Mental Health Awareness Week – Tips for looking after our Mental Health 💆

That's really helpful thank you .

My sleep is very disturbed right now I use a cpap machine and my events have gone up per hour , although they are withing normal rage of someone without sleep apnea , I have been used to only 1 or 2 per hour and I am now having 4 .

I think being out in nature helps too for MH .

To be honest my go to coping strategy is to just stay in bed or just struggle to get out of bed, last week I spent from Thursday to Monday in bed. I’ve only left my flat, once since the end of February. Just don’t have any confidence mentally or confidence in my appearance either. Most of the time I’m scared of my own shadow, let alone being around other people. Living with multiple mental health and physical health disabilities that are all at war with one another, let alone when your inner chimp comes out to fight them all is just brutal! I’ve just had my Quetiapine upped to 150mg alongside maintaining the high dose of 45mg of Mirtazapine I’m on. I am trying hard to eat healthy, but I just have no impulse control and end up ordering a take away like I did for 8 days straight a few weeks ago, of which I’m ashamed. I find it hard to take stock and really analyse how I’m feeling, because each day I just don’t honestly know which way the wind is blowing, I self destruct a lot with me not taking my antidepressants sometimes due to me being like, why should I care when nobody else cares, then I end up for over 24 hours, or when I don’t take them for two nights straight I was up for nearly 48 hours! I have always been my own worse critic, always being critical of everything I’ve done, questioned things I’ve bought, or the decisions I’ve made in life, or more in the last five years - been highly critical of my looks, my body size, my weight and in all honesty I just hate everything about myself, I always feel like a failure, I often look upwards and say to loved ones I’ve lost that I’ve failed them and let them down.
I’m trying to meditate each day, but it’s just trying to get past my mental health and all the years of muck I’ve got in my head which makes it so much harder.

As for eating healthy I’m trying to, but I knowingly eat food that I know is going to either result in an Acid or Bile attack! I did say to my GP last week, that to curtail this self destructive behaviour is that I’m going to start living the middle way. Which is by following the Buddhist Way of eating, which is a breakfast and then a dinner and then nothing until the next morning. The idea behind this is to give my stomach and digestive tract time to have a board meeting together about digesting my food (thanks to having cp it’s slow to release into the lower part of my stomach) having a cut off time should lessen the impact of me having the bile attacks I’ve been having since having my gallbladder out in 2022, but I’ll just have to keep a very simplistic diet so as to avoid all the stuff that is on the Acid Reflux Watch List!!

If I do sleep, I end up sleeping with a stuffed toy and a pillow, think I may have to invest in a bigger sloth. 🦥 I think part of sleeping in bed with a pillow and the stuffed toy is deep down not being used to sleeping in bed alone after just short of ten years with my ex wife up until 2023.

I think the only nice thing I’ve physically done myself for a while now is book a holiday to Cape Verde next year, of which I’m already having kittens about!! I’m sorry there is a second good thing I’ve done for myself, is I’ve filed for divorce from my ex wife and don’t have to pay a thing, thanks to legal aid 🥳 thankfully there is a new thing called no fault divorce, so no mud slinging from either side! Just got to wait for the ex to respond, although the papers have gone to our old rented house that she no longer lives in, her family, friends and herself wouldn’t provide me with her address when I asked them on a fake Facebook Account I set up, because I don’t do social media. Thankfully I’ve saved the messages and emails to show as proof that I’ve tried to find her address so as to show the court as by doing that you can apply without without the other parties consent! Hopefully by the years end, I’ll be a twice divorced, not single and ready to mingle, just an old monk living out his days.

Hi Holly, yeah I not only went through a lot with my second wife but also my first wife and also all of my family, which has really done a number on my life and health to say the least. Had an email about my ex not responding to the divorce papers today which was expected as it went to our old address she was living at when I last spoke to her last year. What’s really lowered my mood today, is as I was filling out some court documents, I happened to look at the date and time and had to take a pause. I realised that at the time with today’s date, it would have been exactly six years ago that we were saying our vows 😔 fair to say I’m not in a great place.

I’m traveling to Cape Verde on my own next year, something I’m questioning myself on a daily basis. I’ve only left my flat once for a doctors appointment a few weeks back and that’s the only time I’ve been out in nearly three months. Most of the time I’d much rather stay in bed and just shut out the world.