Episode Summary
In this episode I reflect on the things I have learnt from the episodes of the last 7 days and what I am going to do over the next 7 days. What comes out for me is the importance of this self-reflection and how it is positively contributing to my healing.
Episode Transcript (Edited)
Hi and welcome to this episode of the Hope Help Happiness podcasts.
I can’t believe that this is my 15th episode already. It has gone really quickly yet. It seems an age ago since I started doing this. Every Sunday I look back over the previous week to review and reflect on what’s happened in these last seven days and to decide how I want to move forward over the coming seven days.
What I’m going to do is go through each of the episodes very briefly just to reflect on what happened and then come up with a plan for the rest of the week.
Episode 009 Did I Cry Wolf or Would I have Actually Committed Suicide?
I went through the whole process of explaining the decline in my mental state and how that decline had evolved over time. The conclusion I came to was yes, had I not gone to the doctors nine weeks ago, then I would have probably ended up taking my own life. This is because of the decline that was happening. When you look back at the rate of descent, the logical progression based on the depths that I was starting to hit over a period of time, at least an attempt at suicide was inevitable.
Had I not interrupted it, I am pretty sure that’s where I would have gone because on that day I really felt like doing it. But of course now things are much more positive. I’m in a much better place now. There’s still a lot I need to do but I’m, I’m optimistic that I’m treading on the right path in the right direction.
Episode 010, My Resistance Is Still Resisting, But I’m Definitely Making Progress Now.
This episode was about reflecting on something positive that happened to me. I am still resisting. I’m still struggling to do things I know I need to do. I’m still putting things off. I’m still dealing with some of the insecurities and issues of low self esteem and having a fixed mindset and learned helplessness. I’m still dealing with those.
But episode 10 was about a small victory. I woke up with my alarm at 6.30am as I’ve started to do on a regular basis. Now the alarm is outside the bedroom and I have to get up out of bed and go and switch it off. On this day I was groggy, more tired than normal, and I really wanted to go back to bed.
In the past I would have done so. I think I said in the episode that I’ve spent days in bed because I just did not want to get up. It’s hard for me to imagine that given where I am now. And if you’ve never been had that experience, it’s probably hard to imagine what that might be like. But that’s what happens when you’re overwhelmed and consumed by these feelings of helplessness.
So on this morning I really wanted to go back to bed. I was tired. It wasn’t because I was feeling low, I was tired. But I didn’t get back under the duvet. I pushed through my morning routine and managed to carry on and function normally during the day.
To me that was a small victory, and important victory too. It’s quite a small one, but I can see progress is being made, things have shifted. I am starting to do things differently
Episode 011, Why I’m A Hypocrite About The Stigma Of Mental Illness But In A Good Way.
I think this episode came about because as I was preparing my evening meal the night before, I stumbled across the tail end of a Radio Five live show where they were featuring interviews about emotional distress, mental and in particular, suicide.
A staggering fact I discovered in this broadcast was that in the UK a suicide occurs every 90 minutes!
As I write this, it’s now just gone midday. I’ve been up five hours and so that means three or four people have taken their lives in that time!
That’s a dreadful statistic.
I’ve been there, so I know what that feels like to be on the cusp of wanting to do that. But even though I’ve been there, I still feel a tremendous amount of upset that people can go through that.
Part of the reason I’m doing this podcast to track my journey is so others that follow behind me might possibly discover something to help them as well. That’s a driver for me as well as wanting to heal myself.
The Radio Five programme highlighted a lot for me and it was quite a touching 15 minutes of listening. What also came out was certainly in men of my age, the stigma of mental illness, the stigma of depression is massive and it’s a problem preventing many people asking for help.
Now I have that stigma. I talked about the challenges with my issues that creates an environment for me where I really do not want to go and tell people about it. There’s also some experience I’ve had where when I’ve done that and had to ask for help and the experiences have not been positive.
So I talked about admiring people who have the courage to stand up and say, I’m struggling with this. I need help because I can’t do that.
Where the hypocrisy comes is that I have encountered people who I can see are struggling and I’ve talked to them and mentioned my issues. Partly because it’s almost like we’re in the same “club”. I see what they’re going through. I can relate to them. There’s a compassion I have for them because I can relate.
I told a story about doing just that. A few days ago, at the beginning of this last week, I encountered someone who I thought might be struggling. I thought I saw that, because when you go through this process of hiding things, you develop routines and rituals. Little tricks or ways of deflecting questions about how you’re feeling and just a way of behaving.
You start to learn to spot them when they used against you. I thought I could see elements of that in this person so I contacted them.
To cut a long story short, we met and had coffee and it wasn’t quite the problem I first thought. Whilst my judgement was off, at least I did something.
Episode 012 – Second Counselling Session And A Follow Up Appointment.
Nothing really much to report about this episode. That day was a bit of a nondescript day.
Episode 013 – I’m Frustrated, My Mind Runs At 1000mph – It’s Not Helping Me.
This episode was evidence of my frustration at going from one idea to another to another. My mind is all over the place. I have a very rapid thinking mind. I’m not sure whether that’s a gift or whether it’s just the consequence of the problems I’ve had. Whichever it is, it’s not helping me. I was frustrated about that and really needed to find some form of focus.
Episode 014 – Taking Back Control – The Best Bits From “Choose Yourself” by James Altucher.
In this episode, I revisited a book I’ve already talked about in a previous episode. Having had the episode where I got frustrated about things, in this episode I look at going into depth and doing something about it.
I went through this book at a rapid rate, not looking to digest the whole work or understand every nuance, but to capture key things that I could use to help me and summarise my findings.
The episode goes into a little more detail, but essentially his daily practice focuses on four “bodies”; your physical body, your emotional body, your mental body and your spiritual body. In this episode I share what I found about how you would develop and improve each of those bodies.
The episode also talks about rejection. It talks about enjoyment and it talks about simplifying the daily practice (that’s how I started). It also looks your purpose, i.e. whether you need one or not.
I thought it was a really good episode and probably one of my most content rich and useful episodes for me because I’m starting now to see what I need to focus on.
This coming week, I’m going to be building on the work of this episode to start working out exactly what are the things I need to do; what are the behaviours I need to do to put this into practice?
It’s okay knowing this stuff about a solid foundation, but how am I actually going to put that into practice?
And that’s what this week’s episodes have been about.
Doing this review is useful for me. It’s very easy for me to forget what I’ve done over the week. In just gathering my thoughts as I reviewed each episode, I remembered things I’d forgotten I’d done.
It allows me to reflect back on the choices and the decisions I’ve made. Clearly I can see throughout the week my mind has been all over the place and frustration with that is quite evident. The review helped me realised I was frustrated on a number of days, starting with hearing the suicide interviews on the radio. I can see how that transitioned into frustration. I need to do something about this.
This week is about actually going focus on that.
I’m reminded once more that this weekly reflection process is important for me. I’m also doing on a daily basis as well. And I would implore you, if you are struggling with issues like this, to spend time reflecting on your day and thinking what could you do differently. You can decide to repeat what works for you and take that into your next day.
I’m finding that really helpful. That level of awareness has given me an understanding of myself and understanding of some of the underlying issues. And as I deepen that awareness, I start to see some of the subtleties that I might have glossed over before that need to be addressed sometimes on a subtle basis.
So that’s really helped me which is why I just thought I’d share that.
Until tomorrow.
