Some More About Distraction

As the title of a previous blog post said, distraction works.  The trick is to have an arsenal of things that you know will help you and the best way to devise this arsenal, is to think about it when you are well, or relatively well. 

A prepared go-to list of things that can help de-escalate in a (I don't like to use the word crisis but can't think of an alternative right now) crisis is invaluable.  It is hard to think of things when things are bad, because thoughts and feelings will most probably be chaotic.

Also, what works for me, may not work for someone else.  Being predominantly avoidant in personality, I find avoidance works up to a certain point.  But it isn't the best course of action, because avoiding in its own way makes me fixate on what it is I am avoiding.  For example, if I see a fleeting post on Facebook about subjects I don't like to read about, I will take myself off Facebook for a while to avoid seeing anything else about the subject.  But avoiding Facebook and the subject in question doesn't erase it from my mind.  I will spend an inordinate amount of time obsessing about it and catastrophising, without full knowledge of what it is that I am avoiding.  

So, sometimes I will tentatively research around the subject and nine times out of ten, my mind is put at rest about it.  Other times, I will return to Facebook and gingerly scroll through my newsfeed, on high alert, for more about what I am avoiding.  

If all this sounds exhausting, imagine how I feel afterwards!  

Damn that Inner Termoil

Today has been a relatively good day. Managed to get out of the house just before midday to do some food shopping, and resisted the urge to buy chocolate or cake or anything else remotely high in sugar. Go me 👏🏻👏🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻  


One of the daily struggles of my life is coping with the emotions and obsessive thoughts that come with dealing with the outside world.  I would dearly love to be a hermit and not go out of the house, but realise that I must, otherwise it will become more and more difficult.  I find it much easier to go out before midday if I'm going. Mostly I won't go out after then, unless I've got the boy in tow to give me a bit of confidence.  

So, in all, today was good. Along with going out, I also managed to clean up the kitchen a little bit, and cooked some soupy stew for lunch at work tomorrow and Wednesday. It's amazing what the addition of one little tablet can do for the mind, I am on an upward path for now, and will revel in it as best I can for as long as it lasts. 

Distraction Works!

Morning :) Hope you all had a good night :)  My night was full of weird dreams again.  When I am on Mirtazapine I find that dreams become much more lucid and I tend to scream out loud a lot more.  My poor son comes in to check that I am ok!

I wonder sometimes if I ought to write down my dreams and try to interpret them.  I'm not sure if they do actually mean anything.  I am having a lot of dreams recently about my father and his wife.  I don't have any contact with him, haven't for a long time, but the past couple of nights, my dreams have been in relation to him.  Last night in particular was about his wife dying in a car crash, and my father was the driver.  Lots of other things happened in the dream as well, involving caring for animals.  Very strange!  Wonder what the meaning of it is?

Perhaps googling for dream interpretation websites and literature is in order :) I remember when I was younger, dabbling a bit in dream theory.  When I was a teenager, I used to have 'waking dreams', where I would wake, and be paralysed.  I can remember trying desperately to get my body to move and wake up, trying to cry out, but no sound coming from my mouth.  Incrediably scary at the time.  I have experienced it a couple of times in adulthood, but now I tend to scream out in my sleep and scare everyone lol.

Tentative Hello

Hello world, its me, Avoidant Me :)

I have been thinking about starting a blog charting my life living with my mental health ups and downs.

I have always had my demons, ever since I was young.  I can't really remember a time where I was completely happy, which is quite a sad admission.  I have good days and bad days, and I did have a good period when my son was younger and we did lots together.  I was even med-free for a while back then.

At the moment, things are probably more down than up.  I am finding it hard to adjust back to working life, and to a new phase in my son's life, where he is going to college and becoming more independent.

I am currently saving up to see a psychiatrist, and have a funding page here:

Emm's crowdfunding page

I am saving a little each week, I am hoping to get the cost of an assessment together this year.  I would like to finally get a diagnosis and help going forward.

I will try to post something each day, but won't promise to :D