesson of a Blog so apologies but as I continue my phased return to work I'm finding that I have to access things like this to keep going.  One thing I'm struggling with at the moment is that I seem to hit a wall energy wise at about 2:30pm on full days in the office.  I haven't really found a solution to that as yet.

Rejecting negative thinking ......... well trying to anyways !

So, one of the things I have been working on, because it trips me up so badly, is rejecting negative thinking.  This is something that I have worked on with my talking therapist but also have targeted with Hypnotherapy as well ( even though I’m still a little sceptical there, I’ve still parted with my money!).

There are techniques that I have been told of or had explained to me.  I have tried them all but I haven’t found them all successful for me.  One of the first I was taught was the ‘throwing away’ technique which was taught through hypnotherapy and I haven’t really got it to work for me.  The idea here is that of visualisation and feeling, so taking the negative or anxietal thought in your head and moving it from your head down your head, shoulders and into your arm and then into your fist from which you throw it away, though I can find this technique relaxing I don’t find that the throwing away works for me.  Secondly I’ve been told of another technique that works better for me, it’s effectively a technique of distraction where when a negative/anxietal thought comes, you then do something else in your head alongside it, not for long, just for perhaps 30 seconds or so and if the thought comes back you do so again, you need to be disciplined.  Things to do are, go shopping in your mind, think of a list of shopping you currently need or list you favourite songs or think through some repetitive actions that do on a regular basis to carry out a practical task, ‘chopping and stacking wood’ maybe.  Thirdly, a practical version of the first above is to write your negative/anxietal thoughts down on post it notes or paper and throw them away or burn them, I haven’t tried this though I have been involved in a thankfulness exercise where post it notes were used and that is a positive distracting process.

Another thing that research has found is that worry and rumination can result from and in that being mirrored in other folks, so there is an idea that you should try and surround yourself with more positive people.  This is tricky for me, as if I think of myself as negative then what right do I have to expect positive people to want me around, but that’s a typical vicious circle with mental health.  I’m lucky that quite a lot of my friends are positive souls, not all of them, but enough that this can be uplifting for myself.

It’s said that if your negative thoughts result in feelings of loneliness often holding a hit liquid in your hands can be helpful, that you can gain comfort from a hot cup of tea/coffee/cocoa held in your hands, this works on substituting physical warmth for emotional warmth and I think even experts see this as just a sticking plaster for folks.  So ‘keep calm’ and ‘have a cup of tea’ I guess J

If you are having negative and anxietal thoughts an expert Winch says ‘ If your urge to ruminate is very strong, distracting yourself isn’t going to be easy.  So before you try, it may be necessary to reframe or reappraise the situation in your head’.   My understanding of this is that if you have a situation that’s playing out such as you are stuck at a bus station because of a cancelled bus or traffic jam for you getting there then don’t focus on what you are missing out on, instead use the time to do something positive like, ring your parents, get a little bit of work done, write a shopping list etc etc.  Once you have reframed the thoughts initially you may then find that you are more easier to distract yourself in the medium term from your ruminations.

I don’t know if any of this will help folks but it’s something that I have been thinking about recently.

Tony

twelve symptoms #12 , apols it took rather longer than the 12 days of christmas ...............

##12. Hopelessness / Suicidal Thoughts

For me, I can spot when I’m depressed but I can seem to do very little about it, but I know I’m depressed.  A telling symptom of a depressive episode associated with bipolar is an overwhelming feeling of sadness and hopelessness. We can fall into a state of depression and this then means that the symptoms flip from those associated with manicness/mania  (where sufferers can have heightened happiness and euphoria). You will often quiet quickly become sluggish/fuggish and won’t see much point in trying to hit goals.  Another common symptom is a near-total loss of interest in activities you once enjoyed, music, books, film, children, friends, I’m told this includes sexual activity. This can be seen as juxtaposed to what happens during a manic episode, when sufferers tirelessly pursue their interests and may engage in compulsive, excessive behaviour.

