One step forward, one step back.

I was very happy, last August, to give up my Prozac.  I had been on a 10 mg dose for years and it was very hard to taper off of.  I finally got rid of the buzzy head symptoms about January.  Then, in January, I had the stressor of moving my mom to a new assisted living facility and the stresses have just kept on coming.  Every time I get up, the rug is pulled out from under me again, over and over and over again.  Every day involves watching someone suffer who does not understand what is happening to them.  This is life with an Alzheimer's patient.  Not fun.  In this context, I went to the doctor in February and got a prescription for Wellbutrin XL.   I came home, read the side effects, decided I didn't want to take it and put it in the desk drawer.  But, life just kept happening and happening and despite all I have learned while writing this blog, about fake smiling and making my bed and taking a cold shower, I have not yet mastered always looking on the bright side of things, so the Wellbutrin had to come out of the drawer.  I started taking it last week.   I admit I do feel better.  I'm supposed to be tapering the dose up, but so far, I've stayed on the lowest dose of 100 mg because I want the eventual taper off to be easier.   I have dived back into my art and reading, which is a comfort to me and yesterday, I did a random act of kindness which involved giving a piece of my art to all of the employees of the assisted living that help with my mom and that did make me feel better too.  It's still hard.

I know we all want to be able to make it without these medications and their side effects, but we can't always do it.  I am not beating myself up about it.  I'm just taking my pill each day and trying to hang in there, down here at the end of my rope, where I live.

I have enjoyed this Ted talk lately on the Surprising Science of Happiness.  You should go watch.

Coping Skills.

Art has been an invaluable tool for me. 

Where I work, we are always talking about coping skills.  Basically a coping skill is something you do to cope with your feelings or pain that are not hurtful to anyone.  Sometimes a distraction is the key.  Some coping stategies we just fall into, or we've used them since childhood and sometimes we need to try and think really hard to come up with something to do.
 When my dad passed away, I had overwhelming grief, and I wanted to sleep all the time, but I couldn't so I distracted myself in many ways.  I watched TV and played video games simultaneously.  I found that I couldn't read, couldn't cook, couldn't draw and so I needed to find something, anything, to help me get through the pain.  It was The Sims and NCIS for me.  It was months before I could cope with any down time.  Every time I was alone in the shower or car I would cry so showering became the only thing I really did alone, asking someone to ride with me everywhere I went, so that I wouldn't get to my destination with red eyes and a wet face.   When my son was terribly afraid of thunderstorms, the counselor taught him ways to distract himself and just get through it.

Here's a list of things to do when you are feeling bad.

Coping Skills.

A good free resource.

Art Journal Guide - Daily Reprieve Center  This art journaling resource combines education about mental health and recovery with information about art journaling and looks like a good way to get started on the art ... and it's free!

Try it.

On this blog, I try to be encouraging and I know that when you are depressed and just overwhelmingly sad, it is very difficult to think that anything will help but some of these things really, really do.  It's crazy, but as I have journeyed to the place I am now, off meds and coping better than I was on the meds, there are a few of the things that have been really helpful to me.  One is needlework, in the form of crocheting, the second is the art journaling/doodling stuff that I do and the third which may actually be the most helpful because it is portable and easy, is, believe it or not, the fake-it-till-you-make-it, fake smiling.

One of my art journal pages.  Drawing these big flowers is relaxing to me.

It's seems crazy, I know, but it is true.

Forbes on fake smiling.

For resources on the art journaling if you don't know where to start, you can try some happiness journals.


The Happy Book

How to Be Happy

For needleworking here's a video on how to crochet.

How to Crochet

How to Knit

Try anything that will help you feel happier, within reason.  Don't hurt yourself or anyone else.  That doesn't work.

Take care of yourself.  I know the holidays can be hard and seriously, (because it looks kind of creepy) every time you go into the bathroom, give yourself the biggest smile you can and hold it for as long as you can.  Crinkle up your eyes.  Get all into it.  Seriously.  It does help.

Coloring.

The Guardian, adult colouring books anxiety-stress-mindfulness

Adult coloring books are all the rage now.  I know that when I started to get really depressed over my mom's situation (Alzheimer's disease) and all of the other things I was going through, I started doing a form of art journaling, which for me, basically involved writing bible verses and drawing flowers beside them.  As the last couple of years has unfolded, not in any way I'd want them to really, I've done a LOT of art.  It has saved my sanity.  Right now, I'm off of my antidepressant and in a pretty good place.



