First of all, I’m so sorry to hear about your hard past, I know i don’t understand what it’s like in your situation but I understand pain and for that I can connect with you.

I have struggled with tenacious anxiety and depression after my brothers passing this past year, and I have learned a few things that have helped me through the darkest thoughts and the craziest panic episodes that I’d love to share with you.

During a particularly sad moment, as hard as it might seem, try to list a couple of things that are going well. ie: your hair is looking awesome today, the weather is beautiful or maybe someone helped you with something today. It sounds so cheesy but it really helps me, because once I start, all of the small things I can find, out-shadows the sad thoughts that lurk around.

On the note of anxiety, I can say that the most influencial thing for me in the most panicking times is to just talk yourself through the moment instead of sitting through the thoughts. I like to say “look around you, there’s nothing hurting you, you’re alive, and things are okay.” as a mantra.

I hope that these little things can help a little bit, I know i don’t have all the answers and solutions, but this is my best I can give to you. remember that you can get through this and the toughest battles are given to the strongest people. 🙂

lots of love! <3

Dear Julie,

A lot of the depression I have had over the years coupled with anxiety, especially social one has been due to events and lot due to genetic reasons.

Given this background, I had a great deal of problems with unhelpful, instusive, negative and paranoid thoughts. My poor choices and actions followed accordingly.

What helped me often break the cycles were two things – awareness and coping means.

Awareness meant knowing that I was in the middle of a phase or about to enter one. In case, I started getting worse, I had a set of coping strategies to manage atleast.

Coping strategies were things like taking a bath, lying in bed after that without any cell phones, gadgets to distract me – maybe a thin, interesting book at best. This might not seem like much but it helped moods immensely.

Then there was cleaning the room. Sometimes it was making the effort to go outside for only 5 minutes, get some air. This was really hard because….I dunno, I think you understand why.

But it was all linked to taking a bath and combing my hair – things people take for granted but got really hard for me.

Next was drinking enough water which meant keeping 3 water bottles next to me and finishing those during the day. This meant I didn’t binge so much when I was down and had to get up out of bed to pee. Again quite a task because all I wanted to do was sleep all day.

During this entire time, your sleep cycle will probably be a damn mess in one way or another. It will take time to fix.

So for now, take one day at a time. Seriously that’s the only way I know.

Take a bath few times a week

Leave the house for 5 mins or sip hot tea by the window on a sunny day

Drink 3 litres of water a day.

Write down whenever you feel sad and never read it again later.

Sounds trite I know but doing just this much will set a process in motion over time.

In case you are ready, I recommend practising something called surya namaskar 3-4 times. It’s basically a yoga practise.

Regards
Nina