Mental Health issues

“Don’t speak unless you can improve the silence.”
Old Quaker saying

Yesterday there were no words. I could not improve the silence. I have said so much in the last couple of blog posts they left me spinning and spiralling downwards and then like a spinning top I just kind of fell over and came to rest. I was quiet. It wasn’t a good day, it wasn’t a bad day, it was a day when I needed to stop, to allow the well to fill again. And so I did.

I puttered through the first part of my day, after taking care of the dogs and making my coffee, here at the computer going through e-mail and Facebook, answering people who had kindly left comments on previous posts, and then I knew that what I needed to do was to listen to something that would lift me up. I started by watching a TedTalk that Danny Gregory recommended, Stefan G. Bucher – Watch Your Head — Tales from the OCD Frontier. It was truly amazing, he is so unbelievably talented and prolific but he talks about what it’s like living in his head. He ended his talk with this, and I will never forget it… “If you’re blessed with a calm mind and you run into someone like me ask them these three questions: ‘What is the world you’re in right now?’ then ‘Can you give me the tour?’ and finally ‘How can I help?’ It just plain blew me away. It’s the kind of thing I wish I had been able to share in my last post. If someone dear to you struggles with some form of mental illness, these just might be the three most important questions you can ask.

I moved on to watching a couple of TedTalks and some other youtube videos I found on bipolar disorder and forms of mental illness. This was not productive. It was entirely too depressing and I needed something uplifting. Then I came upon a number of videos by the amazing Glennon Doyle Melton. Now, I have no idea why this is but I have just not wanted to like her. I think because she was an Oprah Super Soul Sunday person whose latest book Love Warrior is all the rage and hotter than hot. I figured it was just one more book on love and relationships and I just wasn’t reading that. I was, of course, wrong. I did buy a cheap paperback copy of her earlier book, Carry On, Warrior, some time ago, which I have never read. I had read wonderful things about it, things I thought might be helpful for me, but still I had some sort of grudge. Until yesterday. I watched Glennon’s Super Soul Sunday talk. It was fabulous! I watched several of her youtube videos and then I watched the most wonderful video. It was her TedTalk, Lessons from the Mental Hospital, and it was so good I just absolutely fell in love with her. You have to listen to her, you just must. I went back to the Super Soul Sunday talk and then I got on amazon and ordered a very inexpensive copy of Love Warrior. I can’t wait to read that book. Next I watched a wonderful interview that Glennon did with Marie Forleo, and I started listening to a podcast Glennon just did on one of my favorite podcasts ever, The Good Life Project with Jonathan Fields. But by then I was doing housework that needed to be done before my friend Noni came over for dinner and the podcast didn’t work well on my phone that I had propped up on the kitchen counter while I did dishes. I will listen to that today.

Glennon Doyle Melton changed things for me yesterday. She lifted me up. She gave me hope. She had been bulimic since she was very young, an alcoholic, a drug user, suffered from severe anxiety disorder, and more. Her journey to recovery and the life she lives today is awe-inspiring. She has started amazingly successful website communities, written books, and raised millions of dollars for charity. What she overcame, what she became, and what she has done and is doing are mind-blowing. She is my new Shero! I can’t wait to read her books.

By the evening my dear Noni was here. We had a lovely dinner and watched an episode of Downton Abbey. I have been having fun because Rachel, my daughter, and I started watching it some time ago and then, after 4 seasons, we got off track. Recently we started watching it again and finished the series Wednesday night! I started watching it with Noni on the weekends a couple of months or so ago and last night we watched the first episode of the last season. It’s so much fun watching it again and watching it with Noni who is so enjoying what Rachel and I enjoyed so much together. Double the fun! Noni will be back tonight and we will binge watch 3 or 4 episodes. It is a good weekend.

Today I am not doing badly but I have the familiar uneasiness as though I just can’t get comfortable in my own skin, and I feel a little anxious. But I am going to push through today watching and listening to more of Glennon Doyle Melton’s podcasts and videos and I will spend a little time in the chair snuggled with the pugs reading my current book which I am really enjoying, The Wishing Year by Noelle Oxenhandler. Then Noni will come, and the weekend will unfold.

I hope wherever you are you are finding moments of peace and ease. I hope there are moments of grace. I carry you in my heart, always. May we find rest in this day…