Fix Your Life: Notes From Reconstruction
So, I don't really do self-help, for a variety of
reasons, but I've had this article jangling around in my head for a
minute.
I'm in the middle of working on a bunch of health
conditions, and changing my lifestyle and habits to actually try and improve or
manage them, and I couldn't help but think about how deeply ineffective and
frustrating most self-help tends to be.
This, then, is a quick rundown of techniques I've been
relying on and making use of while I've been trying to improve my
functionality.
Where I started
For some context, I've been struggling with really terrible
burnout from my editing practice for a few years now. Life stuff happened, it
was bad; it left me with mental health scars. I won't bare every inch of my
soul for the internet, but suffice to say that the Tolstoy quote about how
unhappy families are unhappy in their own way is not that accurate. Trauma can
follow exhaustingly repetitive patterns between people's lives. It's not
particularly exciting or salacious, although there were a few dramatic moments
here and there.
What matters is, I got better, and I got back to editing,
but I also got worse. As anxiety and depression paralysed me and depression
weighed me down like pocketfuls of stones, I couldn't finish projects, letting
down clients and friends one by one. I dragged my feet, though, terrified to
change my career and lose all the progress I'd made.
I'd been suspecting I was burnt out for years, but I was too
scared to let go. My wife's pregnancy, two house moves, and our son's birth let
me delay the decision, even though I'd already made my mind up in private. Then
I had a mental health backslide a couple of months ago, my partners got
together and insisted I deal with my shit, and well, I had to do exactly
that.
What I'm doing
For most of my life, I've struggled with body image and
weight issues, with a glaring exception - in the first year of university, I
had to bike to school every day and was also swimming regularly, and it made a
stark difference in my mental health. Accepting that I needed to work out
regularly whether I liked it or not, but not worrying about weight loss or
gain, has been shatteringly effective. I've also changed my language around
working out, avoiding the term "exercise", which is too loaded with
trauma and negative associations for me personally. I considered my options and
went with biking and swimming, with a surprise addition of some gardening,
which I really enjoy; in addition to some housekeeping and chores, which I was
already doing, of course. Biking and swimming make me feel fast, strong, and
graceful, and having physical ways to move that make you feel good is
absolutely vital.
You will not fix your life by suffering. You'll just
exhaust yourself and end up in the same place you started, or worse. Find ways
to move your body that are a) safe for your physical constraints, b)
cost-effective, and c) sustainable for you personally. One person's
torture is another person's pleasure, and vice versa. Don't just do what
everyone says you should do if you absolutely fucking hate it.
I'm also in four different kinds of therapy right now, doing
a short-term intensive for three months, which I'm about halfway through right
now. It's pretty tiring, and yes, it can take a lot of time each week. Finding
therapy and groups that work for you is essential. Again, it's not going to be
easy, but there's a difference between difficulty and pain. Free therapy groups
are abundant online and more available locally than one might suspect, and I
have to admit that group counselling has been surprisingly helpful. The
dominant approach is called Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, an improvement on
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, and it's working really well for
me.
Subsequent to the therapy thing...I'm using mindfulness a
lot, and for me, it's working well. Now, mindfulness is actually a hazardous
technique for some people, and can worsen their mental health, but many others
benefit from it. However, it actually refers to a bunch of techniques. For
me, that's colour breathing, grounding, and exercises to create sensory
awareness of my body. Sometimes fully tensing all muscles and
releasing them can really help. Point is, mindfulness involves a variety of
concrete techniques and approaches; it isn't just a sort of vague mindset
thing. It's a bunch of stuff. Try things, carefully. Those therapy groups often
talk about techniques with more expertise.
Frustratingly, the whole thing about scheduling has also
been proven true. It's often told to neurodivergent people that we need to
schedule our shit, and...yeah. I use a digital calendar app to block off my
time and handle both regular obligations and appointments. For instance, I have
reminders about when to scoop our cats' litterboxes, my therapy sessions, and
my intended swimming times all colour-coded out. Adjust your reminders'
frequency to help you actually pay attention to them.
