This month has marked five years since I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. I’ve dithered on writing about my anniversary, my “five years in recovery” because I’m afraid of being a sickener about it, to myself and everyone else. I fear making it my entire personality, the way some people do with hating Coldplay or talking about coffee.
Besides, I’m still unwell. I’m still in active treatment. I’m not that far past a clinical suggestion that I might go back into the Big House for another go at it. I’m not recovered from my eating disorder and the mental challenges behind it.
The two months in hospital marked a defining point in my life though. Everything since then has occurred in the context of trying to get better and, honestly, finding a point in living. Not only finding that point but making things easier, more enjoyable, less doom-inducing.
In reflecting on the past five years, I’ve been able to appreciate what has helped. And since I spent those two months in hospital on the HSE’s dime, I feel somewhat duty bound to share some of the things that have helped.
Five years ago I entered a psychiatric hospital with an eating disorder
I finally realised what was behind my ‘Maybe I like the misery’ approach to other people’s driving
My night at the bingo hall: I was waiting on one number. My heart was in my mouth
When the 46A ends in two weeks I will say goodbye to those first feelings of freedom and adulthood
I’ve accepted that change takes time
I used to get so frustrated with the tools of recovery. With the meditation, the mindfulness, the slow-acting medications, the insistence on practice and routine. When I started my treatment I wanted a quick fix. After decades of feeling “other” I was desperate for my life to start. Five years on I can now see how skills and therapies and repeated mantras have slowly changed my brain chemistry. Just small moments of soothing – colours, smells, images, textures – can help the neuroplasticity process and provide the grounding that’s so important to us as humans.
‘Don’t put it down, put it away’
Procrastination, avoidance and chaos are cornerstones of poor mental health for me. I’ve appropriated a tangible rule from the ADHD community which insists that the detritus of life – coats, shoes, glasses, laundry, the small remote – should only ever be put in its place. And instead of striving for perfection, which is another thorn in the side of mental wellness, strive for “useful” or “handy” or “done”. I’ve stopped trying to keep my jewellery in one designated box primly shut away in my bedroom. Instead, it is scattered in little bowls around the house in places where I am likely to shed and don earrings or necklaces.
I’ve stopped looking for the point of life
At least, I’ve tried really hard to stop looking. At my lowest mental ebbs I became obsessed with why we’re all here and more specifically what the point of suffering was. I Googled for the answer relentlessly and begged psychiatrists and doctors for the answer. I tormented myself wondering how everyone wasn’t driving themselves mad looking for this answer; how they were just doing school runs and wearing office attire. After several years of searching, I’ve finally settled on a loose interpretation of absurdism philosophy. The point of living is to live. To experience life. There is – to me anyway – no definite reason why any of us bother with anything and so my answer is to accept that it’s all absurd and do it anyway.
I’ve reread Wintering by Katherine May more than once
There are a couple of books and texts that bring me comfort and hope. Wintering is part memoir, part self-help about navigating the difficult “winters” of life. May’s book also emphasises a connection with nature, which I believe is critical in improving mental health. If you go on TikTok you’ll find plenty of Gen Zers advocating for anyone annoying them to “touch grass”, and they have a point. The Wild Remedy by Emma Mitchell, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer and Devotions by Mary Oliver are also on the reading list.
‘Remember, green’s your colour, you are spring’
This final line from To the Young Who Want to Die by American poet Gwendolyn Brooks has had such an impact on me that I have the words “green” and “spring” tattooed just above my knees so I can always look down and be reminded. I’ve learned over these five years that suicide is not a word that should not be uttered. It is not something to be dodged and hushed. It is the devastating culmination of crisis or hopelessness for those who take their own lives. Finding ways to push it down and find the light (or the green) is life changing.
- The Samaritans can be contacted at 116 123 or email at jo@samaritans.ie
- The bodywhys.ie helpline is at 01-2107906, or email alex@bodywhys.ie
