Battling our Demons and Feeding our Souls

So, I think I’ve spoken about it before, but I’m a lady with the crazy.* It’s managed much better than it used to be, mostly with medication. I had some decent time with a therapist down here in Canberra, though I’ll likely want to find someone new once I relocate to Brisbane. I still have panic attacks (which I’m starting to think is part of the cause of my migraines, what with the teeth grinding and jaw clenching that tends to happen, particularly when I go to sleep anxious), and I still have days and periods when I just feel so low and helpless and worthless.

I know there’s a fair number of you around here who have similar (and different) experiences with the crazy, and deal with it with varying levels of success. There are various resources around that talk about coping strategies, but I’d like to share a few of my own, and hear about some of the strategies you use to keep the crazy from overtaking everything.

*I acknowledge that there are issues with the term crazy; and I’m really not down with crazy as a derogative descriptor, but it’s a term I use non-negatively for myself, and I hope folks are able to respect the language I use to name my experiences. For the record, I don’t expect anyone to use language they feel they’re not comfortable reclaiming, so I’m happy to respect whatever language you choose.

**Trigger Warning** I talk briefly about self-harm in the first paragraph behind the cut, so you might want to skip past it if you need to. I’ve added some extra breaks afterwards to help with that.

 

( Cut for self-harm trigger and discussion of mental illness experience )

 

They’re just a few of my strategies, but I’d like to hear from y’all. What do you do when your mental illness starts creeping a little to close to the driver’s seat and you’re not really in a place where you can or want to let it drive? Are there times when you find it easier to just let the crazy do the driving for a period (time and other factors permitting)?

Anon comments will be screened, if it’s obvious you’re intending to share in the conversation, then I will unscreen.