How to stay moderately less crazy....

[annwfyn]

So, recently I wrote a piece on social media for #timetotalk2017, in which I talked about my mental health, and mostly ended up talking about recovery. A couple of people were terribly nice and said they were impressed by the extent to which I seemed in control, and how far I’d come

Comments

[annwfyn]

The words strategy is staggeringly helpful for me, most of all because it really helps me pin down and understand what is really upsetting me. And, in general, if I hunt through the hugely irrational emotions (stage one of the words strategy normally involves me realizing that I am overreacting) I normally find there is a root cause that is real and can be addressed. I mean, sometimes that root cause might be something I don’t have a totally objectively justified reason to be feeling wobbly about, but at least I can recognise it.

And I also feel better for getting stuff out and writing it down. One thing I used to do (when I had a LOT of IoD characters and did a LOT of scening) was to randomly project my emotions onto a character and write about it. So, I might write a werewolf story about ‘sorrow and loss’ in which I got all the feelings out but through a fictional channel. Weirdly, that had about an 80% success rate in clearing up mental junk. So sometimes I think the words strategy is helpful just in that it gets feelings outside of me and onto paper.

That definitely may be me being odd though.