Sometimes when I’m not feeling good I find it hard to think of things to do – distractions. In the past I’ve made lists and put aside things that are meant to soothe me – with the help of various others we formulated a list of things that I could put in a box and go to when things got gloomy. However I never did actually make the box; it was always just the idea, but apparently even making the box felt too tricky a feat.

I do have tools, things that help me relax: colouring, having a bath, listening to music, making playlists, talking to me plants (ha), having a nap, playing a game, all the standard stuff. But that’s all stuff I do before I reach the point of ultimate stress, ultimate crap. I do good things for myself when I want to feel good, when I want to take five, when I want to take care of myself. But what about when I’m not feeling that desire? Too often I can find myself at the pit of that black hole that rules my mind, where I don’t feel as though I can be nice to myself, that I don’t deserve to be, or that there is simply nothing else I can do other than treat myself like crap. (If you know that feeling too then I truly do empathise, because really it bloody sucks).

Earlier today (4th Jan 2017) I was feeling uneasy, I wasn’t necessarily in a bad place, but I knew that my mind was trying to force me to join the dark side. I had a horrible craving to either eat far too much food, get angry at myself, drink too much, hide under my quilt and think about all the bad stuff, generally I just wanted to be bad to myself. In the past I’ve given in (given in is too light a description, sometimes I have no choice and I can’t fight the urges, but other times it’s a bloody hard, exhausting fight). But wait, today I decided to pay attention, maybe my body needed something, maybe it needed food, maybe I needed a good cry, maybe I needed to just pay attention to whatever was trying to make me pay attention.

In general the day had been pretty ace, the weather was lovely, I had my first day back at work since the Christmas break and I had a pretty fun time at work, actually being weirdly motivated to work, disciplined enough to actually do the work and splitting my time saying Happy New Year to my colleagues. Back at home things were still peachy, my housemate had surprised us all with a huge bundle of samosas and onion bhajis (hero), and I’d had a pretty tasty yoghurt and a badass banana (not sure why that’s relevant, bananas and I have a weird relationship, sometimes they weird me out, I can never manage to eat a whole bunch before they miraculously have to be turned into banana bread before they ruin.) Anyway, the evening, the day and the morning was pretty decent, in fact the past two weeks have been pretty ace, despite a few stressful matters things have been going quite swimmingly. Until me old friend, my personal enemy, the non-existent villain in my brain decided to make an appearance.

So, after a few minutes of really struggling to know what to do, walking around my room looking for distractions, reflecting on those lists I really should have made, knowing I didn’t have the energy or patience to wait for a bath to fill, for colouring in pictures that are just sketched images of fictional people having the time of their lives, I felt ever so slightly hopelessly and pretty exasperated thanks to my mind.

So instead of dwelling on what to do and what not to do, after stupidly looking up images on Pinterest of melancholic quotes, and dark and dreary photos (social media is both friend and foe) I decided to quit and just have some rice crackers (coated in chocolate of course) and put on a very cheesy film. (Thank the lord for Netflix).

Now I know this doesn’t justify a whole blog post, but I’m feeling pretty smug and proud that I managed to find a nice, almost relaxing way to say screw you to those nasty aforementioned thoughts (the film got a bit stomach-in-gut-what’s-gunna-happen-next for a bit). I’m genuinely pleased that I managed to distract myself, or even that I acknowledged I was feeling pretty crappy and did something positive about it. Yeah I know ‘normal’ ‘everyday’ humans do this all the time, but throw me a bone here, I’m learning how to walk.