mental health, gardening and new tech

[beachlass]

Fantastic article in NY Times about speaking out about living with mental illness. The parts that leapt out at me:

It took years of study in psychology — she earned a Ph.D. at Loyola in 1971 — before she found an answer. On the surface, it seemed obvious: She had accepted herself as she was. She had tried to kill herself so many times because the gulf between the person she wanted to be and the person she was left her desperate, hopeless, deeply homesick for a life she would never know. That gulf was real, and unbridgeable.

That basic idea — radical acceptance, she now calls it — became increasingly important as she began working with patients,

Dr. Linehan was closing in on two seemingly opposed principles that could form the basis of a treatment: acceptance of life as it is, not as it is supposed to be; and the need to change, despite that reality and because of it.

This resonates so much with me... the balance and interconnectedness between acceptance mental illness (depression, in my case) and working at it. Acceptance has never meant giving up for me; it's always been a shift towards healthier patterns.

And speaking of healthier... I went out yesterday; spent $180 filling my antidepressant prescription and $40 at the garden centre. Plants are beginning to be really on sale, so I've planted up 3 new containers and filled in some spots on the new garden beds I put in this year. I'll probably go back this morning to pick up a couple more things. Another fancy lavender, for sure. My big perennial lavender is just blooming this week. 

My book allowance had money left over this year (ending in June) - so I treated myself to a blackberry playbook. I'm absolutely loving it, but after a week, my RSI is acting up in my right wrist, so I'm clearly going to need to be careful about using it. 

I hope you all are well. I am slowly beginning to unwind with my time off... noticing there's quite a bit of stress stored up in my body, that's starting to come out with daily yoga practice. I'm trying to let those feelings come and go without freaking out; some days are better than others. 

Comments

[kass]

omg, that article is amazing. The last line made me cry. So much more light indeed.

[beachlass]

*hands you a hankie*

[dorothean]

I need to read that when I have time. I recognized Dr. Linehan's name because she's one of the inventors(? founders?) of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, which I've been doing since last fall, and which is amazing.

[beachlass]

It's not a hugely long article, if that helps. And it mentions DBT in it.