Self-care often gets described as either really unpleasant,
important tasks like doing the dishes and scrubbing the toilet and making phone
calls, or as a sort of fuzzy, vague, indulgent thing, like baths and eight
kinds of skincare. However, it's a balance of these things. The most important
thing I'm finding is re-framing what I consider a reward or a treat.
Very recently, I've been shifting the perception of a treat
from physical rewards to actual time. Setting aside my little chunk of time to
read a book and have a little snack and a cup of tea, or to draw some words for
my daily drawing challenge, has immensely enriched my life. The way I
even have time for those things is that I've had to identify where I was
wasting time. Doomscrolling can take many forms, and it's important to
remember that our phones and social networks and apps and Netflix and games and
such are designed to keep us watching. Spend time on people, things, and
actions that either make you happy or challenge you.
Another thing has been moderating the content I take in more
carefully. I'm limiting some of my interactions with politics, because quite
frankly, a lot of people are just fucking using the news to self-harm, and I
don't want to be one of them. To
quote Propaganda the rapper and activist, tapping out is vitally
fucking important right now.
I will never advocate for people to wrap themselves in a
bubble of ignorance either. Completely disengaging from the news is
really dangerous. But limit your exposure, and especially if you're on multiple
social networks - for god's sake, don't try to be politically focused and
active on every single one of them. That's a shortcut to burnout. Internal
boundaries are required for survival. Don't let anyone guilt or shame you into
thinking otherwise. They're not respecting their own limits, and they'll end up
paying for it or hurting other people along the way.
Caveats
There are several important components that are making this
possible for me. One is, frankly, financial support from my parents and
partners. Now, I realise that's not doable for most people, but I'm not going
to be one of those people who pretends they've hauled their asses up by their
bootstraps with no help or support. My family isn't wealthy, but the small
amount of money and more generous supportive time, has been a huge advantage.
My unconventional family structure with my partners also makes things a hell of
a lot more doable and accessible.
One of the most important components of this whole thing is
just time, period. I'm lucky enough to live in Canada, where we have a flawed
but still extant social service and safety net. I also have health insurance
that covers my therapy. Being white and having an English-speaker name means I
get the benefit of the doubt in a lot of situations. I think about these things
a lot, and I'm grateful for them.
We're often taught to be ashamed of privilege, rather than
practical about it. If you have it in any area of life - and most people have
it in one or two ways - lean on it and use it. Play into it, if you can do so
without harming yourself mentally. Use privilege as a ladder for
yourself, and then extend the same help to others who don't have it.
That said, it's important to get your shit together enough
to survive, and balancing that with community care and help is tricky. I'm not
going to say "fuck everyone else, save yourself" because frankly,
that's also bad for you, but it's also really important to learn your
limits and know how much you can do without hurting or exhausting
yourself.
What should you do?
Still, if you find yourself in need of help direly, the best
thing I can suggest to anyone is to stop trying to do it alone. If you have a
few poor friends, band together. If you're living alone, move back home or find
some kind of co-living situation. A bunch of disabled people working together,
or family or friends, can patch each other's holes both financially and
situationally.
If you already have roommates, family, or housemates,
moving to a cheaper living situation or talking to the landlord about a rent
reduction might be necessary. Changing living situations to be around
people who will actually support you might also be necessary. I know
some people find the thought of living with others unbearable, but if it's a
choice between living with others and dying alone, find a way to make it work.
Have boundary and alone time talks. It beats working yourself to death for an
illusion of independence.
I cannot recommend enough that, wherever you live, you
take advantage of any resources available. Rent relief, affordable housing
programs, any kind of food stamps, free therapy groups, and outreach centres.
There are no prizes for not using the social safety net, while it still
exists.
Furthermore, the social workers I know have made it clear to
me that their programs actually live and die on participation. Even if the
waitlists are long, it's much better to get involved, because then local,
provincial/state, and federal programs see that *the resources are being used,
and therefore need to be funded.* Yes, I know what's happening in the USA right
now, but they haven't actually destroyed the entire system *yet*.
But Magpie, I can't do any of this stuff.
Now, for those who are looking at this list and going,
"I don't have a safe home, I don't have a regular diet, I don't have
supportive people..."
