What do you do for mental health?

[LilyElizabeth]

Ryrin, you have had so much going on! It's time for a good long break from the bad stuff. It sounds like you are pretty good at self-care. That's great!

[Ryrin]

4 hours ago, Elgee said:

Man, that is an awful lot to deal with! *hugs gently*

Hopefully you find some comfort and support here. And fun. Fun is essential.

Thank you. I need to spend more time here. Yes, fun is essential. Stitches come out today! 🙌

[Ryrin]

4 hours ago, LilyElizabeth said:

Ryrin, you have had so much going on! It's time for a good long break from the bad stuff. It sounds like you are pretty good at self-care. That's great!

 
Yes, I am good at it. I usually get weekly massages at the massage therapy school. It’s much less expensive there. I forgot to mention that. Since my stitches are out today, I can schedule one and just have him leave my right hand alone. 

I start occupational therapy for my hand. It’s fun and I like the staff there. 

 

I’m going out to lunch with my friend on Friday. 
 

I think the extreme heat just sucks out my energy. 
 

[LilyElizabeth]

Tell me about it. We're at 112 degrees today. 

[Ryrin]

On 4/27/2024 at 8:26 AM, LilyElizabeth said:

I happen to teach a class on self-care, if anyone is interested, I can try to run it here. 

 

For me, it's music (my commute to work is sacred - don't interrupt my music time), playing on DM, playing Sims, time with my furbabies, and my therapy, but therapy is more challenging to me. 

 

Edit - I forgot the most soothing thing to me - spending time with my family. 

I’m interested. 

[Ryrin]

On 7/24/2024 at 6:37 AM, Elgee said:

Man, that is an awful lot to deal with! *hugs gently*

Hopefully you find some comfort and support here. And fun. Fun is essential.

I’m like you. I want to be here and then I don’t come here. Make it make sense. 

For the first time in a long time, I don’t have a surgery scheduled! 

 

[LilyElizabeth]

20 hours ago, Ryrin said:

I’m interested. 

 

It's posted in the Yellow Ajah. At least the first two lessons. If anybody does them, I'll post lesson 3.

[Leala]

So, because of my ADHD, just one thing doesn't cut it.

 

But, whatever I do, I try to keep one thing in mind.  Giving myself grace.  Before I found out I had an anxiety disorder, I was super hard on myself.  It took time and patience to apply the grace I give to others to myself, and sometimes it's a struggle, especially on days when I spiral.

 

But, some things that help nowadays are reading (both audiobooks and physical books), crocheting, and playing D&D.

[Elgee]

12 hours ago, Leala said:

It took time and patience to apply the grace I give to others to myself, and sometimes it's a struggle

 

I think that's a thing a lot of us struggle with. Why is it so hard??? But good on you for working on that! *hugs*

[Leala]

It's become my favorite thing to say when people ask "what's one piece of advice you would give?" 

 

Be kind to yourself.  

[Catt Wiltz]

My mental health self care looks a bit different these days.  I have pretty severe depression and anxiety as a result of dissociative identity disorder (DID), so I do weekly therapy.  That's pretty much a non-negotiable right now, and I have been doing really well lately with the help from therapy and meds.  Before I found out all this about myself it was really hard to self regulate, but having DID (best examples I can come up with for what that is like is Lews Therin and Young Bull combined with the Warder bond, oddly enough!) has made me a lot better at figuring out how to manage and regulate things.

 

For self care, I do at least one blanket fort day a week where I don't really bother doing anything important at all.  I also have some physical therapy stretches and PT yoga I do that helps, and fiber arts always help as well.  Also, cuddles from my cats!  Cats are the ultimate weighted stuffies.

[Leala]

First, I'm so happy to see you here! 

 

Secondly, I've seen your journey through a lot of that.  I'm so proud of you.  🤍

 

Blanket fort days sound amazing!  We all need a break, and that sounds like a wonderful way to do it.  And, kitties are always the best.  Even when they're gnawing on the Christmas tree or tying to steal my yarn.  😂

[Cross]

oh gosh i've been yearning for a good blanket fort. something that just totally sends me back to childhood where the stress didnt exist and i was just plainly happy. that is such a good idea

[LilyElizabeth]

Welcome to DM. I have to agree that cats are the best stress reliever there is. I wish mine were more cuddly.

[Leala]

Family gatherings for holidays are great, but they are draining for me.  I feel like my social battery drains a lot faster than Kronos's.  He's very understanding about it.  It just means I'm more introverted than he is.

 

But when I picked up crochet, I brought a project along with me to Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I didn't feel like a zombie afterward.  It feels nice to have a solution.  🙂

[Ryrin]

On 12/10/2024 at 4:44 AM, Catt Wiltz said:

My mental health self care looks a bit different these days.  I have pretty severe depression and anxiety as a result of dissociative identity disorder (DID), so I do weekly therapy.  That's pretty much a non-negotiable right now, and I have been doing really well lately with the help from therapy and meds.  Before I found out all this about myself it was really hard to self regulate, but having DID (best examples I can come up with for what that is like is Lews Therin and Young Bull combined with the Warder bond, oddly enough!) has made me a lot better at figuring out how to manage and regulate things.

 

For self care, I do at least one blanket fort day a week where I don't really bother doing anything important at all.  I also have some physical therapy stretches and PT yoga I do that helps, and fiber arts always help as well.  Also, cuddles from my cats!  Cats are the ultimate weighted stuffies.

Can you expand on your fiber arts? I’d love to hear more. 

[Ryrin]

On 12/30/2024 at 7:29 AM, Leala said:

Family gatherings for holidays are great, but they are draining for me.  I feel like my social battery drains a lot faster than Kronos's.  He's very understanding about it.  It just means I'm more introverted than he is.

 

But when I picked up crochet, I brought a project along with me to Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I didn't feel like a zombie afterward.  It feels nice to have a solution.  🙂

I’m sure it does. 
 

We hosted a small Chanukah party on Saturday plus having my youngest son and his fiancé over most days. He has to work today and tomorrow (Fire Lt.) so it will be a quiet evening. 

[Catt Wiltz]

On 12/31/2024 at 2:55 PM, Ryrin said:

Can you expand on your fiber arts? I’d love to hear more. 

Sure!  I have a YouTube channel, Lucytowne Designs, and my Ravelry handle is Lydia C. Heckathorne.  Lucytowne got started for a few reasons: I have my great-grandmother's diaries from the 1920s and then the 1950s to when she passed in 1995, and she was a major crafter.  When she was first married during WWI making clothes by hand was normal for her generation, and I like to say she taught me posthumously how to knit, crochet, tat, and sew.  I do love historybounding the Edwardian and 1920s eras as well.  My Ravelry page has some of my designs that have been easy for me to write down. 

 

Fun fact, a friend who is an archaeologist professionally recently came across some textiles on a dig site they were working, and I ended up being able to really help them figure out what the remains could have been, what it was made from based on the context and the geographical location, and even the time period of patterns to look for based on the site context.  I was very excited that I could help because that was precisely one of the reasons I started really learning how to work with fibers; so I could have that knowledge for archaeology sites and museum work.  It's been useful in other ways as well.  At a site I used to work at pre-Covid as an archaeologist we found quite a lot of black machine knitted material in what we *thought* was a post hole--only to have it end up being a cat burial!  Whoops!  Identifying a modern ritual burial of a cat was definitely not on the bingo card when I started the fiber arts, but there we are.  And it's generally a really practical skill when you can hem pants too long for people barely 5 feet tall like me, sew on buttons, fix blown out seams, put in sleeve gussets because companies decided a weird cut was ok but it's really not, etc.