It's Not OK to Feel Blue [and other lies]

Fabulous and fucked up. Absolutely right. That’s what we all are. It’s called being human. Let’s celebrate that, not fear it. And let’s never, ever feel ashamed when the challenges of life become too overwhelming and the fucked-up part gets into the driving seat. That is called being normal.

It may even get more painful but if you feel it long enough it will eventually disappear. Every time you do this, you will realize your emotions aren't as scary as you thought and if you can last that pain, then you can do it next time too.

The most important thing I've learned is: be kind to yourself. Don't get angry because you feel a certain way and can't help it. Instead sit with what you're feeling. Try to understand where it's coming from and try to reason with it. Everything passes. Eventually.

It's OK to be not OK. It's OK to cry. It's OK to be angry. It's OK to ask for help. It's OK to stay in bed. It's OK to find it funny. It's OK to not want to talk about it. It's OK to go to therapy. It's OK to take medication. It's OK to be human.

I am coming to realise that we can all have years of stillness, whether it’s due to a break-up, grief, illness or just needing to be still. I am coming to know that being still can help us grow. Being still can help us discover. It’s OK to be still.

Your responsibility to change how you react, because you are the only person who can and you are the person it is affecting the most.

The same is the thing that stops you asking for help; it's the thing that makes you mutter, I'm fine, 'when asked how you are. The shame is the part that twists and turns inside you until it becomes and aching, rotting mass - too painful for one person to carry and too toxic to be explained.

my reworking of that marvellous list. 1. Live as enjoyably as you can within financial reason. 2. If you have a bath, draw an inch or two of cold water and splash about in it. A cold shower will have the same uplifting effect. 3. Never stay up all night watching Netflix Originals about serial killers. 4. DON’T THINK TOO FAR AHEAD. EVENING IS FINE, BUT TOMORROW CAN LOOK AFTER ITSELF. 5. Keep reasonably busy. 6. See as much as you can of the friends who like you, support you and make you laugh. See as little as you can of the friends who judge you, compare you to others and tire you (and don’t pretend you don’t know who they are). 7. Apply the same rules to casual acquaintances. If your instincts tell you they are toxic, walk away and don’t look back. 8. If you are low in the water, do not pretend that you aren’t. It makes it so much worse, and A STIFF UPPER LIP ONLY GIVES YOU A SORE JAW. 9. Good coffee and tea are a genuine help. 10. DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES OR FOR ANY REASON AT ANY TIME COMPARE YOURSELF TO ANYONE ELSE. 11. Cultivate a gentle, healthy pessimism. It can result in more nice surprises. 12. Avoid drama about what is wrong with the world (unless it is funny), emotionally powerful music, other sad people, and anything likely to make you feel anxious or that you are not doing enough. 13. RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS ARE HUMAN ANTIDEPRESSANTS. 14. Form a close bond with a local tree. 15. Make the room you most like sitting in as much of a comfy nest as you can. 16. Listen to David Attenborough. 17. STOP JUDGING YOURSELF. STOP PUNISHING YOURSELF. IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT. 18. Keep warm. 19. Think as much as you can about space, infinity and the beyond. Anything that much bigger than you can be very relaxing. 20. Trust me.

Your bones do not feel quite alive enough; they are stacked and locked in the wrong order. There is no fun, femininity, sex, sparkle or that angry, electrifying grace. Grace. That’s what you’re missing. That grace of hair and rolling hips and damp thighs and scuffed soles and clacking teeth hiding sharp tongues and straining necks and trembling hands.

Emotions are energetic signals of information and I had gone too long trying to ignore my worry, anxiety and lack of self-compassion – they had turned into deep sadness. This was a clear message, telling me that things needed to change.

