***TRIGGER WARNING*** This is a post primarily about low self confidence and feeling like a failure. The post will talk about general mental wellbeing and the impact of social isolation and loneliness, chronic pain, disability, depression and suicidal ideation. Although there are ideas for managing, please only read on if you feel strong enough. If you or someone you know is in need of mental health support, then please visit my mental health and suicide prevention support page, where you’ll find a comprehensive list of places to go with a variety of ways to make contact and find help. Thank you. ***TRIGGER WARNING***
How do you spend your low time? Some people seem to sit with it, to feel it and listen to it, while some prefer to try hobbies, watch TV or listen to music. Reading, taking up hobbies, calling someone supportive – you name it. I’ve tried it. The problem is on my worst day it’s possible nothing will work, so I’ve never stopped researching alternative ideas for mental health recovery and restoration. It’s what this website is dedicated to.
One of my favourite ways to pass such time is looking for answers to the very thing that’s feeding me the symptoms. And although searching for relatable and trustworthy information on any health concern can be tiring, finding helpful pointers can feel like hitting the jackpot, and in a low period it’s incredibly validating too.
It was while on another quest for such inspiration that I found and watched a short TED talk recently. I was increasingly feeling like a burden to my family; my health was impacting my ability to take part in their lives. I was making their life harder and starting to question if my presence was even worthwhile. I asked YouTube how to stop failing and it returned a ten minute conference provided by licensed therapist and author of ‘How to keep a house while drowning’, KC Davis. The TED talk is titled How to do laundry when you’re depressed, and it’s available free on YouTube.
The issues KC discusses during the video have been on my mind for considerable time, and after hearing her experiences it’s now clear I’m not alone, which reduced my shame and helped me put together this post feeling less embarrassed.
My version of drowning
Several daily-life stumbling blocks were created when I became unwell in 2021 and, while the search for long term solutions to my symptoms continued, the obstacles I was falling over started to grow.
As early posts on this blog describe, the physical impact on my health following multiple covid infections has been huge, uncharted, and difficult to unravel. My ability to move around, my concentration, my memory , my pain levels and even the way I look have all be affected. Rather than finding a pill or therapy that put me on the road to recovery, lockdown limited the availability of NHS staff to provide help. Within a year I was also having something we referred to as ‘crashes’. It now looks like those are functional seizures caused by Functional Neurological Disorder (more on this to come), but just getting close to an answer has taken nearly 5 years, and while I’ve waited and hoped, I’ve felt more and more useless and vulnerable. The strong, confident and organised version of ‘Steph’ has been chipped away at for so long that…well, I’m not who I was, nor who I hoped to be. Unsurprisingly this has all had in impact on what I can do at home, which is where my shame sprouted and why KC’s TED Talk resonated with me so clearly.
Simple tasks, important jobs, daily chores and critical self-care became painful and, if a ‘crash’ was thought to be coming, potentially dangerous too. As my life got smaller, I haven’t just become socially isolated, I’ve also become physically limited. Calls that would have been made straight away were left until the last minute, enjoyable haircare and make-up application was too time-consuming and locked my joints for nothing, cleaning had to be kept to a bare minimum, cooking was often too dangerous, shopping lists too complicated, emails too difficult, remembering too hard, and multitasking was impossible. Jobs that I’d taken hold of before were passed to my partner, and I hate myself for it.
You can even see it happening here on this website, which was once my pride and joy, and the hobby that gave me a reason for being, a reason to keep trying, and a bit of hope for the future. Early on my posts were regular – a couple of times a week I’d make the effort to write a poem, research an article or write a post about lived experience of mental illness and chronic pain. The people who contacted me with their stories made it clear I wasn’t alone and pushed me on. It was making the smallest of differences, and even when it was hard to do, spending time at my computer meant I wasn’t useless or finished yet.
As my health worsened even maintaining this website became hard. I stopped typing my posts, and started using my dictation software more and more. Time spent researching was too complex for my brain to compute, leading to unbearable headaches and nausea. My vision got worse and looking at the screen got harder and harder. Drawing was painful for my hands, and my sadness that I could no longer illustrate regularly was painful too. Eventually, about 18 months ago, the posts slowed down as my cognitive problems got worse. Now I’m lucky if I manage to write, edit, illustrate and finalise a post once a month. A simple task that I love to do has become a painful difficulty I can’t pull together and, once again, I hate myself for it.
Sadly my responsibilities at home have followed a similar path. Washing, drying, folding, cooking, shopping, cleaning and managing life just got harder and harder, and now my partner fills all the gaps I can’t manage. Guess what? I hate myself for it.
