Accounting for Humanity

As the varying post frequency recently may suggest, the last couple of months have been busy, and stressful. Very stressful.

Note: The content below is not a guide nor medical advice, this relates to my own personal experience of my mental health struggles. If you are experiencing any of the below issue please know experienced help is always available for you. Please reach out to your doctor or local mental health services.

Dealing with phantom expectations

This has always been, and remains, a great challenge for me and most certainly acts as one of the last remaining strongholds for my anxiety. As a situationist, I often place myself in “other people’s shoes” when considering scenarios and this year, this has proven a grave mistake when it concerns stress management. I absorbed the stress, fears, and frustration of others, and as a result my own work slowed as I spent more time in an anxious stalemate, unable to move forward and yet, equally unable to back away to safety.  My want is to help others when I can however, in doing this I fear I have set a dangerous precedent in making myself ‘too available’. I know how it feels to hurt, to panic, and feel so lost that the smallest of problems feel like being trapped in an inescapable abyss of terror. All you want is to find someone who can help you to find a way out, because fear has led to you believe that you do not have the strength to do this alone (you do, but I know anxiety is seldom reasoned with). Fear freezes you in place, so much so that you cannot hear those calling out to you, offering you the chance to make your way to safety. For myself, knowing this feeling well and in a bid to help relieve it, I have made a severe error, I waded into the abyss too, only to get lost myself. I now too was trapped; ridden with my own anxiety and guilt for not being able to rescue those in need. While my intentions were noble, they were misguided and now I had disappointed myself as I had created a vision to others that I could never attain.

I allowed others to believe that I could be their guiding light in all conditions and thus, I created an expectation (whether real or perceived in my mind I cannot say for sure) that I could do everything. I cannot do everything; this is a lesson I truly must learn.

Escaping the Labyrinth

As I found myself lost, I had to remember my ‘training’ (also know as therapy but we can stay with the movie-esque language for dramatic effect). It was nothing extravagant, I simply had to stop and breathe. When consumed by panic and anxiously ‘ranting’, my therapist would always calmly tell me to stop and breathe, following cycles of slow deep breathing broke the prior cycle of panic. In a way it was like I was breathing in the fog and on opening my eyes, the land was clear around me once more; I could see and better yet, I could move when I felt ready. I admit this does not suggest that all was better, and I could carry on as I was before the stress; stress and anxiety are exhausting, often I find myself too tired or too drained to move on immediately. While this does add some frustration (as regaining lost research momentum is tough) I need that time to rest, when the air is clear I can plan, see where I went wrong and how I can learn from this in future. With this moment of clarity and calm, I can start my journey back to my own work, my own life.

Boundaries: Being true to yourself and those around you

So, what did I learn this stress? First and foremost, I learned why most people call out to those who are lost instead of wading in toward them. There will be times when you will dive in, but it must be remembered how much strength and courage this takes as you will need to return to dry land, as the Grand Canyon trail signage states “Going down is optional, coming back is mandatory”. I admit I would still take that plunge to guide someone back to safety, but I must remember there is a difference between struggle and inconvenience, and this was where my lesson lay. I will always be there to be by the side of those truly lost but I must recognise that treating every negative situation as a catastrophe can distort reality. In my experience, these past few months I made the proverbial ‘mountain out of a molehill’ as there were actions that I could have taken that would have proven more helpful (as I eventually did and attained the result needed). For these smaller life stresses, I must build boundaries. With distance and clarity I can be more helpful to others while protecting my own mental health. I can be an advocate for those around me, but I cannot pretend to be their saviour, I need to know and make known my limits to avoid unrealistic expectations.

With this realisation, from this week I put on my ‘out of office’ (noting that I am focusing on my thesis) and I assessed where I am with my research, where I need to be and where I go next. I have made excellent progress writing-wise (though I suspect a writing retreat helped cement this focus). I am now in my second year of my PhD and now I must embark on data collection thus, I cannot be present at all times for others (particularly when help can be found in other sources). From here on out I am allowing myself to be a little bit more selfish and I think everyone will benefit from that…

Note:

This post will read very vague and dare I say ‘fluffy’ in its detail, the reasoning is that it is not my place to share details of anyone’s experiences other than my own thus, I have not given any specifics in the source of my recent stresses (plus, the stress was of my own making, it was in no manner the result of anyone else’s actions)