Go To Your Box: Using The Tools Available

Earlier today I started to feel a little stressed out during a meeting. Chest tight, fluttery heart, slightly nauseous. All the classic signs. So I took a deep breath and quietly imagined a little girl with a tape recorder (she looks a bit like the featured pic here). She was yelling at me. I quieted her down, then pointed her at a playground and told her that she should go play and she could record all the things she needed to tell me. We’d listen to them later. She ran off happily.

Then I pulled myself back to my meeting and continued on about my life, anxiety dying down.

Ok, that’s a weird story, but here’s the point: if someone had suggested trying this to me a year ago, I probably would have thrown up in my mouth a little bit because it sounds so stupid. But there’s a reason for everything in the image. The reason that my anxiety is a five year old is because that’s about the earliest I remember the anxiety, that’s the level of complexity that exists in my anxiety, that’s about the level of noise and obnoxiousness that my anxiety is: a five year old who won’t shut up. So I gave her a tape recorder so she’d feel listened to and so she knows that I’ll hear her concerns at some point. And I send her to a playground so that she’ll feel safe. Anxiety has too much energy to go to most of my calming places, so I send her somewhere in which it feels like that part of my mind still gets to move and run and yell, but I just don’t have to listen.

And as bizarre as it is, it does actually help to calm me down. Last night I came up with this scenario and one for guilt. Unlike anxiety, guilt looks a bit like this:

 

He’s quite insistent and doesn’t shut up. He sits on my keyboard when I try to write and sticks his butt in my face when I try to read. So I made him a box with a towel in it and so now he can be more like this:

 (credit: breakingcatnews)

And while all of this is a little bizarre and a little silly, the point is that it works, even if just a little bit. It changes my perspective on the emotion. It lets me look at what that emotion does for me and whether or not that thing is actually useful right now or not. It jolts me a bit out of the spiral place. And so when I remember to do it, I will do it. I don’t care if it’s stupid or if there’s no evidence behind it. If I can personally feel my anxiety diminish after trying to do this, then I’ll keep doing it.

Cause here’s the secret: if telling my brain-guilt cat to go back to its box will have an effect, then that’s a tool. If building a playground in my brain as a safe space for my anxiety to run in circles for a while helps my breathing even out, then it’s a tool. Anything that I can do to manage my emotions that doesn’t involve hurting myself or someone else or making situations worse is a tool. And the biggest secret of recovery? Take every tool you can get. Regardless of the bizareness.

I mean sure, don’t just take any treatment you can get. Research your therapist. But if you notice that you feel better when you blow bubbles then go to Target and buy out the god damn bubble aisle, because you take the tools you can get.

Maybe it’s just exhaustion talking because I’ve been in the treatment game for almost 4 years now, but I think it’s an important insight to remember that your tools don’t have to fit with some sort of value-laden or coolness factor image. You get to make your life easier and better however damn well works for you. It might be weird, it might be trite, it might be woo woo hippie crap. I don’t care. As long as it’s a tool that is effective for you then use it.

This might be a lesson you have to learn through experience, but I hope if anyone out there is at the beginning of a treatment journey, they can realize that that weird tic they have that makes them feel better is a totally acceptable coping mechanism. I hope the communities around mental illness can start to proliferate tools and offer everyone anyone tools they might need, because they’re hard to come by and shouldn’t be passed up.

Kid Free and Likely to Remain So

Arg. So I ran across a link to this article today about why it’s so very horrible to not have kids. I’m a bit miffed to say the least, as I don’t intend to ever have children and this person apparently thinks that this means I’m selfish and will be alone and uncared for in my old age. But here’s the problem: this article makes pretty much 0 logical arguments about what the actual problem with people who don’t have kids is. It suggests that they’re taking up valuable space where families with kids could have schools or be living in larger houses…but really the problems there seem to be bad access to education (not enough funding or bad layouts of cities) or not enough affordable housing for large families. The family of two living in the suburbs really isn’t taking away from other families, as suburbs are a privileged living situation in the first place and one of the larger housing markets. And if they’re miserable out there, isn’t that their own business?

 

It suggests that childless couples are heartless and want to ban kids from everywhere, or that they should go live some sort of crazy party lifestyle in downtown instead of living in the nice residential neighborhoods with schools. Well those are some pretty broad generalizations with no support to back them up, and if someone wants to live in an area with a school in it they’re completely entitled to do that. Honestly they’re putting in money to the school through taxes and local referenda and not using the resource, so I don’t see how it can be a negative. This suggests that a childless couple has nothing to contribute to a neighborhood which is highly insulting in my opinion.

 

As for the heartless idea, many childless couples actually love kids but don’t want them for themselves. Lots of couples with kids are actually really bitchy towards kids. So…that’s a pointless argument.

 

So as far as I can tell, this article gives no real reasons why it’s BAD for society to have childless married couples. It seems to hint that it might not be a choice that leads to happiness or fulfillment, but it also recognizes that happiness is subjective and different people might want different things, so…not sure what to make of that. However I can give you a multitude of reasons why I feel that it is ethical for me to remain childless.

 

1.The world in general has an overpopulation problem. We don’t know how to distribute our resources in an equitable manner. With this being the case, I think that it’s a better use of my energy and resources to try to care for the people who are already alive than to try to bring more people into the world. If I did want children, I would adopt.

 

2.I have a mental illness. This impacts my decision in a number of ways. First, I do not want to pass that on to any children of mine. I KNOW that all of my mental illnesses are highly heritable (particularly eating disorders) and if a child of mine ended up with one I would not be able to forgive myself. Second, I don’t think that I could be an adequate parent knowing how I react to stress. I would not want to bring a child into this world knowing that they have a high potential for mental illness and knowing that the stresses of raising a child would make me a less than ideal parent and potentially trigger relapse for me.

 

3.I don’t have the resources to adequately care for children and I don’t think I ever will based upon my career path. It’s unethical to bring a human being into this world if you can’t take care of them.

 

4.I feel that I can contribute more to my community in other ways. If I were to have children, I would be more likely to turn into one of those angry, bitter people who wants kids out of all restaurants. This may be selfish of me, but I think it’s entirely ok to be selfish enough to take care of your well-being. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact our world might be a little more ethical if all of us were willing to take a little more time to think about how we can care for our mental and emotional health.

 

Maybe I will never get having kids. That’s ok. There are people who will never understand what it’s like to be a married woman without kids (because if there’s something that’s frowned on in this society that’s it). There are people who will never understand having a mental illness or being black or being rich or being poor. Not all of us have to have all the same experiences. THAT’S OK. We can still respect each other and the choices that others make, and try to stand up for our own needs while taking others into account (so for example I’m terrified of kids. I might choose to go to a more upscale restaurant or a bar so as to avoid kids, but I would never try to get kids kicked out of a restaurant because I know that having kids can be tough and that’s rude).

 

We don’t need any more us vs. them logic, especially in terms of marriage, child-bearing, and family choices. We’ve got that from here to the moon. We’ve got stay at home moms vs career moms, we’ve got religious vs non religious, we’ve got married vs unmarried…what we DO need is more empathy on all sides and the recognition that each of us find fulfillment in different ways and contribute to society in different ways. I may never produce a brilliant child who goes on to do something awesome, but perhaps I will do some amazing organizing work that contributes to mental health access or to education access. Perhaps I will write something that touches other people. There are so many ways I could contribute to the next generation and I don’t to be pigeon holed as selfish because I have chosen not to use my reproductive organs.

Look at how happy I am up there without any kids and with someone who loves me. I think I’m doing pretty well.