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I have bipolar disorder, and I never ghost people. "Ghosting" is a slang term for when someone cuts off all communication. Some people may doubt that I don't ghost people based on my bipolar diagnosis; however, believe me, I am not a "ghoster." Moreover, I'm not the only one. Just because a person has bipolar doesn't mean they will ghost you.
Each year, as the calendar flips to November, I'm hit with a reminder of how complex the holiday season feels in eating disorder recovery. Of course, that's not unique to those with a history of eating disorders. This time of year can be overwhelming for anyone. In 2021, three out of five surveyed Americans felt their mental health worsen over the holidays, with 60 percent noticing a rise in anxiety and 52 percent noticing a rise in depression. Now couple all that with eating disorder stressors or behaviors, and this hectic season can become even more fraught. So with the 2022 festivities just around the corner, let's acknowledge it: The holidays are complex in eating disorder recovery—and that is alright.
Everybody can feel overwhelmed from time to time. Whether problems are work- or home-related or of matters entirely unrelated, modern living can tax us physically and emotionally. And, while feelings of overwhelm aren't the sole preserve of people with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), emotional dysregulation can act as an antagonist for me--especially when it comes to dealing with modern challenges. In other words, ADHD can add to my feeling overwhelmed.
We are right on the verge of Thanksgiving and the holiday season. It's such a great time to reflect, not only on the year overall but also on how my ability to cope with my anxiety has progressed. A helpful strategy that I've really taken the time to focus on this year has been practicing gratitude and how feeling thankful has helped me manage my anxiety levels.
In August 2021, after watching my performance deteriorate for months, I decided to quit my full-time government job to deal with burnout and take care of my mental health. Living alone in a basement apartment during the pandemic had made my depression and anxiety worse, and I'd been finding my job increasingly stressful. Leaving without another job lined up was risky, but I felt I had no choice. I'd reached my limit.
This isn't one of those stock Thanksgiving blogicles where I waste 500 words tossing around washed-up phrases about how "gratitude is an attitude." It's much worse than that. I'm going to try to challenge your notion of gratitude altogether. I said early on in my HealthyPlace journey that I wasn't going to try to convince anyone of anything, but we all knew I was lying. So let me be explicit about this: I want you to leave this post believing that gratitude isn't just for the things in your life that are working. I want you to walk away feeling grateful for the challenges in your life that aren't.
Getting clean from self-harm isn't easy, and when you're in a dark place, just trying to get better can seem like too much effort for too unlikely a reward. But the work to recover from self-harm is worthwhile—I promise.
Facing verbal abuse can be traumatic for anyone, especially when it continues for years, like in my experience. After existing in a world that includes regular abusive treatment, it can be difficult to see past your own painful situation.
The combination of confrontation and anxiety is a significant issue for me. We've all had to make that dreaded call to customer service to report an issue. Something has gone wrong, so you're already ticked off, but you do your best to proceed politely. Or, at least, I do. Most times, the issue is resolved quickly and with minimal upset. But then there's that one frustrating experience where nothing goes right, and the resolutions are unacceptable, which triggers so much anxiety that you feel you'll either explode or simply shut down.
When I was a young woman, before my first psychotic episode, I was incredibly independent. I frequently traveled internationally to Egypt and Brazil to visit my parents, who worked overseas. I also took road trips from Seattle to as far as San Diego by myself. Those days of independence are long gone. As someone with a severe mental illness, I need to connect and rely on people more than I ever imagined, but though I have schizophrenia, I am not a burden.
No one is perfect so stop trying to be, another one is if you hold anger against your parents, other family members, friends etc for a past issue that happened your need to regardless of what it is, you need to forgive them for it and in saying that you don’t go looking for an apology from them because you might not get it you forgive them within yourself because that’s the result you need.
You need to learn to laugh at yourself with any fault you believe you have because once again at the end of the day they are worthless things to hold over yourself.
Picture yourself as a old person not far from your time in this life/world to live and truly think about this
- have you wasted the one life we get worrying about pointless things that happened and enjoy this experience of life.
Go through you individual anxiety fueled mental battles and forgive yourself or others and forget about that problem forever because they really only are: LIFE LESSONS to remind yourself to not do that again.
And got rid of all those problems, i no longer have what I called my Anxiety Alarm Clock every time my head hit my pillow to go to sleep at night.
I also reminded myself that anxiety and depression owned half my life and I WAS GOING TO OWN THE NEXT HALF.
If you start to feel a panic attack coming and this took time to get it to work, slow your breathing right down and same amount of time breathing in then out keeping the same pace, if you drift off back into worthless thoughts go back to breathing slowly in and out, it about changing your triggers.
And the day he snapped his fingers to get my. attention was the day I k ew I had to end it.