Concrete Action

April 17, 2020 ~ jlrowse ~ Leave a comment

I took a break from poetry for a few days to work on this, something that’s been on my mind lately, and that something is concrete action.

I can dream with the best of ’em, and brainstorm ideas and click “like” on inspiring social media posts, but as I age, I’ve been increasingly drawn to concrete action. What is feasible? Practical? Reasonable? Actionable?

This is an unprecedented time for anyone under the age of 103. And navigating the new landscape is tricky and exhausting. I see platitudes blasted on social media from a cross-section of people, and the one thing many of those responses lack is concrete action.

Example: Telling college and high school students that their #1 priority is their mental health and not school.

I absolutely agree. As someone who works like mad every single day to keep the depression under control, this is true. Keeping your mental health in check is vital right now.

What I see lacking in these posts is feasible, practical, reasonable, and actionable steps to make mental health their #1 priority. And as a high school teacher, I know it’s not enough to just tell kids “make this a priority.” They need some structure, some guidance, some ideas as to what that actually means. So let me throw some things out there.

Many health systems have offered telecounseling. My insurance company uses an app called AmWell that offers mental health services. A local hospital system has a counseling hotline. Boys Town offers emergency intervention via phone, email, or text, even in non-pandemic times.

But what if you aren’t quite at that point? You either feel weak (PLEASE DON’T) or that someone else needs it more (NOT TRUE) so you hesitate to utilize those services? What then?

I am not a mental health professional. I must be clear about that. But if you are feeling like your mental health is teetering, there are less soul-baring resources for you to try.

The National Alliance for Mental Illness has a video library, including stories from people sharing their own experiences, as well as other educational resources on their website. Sometimes just knowing other people have been where you are can help you feel less alone.

The CDC has a list of recommendations, including meditation (Simple Habit and Headspace are my favorite meditation apps), checking your diet, exercising, and connecting with others. These might seem too simple, or some days they might seem like too much. These things alone do not “cure” my depression, but they do help keep it at bay.

I’m currently taking a class from Yale University on Coursera called The Science of Well-Being, and holy buckets is it fantastic. My preferred method to manage my depression is cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), and this course is all about meta-cognition, looking at how our brains are wired by culture and then trying to challenge that wiring. It’s fantastic, and not for nothing: on the days I do anything with the class, I feel more relaxed.

Something else I’ve done is reach out to people. This is not easy for me. My depression brain tells me that I’m a burden and other people have bigger problems than mine and I shouldn’t add to them. But in the past three weeks, I’ve arranged several virtual meetings to connect with people–a couple whom I haven’t talked to in years. It’s been great to catch up in those cases, and it’s been good to maintain the relationships I never let lapse in the first place. And seeing their faces while we talk has been a thousand percent better than texting.

The platitudes are nice, and I do feel relieved to see them; an acknowledgment that none of *this* is normal does help. But following up those platitudes with how to live by them is equally important.

Hang in there…

December 20, 2019 ~ jlrowse ~ Leave a comment

If you or someone you know is in need of immediate mental health assistance, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

A year ago, I was quite sick. I didn’t want to admit to anyone how sick I was, including myself, and it wasn’t until I almost drove myself to the hospital that I realized how sick I was.

As I was stopped at a red light, deciding whether to turn left and drive home or go straight and drive to the hospital, I knew I needed more consistent care.

Every other time I’d gone to therapy, I realized, it was for an acute, immediate need. And once that need seemed to resolve, I’d shake hands with the therapist that helped me survive, and move on, never addressing the larger issues at play with my depression.

Somehow, (friends, family) I got through the one-two punch of holidays and the musical, and once the show closed, I set about finding a therapist that would treat me for the long haul.

Last night before I went to bed, I looked around my home. No dishes in the sink. No clutter on my dining room table. Blankets on my couches neatly draped. Laundry washed, dried, folded and put away.

I thought about this time last year, and while I was never living in squalor, I wasn’t taking care of a lot of small things that add up to making a big difference in my quality of life.

I hate doing almost all of those things.

So in the spirit of this post that has gone somewhat viral off and on for the past couple of years, I present you with:

A List Of Things I Hate Doing But Do Anyway Because They Help Keep Me Alive (not-comprehensive).

Using a meditation app morning and night.
Doing my dishes every evening.
Creating daily to-do lists of 5-7 tasks, and completing all tasks.
Planning all meals a month at a time.
Meal prepping on Sundays.
Budgeting once a week.
Putting away my shoes every night.
Only spend two nights a week at home.
Forgiving myself for creating lists that aren’t in multiples of 5

Holidays are hard. Life is hard. And when I look back on the past decade, one triumph is our collective culture’s admission that talking about mental health helps to destigmatize it. It’s easy for me to write posts like this; it’s harder to click ‘publish.’

But I’m publishing anyway, because right now, at 8:05 p.m. on a Friday night five days before Christmas, I don’t feel like I want to die. Despite this year’s heartbreak, despite major personal shifts, despite not accomplishing everything I wanted to this year (and decade), I’m feeling okay.

But I know someone in this world might not be feeling okay. And I guess I hope that this, or some other brave writer’s work, finds its way to that someone, and that they hang on for one more second, one more minute, one more hour, until those time segments become days and weeks and years.

For a great podcast doing excellent work to destigmatize mental illness, check out The Hilarious World of Depression.

When a person with depression gets Some News.

March 28, 2019March 28, 2019 ~ jlrowse ~ Leave a comment

I woke up this morning to a grey sky and cold air. After yesterday’s warm sunshine, the stark contrast convinced me to skip Jazzercise and stay in bed a bit longer.