Sufferers with bipolar disorder will often feel sad and depressed, feel hopeless. I have never felt so hopeless as to have plotted anything suicidal however, and I need to be careful regards this as members of my family will read this blog, I have had thoughts about how much better off people would be without me.  I’m worth more dead due to pensions and death in service benefits BUT I’m not!  Because ultimately we are of such great emotional value to our friends and family who love us that we must absolutely fight the devil on our shoulder here.  Suicidal thoughts can be extremely dangerous, since bipolar disorder also commonly includes compulsiveness. A sufferer feeling despondent to the point of suicide may have the compulsion to act on that, it’s really key that we can stay aware such that we don’t find ourselves in this place.

If these symptoms present themselves to you to any degree, please seek medical or professional attention immediately. Sufferers  with suicidal ideas or exhibiting suicidal behavior need quick and keen interventions to tackle these ideas/behaviours.

twelvw symptoms #11

#11. Chronic Pain with No Known Cause

 Sufferers experiencing other symptoms on this list, along with chronic pain with no known cause, may be suffering from bipolar disorder. I haven’t had this symptom personally but I’m informed that pain can present itself throughout many parts of the body, which could be but I guess we would not limit to, severe headaches. Muscle aches and generalised aches, nonspecific pains can also occur.  I don’t think I understand this very well as I can’t imagine this, though I have had headaches but have put them down to medication changes and things that headaches would normally be a symptom of.

There are cases, where the pain felt has a known cause, but for BiPolar sufferers it may be amplified and intensified. An example migh be, a person with a mild thing like a bruised knee may complain of unbearable throbbing pain, intense pain, greater than what would normally be expected from a mild injury. Curiously, it has been established, that rather than painkillers, it seems that antidepressants offer the most effective relief from this type of pain.

twelve symptoms #10

#10  Fatigue

Perhaps couter-intuitively contrary to manic symptoms/episodes, Sufferers suffering from a depressive episode will often experience extreme tiredness and fatigue. I often feel worn out by my depression and anxiety and even though I haven’t done anything really, feel tired and listless and want to shut myself away from the world and roll up in bed.  An overall lack of motivation throughout the day and the prior are all potential signs of bipolar disorder. Its said that these symptoms are one of the clearest juxtapositions of the night to day to night dichotomy between mania and depression, the two non equal sides of BiPolar disorder.  As well as any felt physical fatigue, sufferers often feel mentally “bogged down” ( I have stated this as feeling muggy and not able interllect wise to do my job ). During depression I and despite maybe getting enough/ample sleep I still feel a Mental sluggishness replaces the manic mania euphoria, I lack, often quite suddenly can lack desire/drive to do the things that interest them.  I also suffer from a failure of decision making, too much choice means I fail to relax. Eg.  I might have 5 films ,  5 Cd’s, 5 work books , 5 comics etc etc to choose from BUT I just can not choose what to utilise !!!

*********ALSO*********

I wrote a short poem regards David Bowie ~ http://sane.org.uk/support_forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=28859

He will be missed, more than that he probably inspired a lot of people regards fashion, sexuality and music

twelve symptoms #9

#9 Missed Work and Appointments

Apparently a common symptom of bipolar disorder is the inability to maintain a schedule. This causes many sufferers to miss work or other commitments, luckily I haven’t really had this too much at all.  I do occasionally feel the need to roll up foetally in my bed underneath the duvet and hide away but this is rare when I’m actually at work.  If I’m ill to the factor that my symptom’s affect my day to day life then I’m normally already off work though on returns to work the odd days can be lost.

During a manic period there is an expectation that the sufferer may be busy persuing other activities and miss work, deeming without check that the other activities are more important at the time, again I have not had evidence of much of this.  In fact when I’m manic I’m more likely to over work, overdo my working life amongst the mania.  I have had the issue where I can’t focus on the task at hand so I have seen work disrupted that way during a manic episode.  During depression the lethargy can sometimes kick in and I fail to see the point in working or life in general.