Mental health and CoVid-19

@pica

It's not weird. We are all different.

You mentioned that you have a wife in a previous post. Is she a support to you?

All I would say is things most certainly will pick up again. This is not a situation that is going to last forever.

In my experience, one thing to be careful of is absorbing too much social media, as there are threads that are absolutely awash with angry people and conspiracy theories and they are often making things seem far, far more restricted than they actually are.

I mean, if I read through some of the angrier Irish threads, or even some threads on Boards.ie, you'd swear that we were in some kind of strict lockdown. The reality if I walk out the door and into town is that, other than face masks being worn in shops, most things are working away pretty much as normal. Christmas shopping is in full swing, people are having coffees, going to restaurants, hanging out etc. They're just being a little more careful.

It's far from an ideal situation, but it's no where near as bad as being painted by some sources online and also some of the more hyped up aspects of traditional media too and I think it's just a really easy trap to fall into, particularly as you've people trying to pursue political agendas by frightening people and painting all sorts of scary nonsense stories online.

All I'd say is perhaps try to switch off the social media and news media feeds for a few days. Take an opportunity to go do something nice and indulge yourself a bit. Take time, go outdoors, watch a movie, get a take away coffee and enjoy the scenery.

During the worst aspects of the lockdown here, I got pretty stressed myself and found the best thing I could do was just walk and take photos and it really got me out of a negative space. Even if it was just going taking photos of architecture or stuff in the garden.

I found social media in particular but even just watching endless TV/Radio reports on this stuff could be extremely toxic and I had to very deliberately ration my access.

If you need to talk to someone though, definitely do seek a counsellor or a psychologist. They are not doctors btw, and work through talking things out.

Unfortunately it is much easier to write "you should do this/that" type posts to a person in your situation - than it is for someone in your position to actually follow such advice. The old "easier said than done" adage. It's so easy when you are in a good place to tell people in a bad place what they "should" be doing - as if they do not already know. It's as useful as telling someone choking that they would be better off if they were breathing. They know damn well they need to breath - they just can't! Telling them what they already know is not going to be useful.

In my own personal experience I have found that motivation begets motivation. Sitting around and waiting for it to just happen rarely (if ever, for some people) works. We might get little explosions of motivation once a full moon but it tends to die quickly enough.

So for a lot of people the only way out of the hole is to really take ownership of it and get after it. Which again takes motivation. You can have all the kindling in the world but if you can not find the first spark - you can not burn the fire.

I guess - for me at least - I found most of my success in the stoic approach. That is - to literally list out on paper all the things in my life that I can not control and must simply accept - and all the things I can control and change and push forwards. There are some books about this - some more accessible than others. I tend to recommend Derren Brown's book "Happy" as one of the starting more accessible books on the subject. Although it is a book aimed at Children I tend to also recommend often to adults a book called "Way of the Warrior kid" by Jocko Willink. So far nearly all the adults I recommended that book to - have gone out and bought all the sequels to it too.

I started then by taking the single lowest hanging fruit on that latter list and set the tiniest of goals. And when I say tiny - I mean it was ridiculously tiny. I dubbed it my "incremental approach to self improvement".

The motivation required to hit those tiny goals was minimal. But I found setting goals - achieving them - then setting incrementally tinier bigger goals and hitting them too - was the spark for the kindling. Motivation was like a muscle. If you sit around waiting for your muscle to be able to lift that weight in the corner it will not do it. If you incrementally slowly train it to work up to that weight - it will. Motivation was just like that for me. Plus there is an addictive dopamine hit of setting a goal and hitting it. I think a lot of people miss this and when they take up something new like going to the gym they set their initial goals too high and never get that rush of hitting their goals.

I laugh now looking back at just how tiny my initial goals were. For example I now a days get up around 4-5 in the morning every morning and do a 10k run. Every day of the week. Which to some people sounds amazing I am told. But I started this years ago by literally setting the goal of running a single minute. I actually spent more time getting the running gear on me than I did actually running. Imagine me in full running gear running 30 seconds down the road - turning around - and running 30 seconds back. It was comical.

But on day 2 I did 2 minutes. On day 3 I did 3 minutes. By the end of 2 months I was running 1 hour a day. I now target 10k a day. But if I do the full hour I can hit a lot more than 10k.

Now for you it might not be running it might be something else. But do not underestimate the possibility that you might rekindle your motivation by setting ridiculously tiny initial goals which require the most minimal of effort and motivation.

These days I have a lot of hobbies and pursuits. I've spoken about some, not all, of them at various times around the forum. Like you many of them were hit by covid and entirely shut down. My Brazilian JuJitsu school for example. Thankfully a lot of that is back to normal but it's never been entirely the same.

But I picked up some other hobbies to take up the slack. These days I am getting a lot of joy out of horse riding lessons - and training to use this pretty sexy Bow that my friends all bought me. It is amazing how many of the worlds troubles fall away when you are alone in the middle of a forest aiming at something - slowing your breathing - taking in all the factors like wind speed and distance and so on - and building up to that moment of arrow release. It's like a form of active meditation.

The only other thing I can suggest is to try to find joy in things that previously seemed a chore or mundane or an obligation. The example I usually go to here is cooking. I have noticed a lot of people treat having to cook and eat a meal as an inconvenience in their lives. Something they have to get out of the way in order to get back to whatever else it is they feel they want to do or should be doing - be it work or binging on Netflix or whatever else.

Sometimes there is a lot to gain by revisiting those things as an end in themselves rather than a means to an end. With cooking as my example - it is rediscovering the joy of obtaining food, preparing food, eating food. Focus meaningfully and mindfully on that process end to end rather than charge through it as something to get done and out of the way. The effect on diet of doing this too can have knock on effects on things like health, energy and motivation because it can lead to an over all better diet too.

Some of your post resonates with me Graces and I know you have good intentions but a person simply cannot stop grieving.

When you find the off switch for grief please do tell myself and others.

As for my comment regarding 'good intentions', that was meant with kindness.

The pandemic has exacerbated existing struggles for many and created new ones as well. When you don't have the opportunities to do things and and be around others then it makes sense that you'd regress. I'm sorry. Life remains in a strange sort of state but maybe you can slowly find your way back to where you were? The progress you made was real so is still in you.

Plenty of therapists are seeing clients face to face now and also offer online sessions. Might be an idea to try and re-engage with one? You do pay them to listen but having that ear can be helpful and maybe take the sting out of loneliness.

I am not long back from a trip bow hunting in the US myself. Travel is of course possible. It's a bit up and down at the moment though. For example anyone going from the UK to Germany is expected to isolate for a whopping 14 days! But I have a sibling coming home to Ireland from the UK for Christmas at the same time.

So a bit more effort involved in travel - especially dependent on where you are going to/from exactly - but I certainly am not having the same "never again any more ever" feeling you are getting.