The truth is, your life is already in the process of
collapse, and my type of recovery plan is not right for you right now. What you
need is to work on stabilizing your living situation. You absolutely cannot fix
your shit right now, and that has to be okay. I'm sorry to be the one telling
you. However, some of these tips - utilizing program resources, talking to
friends and family to pool resources, scheduling, and getting movement in - are
all doable. Working through the panic and overwhelm is important.
If you have any type of privilege or resources you can
lean on, without harming yourself, use them. There's no sense in
feeling guilty about it, and remember that what people think of you doesn't
have to reflect who you are inside. Again, I stress that there's a line here
about self-harm - other trans folks will know this line well, because it's common
for nonbinary people to have to portray themselves as binary-gendered, for
instance - but as long as drawing on a systemic or familial resource isn't
actively hurting you, it's okay to do it. To be even clearer, approaching
abusive family members for help is probably a bad idea, but may be required in
survival circumstances.
It's often said that "nobody can save you but
you," and while that's got elements of truth to it, it's also completely
wrong. Support networks of various kinds - systemic infrastructure and
interpersonal ones - are the only way out.
You have to ask for what you need. Yes, I know that's
fucking scary. Yes, it means figuring out what you need. But it beats dying
slowly and suffering all the way down.
The quick and dirty summary
To fix your life and mental health issues, you need:
1) Financial support - a stable place to live and food to
eat, plus therapy fee coverage if applicable
2) Emotional support - people who will support and enable
you to change and make changes
3) Health plans - these are going to be different for every
person, but movement is a basic need. Find a safe and sustainable way to move
your body regularly. Figure out food supplies and needs. Same with meds or
other therapy access. Procrastinating on health issues does not make them go
away, and in fact, can make them get worse. They also won't make waiting lists
for appointments get any shorter.
4) Scheduling - I know, it's annoying and overwhelming, but
you gotta do it.
5) Advantages - if you have any form of privilege that you
can use without causing yourself mental or physical distress, use it.
6) Self-knowledge - this is fucking hard, and comes inch by
inch, but you have to learn your own mental and physical constraints. What can
you do sustainably? What help can you give others without tiring yourself
out?
7) Boundaries - limit your news exposure and pick a few
areas you care about. Overwhelm and witnessing suffering can be a form of
digital self-harm. People will try to convince you that this is cowardly, but
it's not your job to perform enlightenment or empathy. Also, you can't know
everything, and trying will exhaust you. Consuming media is not the same as
actually doing shit for your community, whether local or global. Supporting and
helping others is essential for building mental health, but you also have to
nourish yourself.
I realise a bunch of these need to be tailored and adjusted
to each person's situation. I definitely have a bad-faith Tumblr/old Twitter
ghost in my head arguing with every single point, but this is the best I can do
to dole out some survival advice.
I'm going to end with some media recommendations - for news,
I really like Cool Zone Media's podcasts; It Could Happen Here, Behind the
Bastards, Hood Politics, There Are No Girls on the Internet, and Better Offline
are probably my favourites. I also like the journalistic coverage from Some
More News, Vox's Today Explained, What Next from Slate, and Frontburner from
CBC.
For non-news, I'm really enjoying enjoying working through
all the albums I've been meaning to listen to over the years, including new
music from artists I already like and exploring artists whose songs catch my
ears. I've been making absurd numbers of playlists, so
if that's your thing, check out my Youtube and see if anything intrigues
you.
Oh, and I've gotten back into
actually reading books for pleasure, which is amazing. I'll probably have an
article about modern gothic horror coming out soon, because that's what I'm
fixated on right now, but everything I'm reading has been wall-to-wall bangers.
You can follow my reviews on Goodreads, Amazon, or Storygraph,
but please be aware that I am *NOT ACCEPTING REVIEW REQUESTS* for
books.
A writer and artist, Michelle Browne lives in southern AB
with xer family and their cats. Xe is currently working on the next books in
her series, other people's manuscripts, knitting, jewelry-making, and drinking
as much tea as humanly possible. Find xer all over the internet: *Website * Amazon * Substack * Patreon * Ko-fi * Instagram * Bluesky
* Mastodon * Tumblr * Medium * OG Blog * Facebook *
