Depression doesn’t have a face, a look, a persona. You can’t see depression by looking at someone. Equally, depression isn’t just ‘being on a downer’ or being sad for a while’. Mental health problems are real, as real as physical health problems.
I’m Melanie. I am the owner / operator of Ryding2Health. I have been self employed for 8 years.
I have been a sole trader, even employed staff. I have also had to make staff redundant. I have been through multiple international lock downs, an international pandemic. Something more close to home – I have even been through a lower leg amputation (due to a medical cock up) and all the while I’m still self employed. I wouldn’t change that for the world, but behind the face of it, I also have Dysthymia and PTSD.
These two photos were taken a week or so ago, both on the same day. On the left was the public photo I put out, on the right was the way I felt inside.
I do not want sympathy, I rarely even talk about it, you may even be forgiven for not realising. But.. do remember that how someone presents on the outside (or on social media) is not necessarily the same as what’s going on for them on the inside.
If you want to learn more about dysthymia and ptsd feel free to visit my blog and read more about what life is like from my perspective.
If you struggle with low mood, here are some of my top tips to keep yourself on a level.
My self care tips – prioritising yourself
- Prioritise you and your mental health. If YOU aren’t ok, there’s no way you can be there for anyone else in your life.
- Chart your mood, daily activity, energy levels, whatever you need to do to get real time data on what is affecting YOU most right now whether that be negative or in fact positive.
- Schedule regular time out. This can be called whatever you like. Mine is called self care time. At first I saw this as sitting around wasting time that I could use better doing x or y. I have come to realise since charting (step 2) that if I don’t do the self care.. EVERYTHING else suffers – the longer I ignore it the bigger the impact on the rest of my life.
- Know what it is that you can do to – calm yourself down, de-clutter your mind, improve your downer – or whatever your regular challenge is. This list needs to be simple things.. but make it looooooong!
- Know WHEN you need to engage step 3. This is about getting to know yourself on a deeper level.
Some resources I use
I am not affiliated to any of these, these are just things I use that work for me.
Apps
My favourite is headspace. You can get two weeks free then it’s quite costly but honestly it was money well spent, I use this app most, always for sleep stories when I’m struggling to get to sleep at night. I also use it for music to calm me, block out the background, de-escalate etc.
I have also used others like Groov, smiling mind, insight timer, clear head and Loóna. My next fave probably would be Loóna. It is also pretty good for all the same things as headspace but it’s more like interactive stories with some pretty cool graphics rather than lie back and listen. Insight timer was also pretty expensive and I just preferred headspace for what it did for me.
Diaries and journals
Oh boy I have used LOTS. But the one I have found works best for me is passion planner. I use the daily and the weekly planners in conjunction with each-other. The daily is more like a journal and the weekly shows me my whole week schedule on one page, which I colour code and then can instantly see what load I had. This usually tells me where the issues arose. These are both in digital format, but you can also get actual book / paper versions.
It also has space for daily / weekly affirmations, forcing you to note down what good happened that day or week. I love that feature of it.
On top of those I have a good old notebook and pen. I use this for thoughts and feelings. I find the action of writing on paper helps calm me in itself which is almost separate to what I’m actually writing.
There is a lot of research to suggest that the act of writing things down is therapeutic in itself. I have certainly found this works for me.
If you would like to know more about what I use, how I use it or would like me to show you in more detail how I manage my self care, from a mental health point of view, do feel free to contact me with your queries. I can’t promise I will answer them all but I will do my best.
