Hello, I'm Still Here :)

Just another update! Thanks for keeping up with me.

Hello all,

Long time, no writing. Here and generally. I’ve been primarily focused on my mental health recovery for the past month and honestly, it’s been kind of exhausting. I don’t have a ton of energy for much of anything besides basic self-care and the occasional IRL friend hang or FaceTime call. I’m still off of social media besides Facebook, which I find supremely boring, but am using to keep myself plugged in to local businesses and events. I’m still applying to jobs and after the last month, I’m starting to feel more confident in my ability to return to work.

As far as my mental health recovery goes, I worked very hard the last month trying to get into an Intensive Outpatient Program or and Dialectal Behavior Therapy group to work on managing my coping mechanisms, in addition to individual talk therapy. I applied and was accepted to a DBT group at the same provider as my individual therapist, but due to summer vacations, there were not enough people enrolled in the program, and it was postponed until September. I reached out to another program and went so far as to complete the intake process, but the facility is understaffed and not able to meet my needs at this time. In frustration, I reached out to my primary care physician, who directed me to a caseworker to help me navigate finding other programs in my network.

As summer is now more than half-way over, I've found that I will most likely have to wait to start a program until the fall. Given the work I’ve been doing with my therapist, on my own, and with my caseworker, I think waiting for a few months will be a well-earned break. My best friend, Lizzie, also purchased a DBT self-help workbook for me to utilize in the meantime, which my therapist thinks will be a sufficient introduction to the type of work I’ll be doing in a group or therapy program in the fall. It’s informative and I am finding it to be useful, but the work is tiring. I often find myself cancelling plans after completing my workbook sections because I’m tired like I typically am after a particularly intense therapy session.

I haven't had much creative drive recently, as I’ve been so focused on my mental health recovery and looking for work, but I’m not letting it get to me like I would have in the past. I can only do what I have the energy to do, and like the affirmation I wrote in my workbook says, “doing nothing is resting, which is doing something.” In fact, when mentioning to a friend how hard I was working on relaxing, they pointed out the irony of the statement. I’m feeling my chronic pain flare up in my neck like it does when I am stressed and overwhelmed and I’m having a hard time feeling physically comfortable most of the time.

I’m not sleeping very well, which is frustrating and adding to my stress. I struggle a lot with rumination and have been having flashbacks of times in my life I haven't thought about in a long time. It hasn’t been anything horribly distressing, but it does make me overthink about the past at times. I also recently had the most vivid, life-like nightmare that left me shaken for a few days. I plan to use the dream for the plot of a short story when I am feeling more creatively energetic because while haunting, the dream was also strangely fascinating. I’ve never remembered so much detail from a dream before. I’m excited to incorporate my dream into my writing as I usually write nonfiction, so writing a fiction short story will be a nice challenge for me.

I have more to say but am feeling quite fatigued from writing this all up. I’ll be sure to update this space more frequently when I am feeling more energetic. I hope everyone is beating the heat, staying vigilant despite the constant bombardment of distressing news, and appreciating the moments of peace and joy that enter your life.

XOXO,

Connor