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My usual routines for self-care are failing while I'm in quarantine, and my self-esteem is suffering because I feel unproductive. Healthy self-esteem allows us to take care of ourselves and love ourselves because we believe we are worth the effort. The last few weeks have been difficult as I struggle to adapt to the restrictions placed on us by the COVID-19 pandemic. After I spent one week doing nothing to take care of myself, I created a quarantine routine to help rebuild my self-esteem and get back to feeling productive.
No one wants a mental health emergency at any time, but having a mental health emergency during the COVID-19 pandemic showed me how neither I nor the emergency room hospital staff was prepared to deal with a mental health crisis in this unsettling--and downright terrifying--time.
Mental resistance is something we all experience, but for a long time, I didn't realize there was actually a name for it, or a reason it happened besides me being lazy, horrible and bad. Mental resistance is that feeling where you want to do something a little differently to improve your life, but for some reason, you're just stuck.
Dealing with anxiety during COVID-19 is something foreign to us. It is hard not to experience stress and anxiety these days. I had planned to write this article about something else regarding anxiety, but I felt as though I would be remiss if I talked about anything other than what we are all going through right now and how it is affecting me since it is continuously a major part of my thoughts throughout the day.
I’m Nori Rose Hubert, and I’m so excited to contribute to the "Work and Bipolar or Depression" blog at HealthyPlace. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder type II in May 2019 at age 26, after a lifetime of struggling with my mental health. Although our culture’s attitude towards mental illness is slowly changing for the better, mood disorders such as bipolar disorder remain highly stigmatized. I write about bipolar because I want others living with this disease to know they are not alone and that mental illness recovery is possible.
Surviving mental health stigma during isolation sounds like it would be an easy sort of situation. Even with isolation during the COVID-19 outbreak, the general idea of this practice is we're simply staying home and everything is okay, but that's not the case for everyone. Although the word "isolation," especially "self-isolation," gives this sense of being away from harmful things, there are still opportunities for mental health stigma.
How often do you read out loud to someone? If you have kids, it may be an everyday activity, but for many reading is a solitary activity. As I've lived through these surreal weeks, I've begun to question whether reading out loud might provide value that reading to oneself doesn't quite deliver.
Addiction recovery is filled with numerous unexpected triggers and challenges. There are obvious triggers recovering addicts must face along the path to recovery, like people, places, and activities that might be associated with their drug-of-choice. However, there are also plenty of unexpected triggers in addiction recovery that catch many individuals completely off guard.
I mentioned in last week’s article that sheltering at home with schizoaffective disorder during the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t that hard for me because my schizoaffective anxiety keeps me in so much anyway. However, now the extreme isolation is starting to take its toll.
Coping with self-harm triggers can be difficult enough during normal, everyday life. It should come as no surprise that major stressors like the COVID-19 pandemic can make coping with self-harm triggers exponentially harder.
Where do we go from here? Most of the family thinks just to let her hit bottom and then if she reaches out to help any we can. Some want to just keep paying her bills and just let her sit in the house with no responsibilities. Never been on medication and impossible to get to her when she refuses to talk to ANYONE.
Help.
On the day we agreed to videochat to make things less awkward IRL she woke up with a migraine so we rescheduled to the day after, I made sure to assure her that it was okay and to take her time. Later that day, in the late evening we had a nice chat but suddenly she stopped replying, even though nothing had happened. The day after I texted her good morning and said I hope she was feeling a little better. she wouldn't open my texts.
A couple days after I sent her a longer text saying that even though I had only known her for a short time I care a lot for her and would like to know how she are doing, telling her I'm there for her, assuring her I'm not going anywhere even though things might not be very easy. She wouldn't open it.
A week later I sent a text saying not to feel bad about not answering and that I will be there when she is able to answer again. It's been two weeks since this and she still hasn't opened my texts. She hasn't been active at all.
I don't know what else I can do. I assumed she might have fallen into a depression. I have tried to just not think about it anymore, and I haven't that much but when I do it sort of kills me inside...