Stay Grounded

I've gone to therapy off and on since I was a little kid. In elementary school, I would get pulled from class once a week to go play games and draw with the school counselor and talk about how I felt about my parents getting divorced. Later, my step-grandma would pick me up from school early once a month to take me to an outside therapist. At some point I started taking anti-depressants that made me feel nauseous and actually made me throw up in front of my entire geometry class my sophomore year. That's a fun story.

I'm not really sure what it was that made me dad feel like I was depressed or like I needed help. If he was just projecting his fears that I would be like my mother or if I was actually exhibiting signs that scared him. Honestly, I think I was just quiet and quirky and liked my alone time. But what do I know?

When I aged out of my dad's insurance, I stopped taking my anti-depressants (which you are absolutely not supposed to do cold turkey, don't ever do that). I thought that after all this time I knew how to control my anxiety and depression. Things to avoid that I knew were triggers. Things that helped me self-soothe. I was working at a gym as a massage therapist, so I started working out regularly and eating well. Despite some low moments, I've felt really good in the last 5 years without anti-depressants.

This past year, I was going through a low moment (winter is hard for me, even in Texas) and I decided I should try therapy again. And like a true millennial, I chose to do online therapy. It's a lot easier for me to share my feelings through writing. I'm able to arrange my thoughts and edit to get to the point in a way that just isn't possible when you're speaking in person. And I can do it whenever it's convenient for me from wherever I am.

Anyways, there's been a lot of digging deep on past traumas and why I've become the anxious, emotional person I am but I won't bore you with all of that. Instead, I want to share some of the grounding techniques that my therapist has shared with me that have been so helpful when I'm feeling anxious.

1. Look around you and name out loud the things you see. Name what color they are.
2. Sit quietly and touch all of the objects around you.
3. Listen to calming music or sounds (in the massage industry, we call this music without words).
4. Do one of your favorite self-care activities and say out loud what you're doing and that you're doing it as self-care for yourself.

The past couple of months have been crazy and I've been so grateful to have this person as a sounding board with so much knowledge and compassion to help me get through it. I've heard two schools of thought on this period of quarantine: if you don't come out of quarantine with a new skill, finished project, weight loss, etc, then you wasted your time; if you come out with no new skills, finished projects, weight loss, etc, that's okay! Be kind to yourself! Personally, I agree with both because I think you have to do what's right for you. Since March, I've had days where I was super productive and I've had days where I allowed myself to do nothing because doing anything just felt like too much.

Anyways... therapy helps, self-care is important, be kind to yourself!