Are yyou weak? Are you strong? A photo of superwoman mid-leap.

Why I Stopped Pretending to Be “Strong”

Mental health, Wandering thoughts

Today I’m thinking about weakness and strength.

“I envy you that you can afford to be weak,” a friend told me years ago. It made me think. Probably mostly because of the paradox. If being weak is something enviable, why do people attach a negative meaning to it?

I don’t consider myself weak. I used not to mind people attributing this quality to me because I don’t see myself that way. I’m not weak. I’m open about my feelings. And that’s not very common in today’s society, so much so that people can even find it unpleasant.

I think that calling people “strong” or”weak” is nonsense. I don’t think there’s such a thing as “weak” – it’s the same as trying to define the concept of “normal”. People are more complex than the artificial labels of “strength” and “weakness”.

The times I didn't die: A woman's face part visible through a curtain of leaves

The Times I Didn’t Die

Mental health, Wandering thoughts

I didn’t die. Maybe I should have.

The doctors said I had stopped growing when my mother was pregnant. They said I would be mentally retarded. My parents were proud, so proud, that I turned out to be gifted instead.

Their first child.

My mum was under great stress when she was expecting me. She and my dad lived with my great-great grandma, and she was bossy. When the mother has anxiety during pregnancy, there is a strong probability that the child will inherit that anxiety as well.

What I remember from regression therapy:
I don’t want to be here. Can I go back?
I want to shrink, to disappear.
I don’t want to have this body.
Oh God, do I have to do this? Let me out, let me out, please.
I don’t want to be here.

Welcome to the Un-Life

Welcome to the Un-Life

Mental health, Wandering thoughts
2 Comments

A year into protracted withdrawal abstinence syndrome from benzodiazepines.

It has caused anxiety.
It has caused depression.
It has caused great suffering.

But probably the worst is how it has stolen my feelings. All of my good feelings have all but disappeared.
It’s torture.
Day by day in the same greyness.
Day by day in the same emptiness, losing my will to live.
Day by day, every day is the same.

A person, offering two options to choose from: a green apple in one hand, and a donut (with a bite-sized chunk missing) in the other.

You Have Been Thinking About Willpower Wrong

Mental health, ADHD

It has nothing to do with character. We often imagine that some people have a lot of willpower, while some have less. We judge people on this basis. That is a terrible oversimplification. The same person has varying amounts of willpower throughout their day and throughout their life. There aren’t weak-willed people, there are just weak-willed periods and moments. Everyone has them. And they don’t mean anything bad. It’s absolutely normal not to have 100% energy and motivation to charge into doing things all the time.

A woman sitting by the window with a sad expression, hugging herself. The weather outside is grey and gloomy. The image has a winter depression (or seasonal affective disorder) feel.

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) – How to Survive It?

Mental health
1 Comment

Every year, when autumn approaches, I’m watching every day of the summer that goes by, and I’m afraid. I feel like I’m slowly moving towards a deep, dark hole that I won’t be able to crawl from for half a year. That I will not really be alive during that time. This time every year, I feel like I’m dying a little bit. Then the winter comes, my mood and energy levels fall, and I feel like I’m crawling during the gray, gray days. My motivation and willpower disappear down the drain. I can’t seem to do anything productive. Instead, I just lie down and read or endlessly scroll Facebook. I count the days until the return of spring. Many of you probably know this battle. But while winter blues SUCK, they are ways to make this time of the year at least a little easier.

You Make Negative Feelings Worse When You Try to Stop Them. Do This Instead.

You Make Negative Feelings Worse When You Try to Stop Them. Do This Instead.

Mental health

My therapist often repeats one sentence to me. I believe I would be able to recite it even if someone woke me up at midnight. (Don’t try to wake me up at midnight, though. At least if you value your life.)

The sentence is: “You create what you focus on.”

Let me explain. When we experience something unpleasant, we want more than anything for it to just go away. If you experience pain, you concentrate on the fact of how much you want the pain to stop existing. If you have mental health problems, you often think about how you can make them easier to bear, how to make them go away.