Tag Archives: depression

2023 – The Year of Resilience

mental health, , , , , ,

In a country, many centuries ago, 3 teenage boys were sentenced to be thrown into a fiery furnace due to the fact that they made a decision to not compromise their beliefs and doing what was right. The country in question was a superpower of its region and ruled by a feared dictator who had very sadistic tendencies. In spite of the proverbial ‘poo hitting the fan’ for these lads, they had something about them that enabled them to endure and as a result they were released unscathed.

If there is one thing that I will leave 2023 thinking about, it’s the fact that I had to smile when I reviewed my entries for the end of 2022 and 2021. I decided not to look back at my entry for 2020, because, well, you know…

I was going to start this blog post with the usual line of how difficult this year was etc but instead I am extremely thankful.

What’s that you say? Thankful? (Is she actually ok?)

Yep, I am actually thankful in a very weird way. I have felt over the recent years that I may have missed a very important jig-saw piece to life. I would typically reach the end of a year, hopeful that the following year would be better than the last, that my luck would change, that there might be a degree of reprieve to the many ‘poos hitting the fan’ moments. But with this mindset came the disappointment – disappointed that the cares and issues of life would hit, one after the other, feeling as though I’m constantly in ‘survival mode’, existing more than living.

So it is with great pleasure that I leave 2023 learning that whilst I cannot escape these problems, I can bolt on an additional mechanism to assist with how I deal with them. I thought I’d “smashed” it with having those quiet times in prayer, meditating on God’s Word, setting key boundaries and limiting what I could physically deal with. But this year has taught me that as well as what I’m currently doing I have realised that it has enabled me to recognise and develop resilience.

Now you’re probably thinking “Well, you have been doing this throughout all these years” and in some respects you are absolutely right. I guess the difference with this year has been the fact that I chose not to recognise it as an after effect but to be more assertive in facing challenges with the tools – or some might say weapons – at my disposal.

For me, ‘Resilience’ was my ability this year to face a challenge with the knowledge that I will eventually come through it. The challenges were tough, brought me to my knees (work, just….work), even traumatic (watching Mum in October fight for life in A&E after another heart attack). Through God’s grace I dealt with each situation knowing that I had a Saviour who understood – who would plant ideas/solutions into my head which then worked. Who flooded me with a sense of encouragement during the particularly challenging moments. Who influenced and changed the timelines of projects to enable me to deal with the emergency with Mum.

Image by Bruce from Pixabay

Recalling all the other occasions when I managed to get through trials helped, along with maintaining healthy boundaries at work and basically making significant use of saying “No” when to say “Yes” would have been so much easier and less confrontational. It helped a lot and for that I am thankful.

From my last post entry I had invested more time in my hobbies this year as a pressure release from all the drama. I’d even begun looking over the book that I have been writing.

So, today my mind recalled the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, 3 Jewish teenagers taken into captivity approximately 300 or so BCE. I can imagine these kids having experienced quite a significant level of trauma, rotten days, where the proverbial “poo hit the fan” for them. Yet the account of them refusing to obey a king who demanded that they forfeit the very thing that helped them cope with life by kneeling and worshipping a statue, being thrown into a fiery furnace as punishment, and then subsequently surviving against such impossible odds, spoke to me of how – over time – they developed such an enviable resilience to make it through to another day. What they had is what we’ve all got at our disposal too.

How amazing is that?

So today, I celebrate being a child of the Most High God who never said life will be a bed of roses but who did promise that He is with us every step of the way.

This has equipped me to recognise and look forward to 2024 and all that it will bring.

Keeping an Eye on Your Mental Health

Uncategorized, , ,

I was sifting through my Twitter posts and saw a meme which reminded me of how I felt at the moment of seeing the meme, and I thought I’d post it here:

source: i.chzbgr.com

If ever there was a meme to sum up me during 2020 it was this. But I was thankful because as I approach the shortest day of the year, I am keeping an eye on how I am doing mentally. Last week I was caught short and by Friday I seriously wondered if I was going to be able to make it through to the end of next week. Work has suddenly become more hectic which coincided with my son’s year group being on a 14 day self isolation stint due to one child testing positive for Covid. I was back to home schooling while holding down a full time job with no family support as my siblings are either in high risk groups or live too far away.

This is my third job this year. When we entered into Lockdown in March I was on contract but this particular contract was about to end and so by lockdown I was working through my notice, still training users how to quickly use MS Teams which had been frantically brought in to cope with the organisation suddenly being forced to work remotely. All of us was home and I was home schooling in between.

After this contract ended, I was blessed to move into another job. Whilst still in lockdown, I had to map out how I was going to deliver training for a course, get to know new work colleagues, learn the basics of approximately 5 computer programming languages (one each week or so) with a 48 hour turnaround to then deliver them to a course group. I still – as a single mum – had to try to keep the family together who by now were beginning to exhibit the stress of missing school friends and the familiar routine of school. It was during this period that we lost Knuckles to boot and I crashed and burnt resulting to needing about 2 weeks (I had the most amazing boss back then). But the task of juggling all these things meant that I needed to return back to common ground which was where I resigned and went back to contracting.

It’s crunch time with this current role but compared to the last role where I was having to grasp and apply my understanding of programming languages I’d never used before (beyond Python), this wasn’t as stressful. My primary school aged son was back in school and up until a week ago things were manageable.

Now, I am sharing this with you because by the end of last week I had forgotten about a few things which in turn made my stress and mood plummet:

  1. I failed to force myself to attempt only those things I knew I could achieve and to say ‘no’ to anything else. My Project manager has no idea what I was juggling and I should have told him
  2. I rushed into the day and took late nights. My mind was swimming with my ‘to do’ list and as a result I was going to bed later, shooting awake at 4am. With this one I managed to catch it mid-week but made sure this weekend to just plain sleep!
  3. I had stopped taking little walks in my garden. Part of my screen break was to wander in my garden and take in the goldfish in the pond, do a bit of weeding – just little 10 minute activities which helped me maintain being on terra-firma. Bad weather and work had caused this to pretty much stop
  4. I failed to put my son before work, which upset him and which in turn upset me (never like seeing him disheartened)
  5. I was rushing into the day and skipping my quiet time with God. Yes, a face palm moment for those of you who are believers

Friday evening I was an emotional, weepy old dear who began to wonder whether I was going to be able to pull myself out of such depressive thoughts. And yet on reflection (and after two very good nights sleep) I had forgotten to consider just how seriously blessed I am.

Well the good news was that it is possible to turn things back!

It was while I was reading back on my earlier posts that I was reminded about my post called “Running from your Lynels“. The main thing that I had forgotten to do was to remind myself who was with me every single step of the way, good or bad, hard or easy times. You see, with God all things are possible.

No one ever said my life or my experiences were ever going to be a walk in the park, 100% of the time. But by noting when things are beginning to slip and then reminding myself of who I serve and therefore, immediately casting all my cares, worries, fears, weariness, anxiety, depressive thoughts, discouragement, apathy…. you get the idea…. onto Him, the burden gets easier to carry.

The main silver bullet on this occasion that significantly carries me through these episodes of SAD/depressive thoughts is singing. Today, with the weather looking dull and overcast, I put on some worship songs on You Tube which included lyrics as well and belted out some praise and worship to the One who sustains me.

So if you have been drawn to my post, it is by no mistake – if you are feeling low, leave a reply below my post and I will stand in agreement with you in prayer to reassure you that you are not alone and you will get through this.