mental health

The Death of Growth.

/ Breanna Robertson / 1 Comment
Yellow Rose- seen on my morning walk- still with a few flowers in November.

Excuses.

I have some really complex ones that I have created for myself.

I have built them up over time.

They are a complex system of reasons why I should or shouldn’t succumb to urges for the sake of my comfort, and at the expense of my growth.

Excuses.

The one thing that I know about excuses is that they are part of growth that we don’t like to talk about… they are the death of growth.

Excuses are the death of growth.

Mine are anyway.

My excuses for why I do not do the things that I know need doing are alarmingly good at targeting my little bit of willpower and obliterating it with a single thought!!! One little sentence in my head- can kill my motivation with laser precision- and nothing even needs to happen, just a thought.

I have “watched” myself process as part of the mental health exercises I have completed throughout my healing journey.

I progress through the goal setting stages, and then build the motivation that I need to propel me forward, and in the beginning , and still more often than I like- I can be defeated by an excuse that comes from a negative thought. Then I beeline for the comfort that I know is bad for me, but need the comfort so badly that I don’t care in that moment. Then the regret and the building upon the self sabotage happens. This is the cycle of addiction.

If you watch closely you can match the cycle of addiction to every single human. whether they identify with it or not- we all have things that we need to be “addicted” to. I can assure you that the person who has the addiction to drugs and the person who has the addiction to food and the person who has the addiction to working on their body for a building competition, all have the same emotional struggles they have made different choices as to how they cope.

Coping is a survival tool.

Coping is necessary, sometimes… it is what we need to do to carry our bodies from trauma to restoration. There will be times when coping seems like it is the only thing available, because sometimes it is.

I think we have taken that sometimes and run with the feeling that the coping gives us. Coping is a form of instant relief- but it is ultimately a band aid that actually causes many many other problems.

Coping kills progress and coping of any kind is addicting.

I have noticed that there are so many ways that we cope without even realizing we are coping. That was the astonishing or shocking part to me. The fact that we all are sitting around coping as best we can, kind of just spinning around all of our cycles as we go, making them all move more quickly as you build upon them with the entanglement of reasons why you think that you can or can’t do something… creating, you guessed it… excuses.

My life only began to change when I stopped making excuses for myself, when I started challenging my excuses disguised as “reasons” for my apathy.

Excuses, are you using them to cope? Coping is sometimes required, but coping is not thriving it is important to intend to tip the scales to healthy resourcing over unhealthy coping when you can.

I am striving for thriving, with healthy coping strategies, not excuses and harmful things.

I try not to let excuses or coping be the death of growth these days, wherever I can. It is a learning process.

-B.

Centralized Sensitization Syndrome.

/ Breanna Robertson / Leave a comment

The three words that made my whole world make sense again, on paper at least.

Its a diagnosis. My diagnosis… Those three not-so-little words, and the explanation of the physical pain I was experiencing together gave me answers that I had been desperate to find.

Sure, it was the answer to all of the questions that I had, but it certainly didn’t solve any of the problems that had helped to create it.

Like some kind of fucked up jeopardy situation… I was given the answer and then sent out to explain to the other medical staff that I was having support me through the process. Except that the medical system and the mental health system do not work together at all because they are separate according to archaic medical science.

Any idiot with google and about 15 minutes can figure out that there is a definitive connection between the human mind, and the human body.

I have made that connection. Science has made the connection… I have a diagnosis available for this new fancy condition that specialists in the actual field do not have access to- because they went to medical school long ago.

I have a diagnosis- but can not find a doctor that can help me correct my hormonal imbalances. I had the privilege of speaking to an endocrinologist- who learned of my condition from me, during our initial visit. Forgive me for not feeling safe in the arms of the medical system, when I am hand holding physicians hands through the central nervous system and how the hormones are connected to my physical responses ie: fight or flight anxiety responses. It is all connected, the physical health, and the mental health- the secret is in the hormones and balancing them all before my organs are too damaged to sustain life.

I am in a race against time to expedite the healing process of my central nervous system before I am submitted further into my disability, and further away from the health that I crave.

At least with the benefit of the knowledge of my diagnosis, I was granted the ability to heal, because I had a starting point.

What I have come to learn is that central nervous system care is extreme self-care, and it is never a bad idea, also it is the way to heal some of the symptoms of Centralized Sensitization Syndrome.

-B.