I drew this this morning and wanted to share in case you want to color right now.  :-)  Just right click it with your mouse, save to your computer, then you can print it out and color it.  If the bible verse offends you, color the background black or cover it with a sticker.  No worries!

Art. I knew it.

Last year when things were pretty dismal in my life and I kept feeling like I was having the metaphorical rug pulled out from me about once a week, I just felt overwhelmed.  I felt hopeless.  I didn't feel that I had the mental capacity to read or crochet.  Taking a walk or going around people just seemed like more than I could handle.  That's when my art exploded.  I just wanted to draw all of the time.  I had begun doing artwork a year or so before and helped me cope with my Dad's passing and my Mom's Alzheimers, but when everything came raining down on me, I retreated into my art to recover.  It helped immensely.  I personally write bible verses on all of my art, so that got me reading and finding quotes about hope and that helped even more.  I feel like my art pulled me through the tough times.  I would say that most of it is not very good, but sometimes I get lucky and all of the elements on the page blend together and it's good and when I look at it, it makes me feel happy.  In searching the web, I have found that doing art has been proven to make people happier.  I knew it.






Here are a few facts about art and our mental health.

1.  Four out of the six happiest activities are arts related.

2.  It's kind of a chicken and the egg thing,   Creativity Breeds Happiness   "Richards, the researchers note, wrote that day-to-day creativity “is both a cause and consequence of positive development."

3 You don't have to be good at it to reap the benefits.

4.  Just looking at art makes us happier.    

Resources. 

Here are a bunch of art therapy prompts to get you started if you don't know what to do at first.  Expressive Art Inspirations

Coloring in coloring books and doing paint by numbers are also ideas.  I don't know if there have been scientific studies done about these, but they sure are popular right now.

Adults Are Coloring.

Coloring Books for Grownups are a Thing.

Here's one of my drawings without any color, for you to download and color if you'd like.  Right click with your mouse on the picture and you can either select save image or print right from there.

Art as therapy.

I have made it through a lot of things in the past couple of years, my mom's Alzheimer's disease has been the number one stressor, but you can add to that working, raising teenagers, health problems, having to sell the house I grew up in (not to mention cleaning it out!) losing my job, having surgery ... it goes on and on.  I can't focus on it.  I just can't.  I try to do one thing at a time throughout the day until dinnertime and after dinner I try and recharge myself.  One of the ways I am able to cope is because I have started art journaling.  I draw flowers and trees and I don't actually draw all that well, but it helps me, it refuels me for the next day of coping with one thing after the other.  Art has been proven to help with stress, anxiety and mental health.

Doodling Your Way to a More Mindful Life


Happiest Activities are Art Related.


Doodle

Art Therapy

The Power of Pottery


Art As Therapy

You can do art therapy with a therapist, or just do it at home.  It might not be as helpful, but it can't hurt and it might help.  Give it a try.  It has saved my life.

Art Therapy Prompts.

Expressive Art Workshop

Art Therapy Exercises to Try at Home.

10 Easy Art Therapy Exercises to Help You Destress.

Bringing a little color into your life.

Even the tiniest little bit of a color you love can make you happier.  A throw pillow, a blanket or throw, a teakettle, you name it.  Put things and colors in your home that make you feel happy.  Color Psychology.   For the past couple of years I have been making art to please myself.  Then I sold a few pieces and after that, started trying to make art that I thought would please others and be easier to frame but that didn't provide the same satisfaction for me so I am back to pleasing myself.   Someone may look at it and say that I use too much blue or too much yellow or orange, but it's not for them; it's for me and it's what I like.  During the last couple of years, dealing with my mom's Alzheimer's disease, this art has saved my life and therefore I love it.

My house is mostly beiges and browns and I can't really afford to redo it and getting my husband to approve colorfulness in the house is a wild stretch of the imagination, so I painted one wall of my laundry room in my favorite, robin's egg blue and over the past year, I've brought little bits of that color into the other rooms as well.  Another small tool for feeling better.  It's important not to go on a big shopping spree because spending money that you possibly don't have won't help.  That will only make you feel worse.  Just try and bring some color in your environment.