Going back to KC’s TED Talk, she mentions a contact who told her that at one point she’d wondered how useful she was to her family if she couldn’t even do the dishes. It’s a statement that lots of people will just nod along too, but as a mother in a similar position, I heard those words deeply. It gave me goosepimples. The same sort of question has been part of my internal narrative for years. Suicidal ideation given a reason to exist is a horrible position to be in, but as the house became less tidy and chores got longer I asked myself the same horrible, scary existential questions.
This website has always been about finding positive solutions to support people trying to juggle chronic pain, mental instability and ‘normal life’, but I’ve failed at one more thing. I’ve rarely listened to my own advice. Hearing the TED talk I realised that I too was constantly in pursuit of perfection, and giving myself an ‘F’ every time I didn’t manage 100%. As KC asks, what if perfection isn’t the goal? What if the minimum really is enough?
Finding the middle ground
Like most people with extreme anxiety, I live with the idea that I’m not good enough playing on repeat. Most days I try to drown that voice out so I don’t fall deeper into the pit of depression, but failing at things feeds the voice, making her louder and louder until I have no choice than to listen. She has been even more audible in the last 6 months or so, a period where I’ve even stopped engaging with the things that make me happy, because the barriers have become harder to bypass.
My therapist and I have talked many times about the extremes I hold on to as important and the grey area in the middle that I ignore. Being well or unwell mentally are the only two options I see as available, but with his help I’m trying to learn how to access and accept the hidden grey area between them. For example, spending a day listening to soothing music, watching a movie with my kid and eating a meal seems like wasted time, but in reality this was the day after around 8 hours of severely depressive symptoms where nothing at all happened. So in comparison I’d coped well on day two, and in many ways that’s surely a win and therefore progress too?!
I’m learning.
It was only when I watched the TED talk that I realised these rules apply to my other failures in life too. Maybe there’s middle ground that I might be able to reach within my current limitations so I’m at least managing part of the daily life tasks I berate myself for failing at. For example…
PROBLEM – Housework
PASS – Tidying the house fully
FAIL – Doing no tidying, leaving anything that I know needs doing
GREY – Accepting that not everything has to be done. Making a list of the things I can see that need doing and finding ways to manage them differently. Doing the visual jobs first so I can see results. Completing one job a day until the list is finished. Planning to do things on another day when the work isn’t within my limitations.
PROBLEM – Homework
PASS – My kid submitting finished homework that she’s proud of and understands because I supported her appropriately with all parts of it.
FAIL – Doing nothing to help with her homework. Not getting it done in time. Helping at the last minute.
GREY – Spending time helping with my daughter doing homework in a way I can manage. Allowing plenty of time to help by planning it on multiple dates. Telling the school I need additional time and explaining why. Sharing the load with my partner and helping more with subjects I feel confident with.
PROBLEM – Body confidence
PASS – Feeling happy with my reflection
FAIL – Looking and feeling horrible (normal feeling)
GREY – Doing things that make me feel good first. Taking time to do small acts of self care (moisturising, using a cooling eye mask, listen to soothing sounds with my eyes closed) to relax. Wearing clothes that make me feel good. Practicing make up on days when I can for enjoyment, rather than feeling I have to.
PROBLEM – Feeling useless
PASS – Being successful at something I’m proud of
FAIL – Having no purpose and/or feeling like a burden
GREY – Finding ways to help out more around my limitations (folding the laundry while sitting down, making dessert in advance rather than cooking dinner under pressure, writing with tools that make it easier (dictation software)) and taking away any schedules I have made for myself that add unnecessary pressure.
Taking the time to forgive myself and work out ways of picking things back up if I don’t manage to do something is at the core of this system. Stopping myself from thinking that failing to do anything is a complete loss will take time, but reframing the ‘Fail’ into an opportunity to try again or work differently is critical.
In all cases the ‘GREY’ area is about breaking life into small wins rather than seeing one big ‘FAIL’ over and over again.
In conclusion
It’s impossible for me to end on a positive note about myself. I’m still a ‘work in progress; and my self-love isn’t there. Saying that, I believe that trying this system, one small step at a time rather than one enormous failure at a time, might help me better organise my mind and drown out the voice of failure at least a bit. Writing this post is the start of the process for me…well, the first small step actually…so now I’m passing the baton to you.
I realise the problems and answers I gave earlier are a bit personal to me, but I hope you see what I’m getting at. If the perfectionist in you is also sprouting misery for perceived failures, maybe you can apply some of this grey-area theory to your life as well. Start seeing the small wins as wins…BIG wins in fact…because, in the end, when you’re mentally and/or physically struggling, then another day survived, another hour not feeling broken, another minute not telling yourself you’re failing IS huge progress.
If you or someone you care about is in need of mental health support for any reason then please contact your healthcare provider as soon as possible. I also have a page on this website dedicated to mental health and suicide prevention support lines, where you can find a long list of places to call, email and webchat for advice and support.
Creative Steph 