I Am Spun

Here's how I'm trying to hold still.

Whee, let’s go down a mental health rabbithole (again)!

Ramshackle Glam is a website about parenting, divorce, aging, mental health, and other funny stuff. Free posts are published every week, but FYI if you want to upgrade you’ll automatically receive an eBook that I wrote just for paid subscribers. I’m pretty psyched about it :) And remember, if you become a Founding Member you also get a one-on-one consult with me about writing for a living, personal branding, or *literally* whatever’s on your mind.

A couple of posts you may have missed:

• It Doesn’t Have To Stay That Way (Some Thoughts On Divorce, Seven Years Out)

• Oh, My Hoarding

• …And Then I Cried (True Stories That You Will Think Are Lies)

And now…your post!

This has been, shall we say, a slightly crazy year, what with the wildfires and the career upheavals and the “cardiac event,” and now (apparently?) World War III (which I shall not be discussing in this post, because we’re having a mental health awareness moment over here and…you feel me.)

I have to be honest: For the past couple of months I’ve been spinning out, more than a bit. I’ve been living fully in the old midbrain, bouncing from fight to flight to freeze with very little room in between for things like peace and genuine productivity. Sleep? Idon’tthinkso. Plenty of time in bed, yes, but sorely lacking in the whole “restorative” part.

The problem is, the way I tend to work when I’m spinning out is by falling into terrible habits that may feel like they help in the moment but in actuality (surprise!) do the precise opposite. We’re talking bed-rotting, drinking too much, eating like absolute crap, completely abandoning exercise in favor of manic workaholism…you know, Anxiety’s Greatest Hits.

Unfortunately, another thing that happens when I’m spinning out is that the concept of climbing back out of my largely self-imposed hole feels…well…

Paralyzing.

Just so you know — because I learned this the (very) hard way — healing is not linear. Setbacks are not failures; they’re data points. They’re reminders. They’re part of the whole deal. So when I stumble (as I do, often), I have to remind myself that crawling — however messy, however slow — still counts as movement. It still gets me home.

On Sunday night, I stayed over at my BF’s, but I could not sleep. At all. Well, at least not until 7am, at which point I completely lost consciousness before waking up to my 7:30 alarm in a cold sweat, heart pounding. First thing, I did what I always do: grabbed my phone to see what new emergencies might have arrived in my inbox or on my newsfeed overnight. Heart pounding? Check. Hands clammy? Oh yes. Irritable and weepy and desperately trying to alienate my partner by cycling rapidly through emotional shutdowns and overreactions? Come on, obviously. I cried all the way home for no especially good reason other than “everything.”

(This is the part of spinning out I think of as “spiraling.” Related, just with a much faster and more dramatic downward trajectory.)

By the time I got home I was exhausted, and collapsed into my bed even though it was a Monday morning and I really needed to not do that. I slept for an hour, and when I woke up I showered, then took a good look at myself in the mirror — I looked terrible, pale and puffy, with crazy-lady hair and a prominent zit between my eyes. And I thought: Enough.

Enough.

I’ve had this conversation with myself in the mirror a few times over the decades; I sincerely hope this will be the last, but of course I know it won’t be. What I also know now, though, is that even if it’s not, I will be okay. Why? Because over the years I’ve put a fairly tremendous amount of effort into stocking up my mental toolbox with behaviors I can use to return myself to the land of the living. CBT, EMDR, ketamine therapy, listening to Alan Watts, AA, Al-Anon, meditation coaching, yoga, full-on retreats, freakin’ juice cleanses…I have tried all of these things, and not all of them worked for me, but I was able to learn something from all of them. And all of those somethings went directly into a little pocket in my brain labeled “Open In Case Of Emergency.”

This, as an example, is a routine that I have found works wonders for me, and so for the past few mornings (toolbox!), here is what I have done:

1. Wake up at the same time. Do not even contemplate touching phone.

2. Do some light yoga-type stretching — basically, whatever feels good.

3. Head to the kitchen and turn on the teakettle.

4. Meditate until I hear the kettle going off (usually 10-15 min).

5. Put on spa music (really, I just ask Alexa for a “spa” radio station on Spotify).

6. Curl up on the couch with hot water and lemon, and read a chapter or two of something that supports my mental health (currently: Pema Chodron’s “How We Live Is How We Die,” which doesn’t sound like the most uplifting topic but actually sort of…is. Also recommend anything Alan Watts for this purpose).

7. 30 minutes at the gym (if no kids to get to school; if so, this happens in the afternoon).

8. Turn on Bob Marley radio on Spotify. Make coffee and breakfast for kids (if they’re at home) while dancing around a bit. (I almost never eat breakfast. This is not a good life choice, and I’m working on it.)

9. Sit down at desk and review upcoming day. (Finally) check phone, about an hour and a half after I first opened my eyes.

Another long-in-coming change: I cannot work and/or worry 24/7 — checking my phone in the middle of the night, being available to clients and colleagues at all hours of the day, rushing immediately to my computer the moment my eyes fly open — any longer. Can’t do it. So I try to set boundaries: My kids know not to bother me until I’m done meditating and reading (barring emergencies obvi). I’ve been communicating to colleagues that unless there is literally a house on fire (alas, not an impossibility around here), whatever they need after 6pm can almost certainly wait until the next morning.

At 9, the phone goes in a drawer, and I spend a couple of hours living my best analog life (legos and art projects and books, oh my) until dozing off around 11.

It’s been, what, six days? That’s nothing…and yet my head is clearer, my mind is more settled, and the kids have both inquired as to why, precisely, I’m in such a good mood when only last week I was running around the house ranting about the GODDAMN INSURANCE COMPANIES AND THEIR STUPID GODDAMN EXCLUSIONS (still a legitimate complaint; JFC, you should see the bills that have been arriving on my doorstep). I’ve been more productive in five days than I was in the five weeks preceding, with less actual time spent physically working.

I have done this before — swap the bad habits for the good ones, ground myself in the rhythms that make me feel human again. And sure, I wish those practices would just stick already — crazy-glue themselves into my soul and never let go. But they don’t, or at least they haven’t.

I forget. I fall. I rage at myself for having tossed aside such hard-won gains in fully-conscious favor of a life less lovely.

But you know what? Every single time I come back to myself — even shakily, even after days or weeks or months lost in the spin — I realize: This is the work. Not the unbroken streaks of “healthy habits” time. Not the perfection.

The return.

Getting back up after you’ve let yourself down? That might just be the bravest thing you can do. And today I’m feeling pretty damn brave.