Then I received some disappointing news. The nature of the news is irrelevant to this post. But to set any inquiring minds at ease, no one is in mortal danger and life is generally still fine; the news was just disappointing. And my brain revolted.

The trajectory I experienced upon hearing this news was:

This news sucks.
Therefore there’s not much of a reason to live.

Keep in mind the news was just disappointing, not earth-shattering or life changing. There are possible solutions to this news, even. But it didn’t matter–my depression-riddled brain does not care about logic or solutions in times like these. I imagine healthy-brained people do not always react in such a way; though I fully admit I’m assuming, since I don’t know what having a healthy brain is like. Maybe their trajectory is like this:

This news sucks.
But other things suck too.
I wonder what I can do about this sucky news.
1. Solution A
2. Solution B
3. Solution C
4. etc….
5. One of these is bound to work.
Nothing I can do about it now, so time for sushi and friends and things will work out.

Instead, I have to fight back with what I’ve learned from cognitive behavior therapy, and I did the following:

I took a deep breath.
I picked up a Cadbury creme egg (it was 9:30 a.m., and eggs are breakfast food after all).
I put down the Cadbury creme egg, telling myself chocolate was not the answer right now.
I looked at my calendar for the day and saw the following events:
1. Lunch with friends
2. Volunteering at a flood relief distribution center
3. Hanging out with my niece
4. Baseball opening day
5. A new cookie recipe to try
I took another deep breath.
I decided to *not* cancel on lunch, volunteering, or my niece, even though I wanted to.

Then I fixed myself a dirty Diet Coke and got ready for my day.

It might seem like it was a simple exercise in mind over matter, but in truth, it was a Herculean effort. And while I distilled things into six steps there, it was probably closer to 18 steps total, because each major decision required multiple small decisions. That’s what it takes sometimes when my brain decides the depression is going to have A Day.

Lunch was great, volunteering was holy, the time with my niece was delightful (she’s my favorite–she told me so), the cookies delicious, and though the Braves lost, it’s opening day and there’s a thousand months of baseball until the playoffs.

Sometimes I forget how much progress I’ve made, how incrementally easier it is for me to recognize what my brain is doing and do the Necessary Things to stay healthy. So for that realization alone, I’m actually a little grateful for today’s disappointing news.

What I Resent The Most.

June 22, 2018 ~ jlrowse ~ 2 Comments

It’s been a rough couple of weeks.

Yesterday, faced with the reality that if I was unable to change things on my own, I’d need to seek professional help again, I mustered a tiny sliver of working brain and plotted my day:

If I couldn’t do this, I told myself, then on Monday I would make some phone calls and get help before things got much worse.

It’s 8:03 p.m. as I write this, and I did every thing listed here, save for two items–I didn’t write at 2:30 because something came up at work that needed my attention, and I’ve closed down the last programming lesson tonight to make up for that writing time.

As I drove to the afternoon Jazzercise class, I turned off the podcast I was listening to and listened to myself instead. I compared how I felt in that moment to how I felt 24 hours earlier. 72 hours earlier. A week earlier, at my darkest point.

I felt better. And I immediately resented it.

I don’t like that in order to be well and productive during the summer, I need to plan my life in 30 minute increments, give or take 5 minutes here and there. Why can’t I just be productive?

Every summer when school gets out, it’s a struggle to create a routine, but I know without one, I can spiral fast.

Today, I moved from one task to the next, and only checked social media accounts for about 3 minutes at a time (as opposed to earlier this week when I couldn’t tear myself away from Twitter for, I dunno, hours?). I’m sure this helped my frame of mind as well.

What’s more is that I don’t feel nearly as exhausted as I have other days this week. The tasks were planned meticulously, to make sure I gave myself breaks to read and write and practice the piano. I made sure I gave myself a longer buffer around meals so I could sneak in The Daily Show or an episode of a sitcom to lighten things up.

So while I resent planning days like I did today, it’s clear that I must. And since watching a movie is next up, I best get to choosing which movie I’ll end my day with.

We Interrupt These Six Word Stories…

March 23, 2018 ~ jlrowse ~ 1 Comment

This school year, I’ve composed a six word story about each day. While at school, I am on the lookout for the funny, the inspiring, the poignant. Some days I have too many six word stories to choose from. Some days, there’s nothing.

And then there are the days when the six word stories I could compose would invite speculation or questions. Today was one of those days. The only things I could think to write must exist in my personal journal, and most likely will live only in my memories and perhaps an occasional conversation.

It didn’t help that I woke up sad, so some of today’s events just augmented that sadness. I started to panic a little because spring break has started, and breaks are notoriously difficult for me.

And then this post popped up in my Facebook memories.

I can’t quite articulate how much work it is to keep my depression in line. Work I often do not want to do.

Here’s a scene: at 3:00 p.m. today, I’m sitting in our office with Stueve, and students are milling in and out of our office, grabbing equipment and asking questions. I know I should eat my yogurt and granola, because I know I should go to Jazzercise at 4. But I don’t want to do any of those things. And I say it out loud, I don’t want to eat my yogurt and I don’t want to go to Jazzercise.

I want Cheetos and Ding Dongs and an 8-hour escape to Stars Hollow.

And the student sitting in a chair in our office said, “You should eat your yogurt and you should go to Jazzercise because you know you’ll feel better if you do.”

She’s right. I know I’ll feel even marginally better if I do. So I eat my yogurt and I go to Jazzercise, and I feel marginally better.

It’s the first night of spring break, and here’s what I know: writing will help, and scheduling time with friends will help, and working a little will help, and watching movies will help and of course, yogurt and Jazzercise will help make sure the next ten days won’t send me into a spiral.

So here’s today’s six word story: Some days, you do what’s necessary. #EvenWhenYouDontWantTo.