What we need is a Tools to Help You Co-habit With Your Suffering Day. I don’t think that’s going to happen any time soon. In the meantime, though, here are my tools. Share. They might help others. Talk. Don’t keep it to yourself. There’s a great saying in Narcotics Anonymous: an addict alone is in bad company. Let people in. It’s scary and sometimes it can go wrong, but when you manage to connect with people, it’s magic. Let people go. (The toxic ones.) They don’t need to know – just gently withdraw. Learn to say no. I struggled so much with this, but when I started to do it, it was one of the most liberating things that ever happened to me. Learn to say yes. As I’ve got older, I’ve become quite ‘safe’. I am trying more and more to take myself out of my comfort zone. Find purpose. It can be anything – a charity, volunteering … Accept that Life is a roller coaster. Ups and downs. Accept yourself. Even the bits you really don’t like – you can work on those. No one is perfect. Try not to judge. If I’m judging people, it says more about where I am than about them. It’s at that point that I probably need to talk to someone … Music is a mood-altering drug. Some songs can make you cry, but some can make you really euphoric. I choose to mostly listen to the latter. Exercise. There is science to back me up here. Exercise is a no-brainer for mood enhancement. Look after something. Let something need you for its survival. It doesn’t have to be kids. It can be an animal, a houseplant, anything. And last but not least … Faith. I’m not sure what I believe in, but I do feel that when I pray, my prayers are being heard. Not always answered, but heard. And that’s enough.

4. It is not your fault

Despite knowing that minds, like bodies, can break, have we decided that, if ours does, we've failed at being human? Is that part of the shame we feel when we ask for help with mental health difficulties? We are ashamed because we think that somehow we have failed

We need to release our fear of wanting to be liked, in order to embrace our need to be respected

There is nothing unnatural or wrong with a line on our face any more than there is with clover or a dandelion in a meadow.

I spent a long part of my life believing myself to be an individual, easily detached from the people around me so that anyone could leave and I would be fine.

My life has always felt like it was being lived in the extreme: super, soaring, beautiful highs and crashing, heartbreaking lows, with not much in between.

Under the night sky I am gazing upon ancient stars, a cacophony of screeches rasping inside my mind, fighting each other for space. The stars are both mortal and endless.

I was ‘too sensitive’, and I never learned how to act. I was a baby who’d been kept away from germs, and now I was getting ill from anything and everything.

when I feel that unrelenting, overwhelming wave of sadness, and I am being driven insane or feeling much too sane … I think of these little things that I love: everyone, the things that hurt me, the busy, beautiful motion of you and me somehow going through our lives,

Nobody was busy somebody was interested .everyone cared

All emotions are good and they tell you important information: like anger might tell you when your boundaries are being crossed. The emotion itself is not wrong, but how you express that emotion may be.

The shame is the thing that stops you asking for help; it's the thing that makes you mutter, I'm fine, 'when asked how you are. The shame is the part that twists and turns inside you until it becomes and aching, rotting mass - too painful for one person to carry and too toxic to be explained.

Sure, you’ve trusted your inside voice before, but she got you into trouble: you were impulsive, selfish, indecisive. She created an upheaval and it was scary. Anxiety shrieked so loudly at the same time that you don’t remember she was also insightful and perceptive, and that you were quietly right.

But you are not ungrateful, you never have been. Always, you could see the whirling constellation of wonders that makes up your life. God, there is just so much to love. Dust motes lit up by stage lights, the creak of a book’s binding when it’s opened for the first time, the ache in the back of your throat from singing too loud, the whirring noise of a light bulb as it’s flicked on, a warm blanket in a cold room, a kiss when you didn’t know you needed one, dark pencils, the wet snuffle of a dog’s nose, strangers who say ‘Bless you’ when you sneeze, mahogany, the dusty silk of flower petals, good lines in bad poems, the watercolour mess of sunset, snow, liquid-ink pens and more. So much more.

The common magical idea when you are young is that the world is your oyster. Quite why the dreams of youth are tied up with the existence of a saltwater clam is a mystery to me. Perhaps it has something to do with oysters’ status in some lands as a delicacy. It can’t be anything to do with their adventurous spirit, as to the best of my knowledge they spend most of their time ‘asleep’. The thing is, though, society doesn’t tell you that as you get older you’re going to get absolutely battered again and again and again. And again. We accumulate damage.

Find the place in your body where an emotion sits, and get to know it. How big is it? Does it feel warm? Does it feel heavy? Does it have a shape or does it have foggy edges? The longer you feel it, the more you will notice it warp and change shape.