How I worked on my mental health as a teenager. (Not recommended)
This is something that I haven't shared with anyone but my wife because I considered it embarrassing and weird. But to be perfectly honest I don't really care anymore about being embarrassed by the past. It's made me who I am today and I wouldn't change any experience, "good" or "bad", and risk what I have today.
My story will also probably give a deeper understanding to my story/collection/art on Foundation.
https://foundation.app/@kieranstone
Here we go...
I was at high school one day walking along the outside concrete yard towards some stairs that led down to the sports oval. When I reached the stairs to take a step down, I became weightless and began floating in the air. I had no control over this. The ground was getting further and further away and I started to panic. I wasn't flying, I was falling upwards. My reality no longer made sense. Fear gripped me like a vice.
My eyes squeezed shut.
I could feel myself inside my mind. A series of stone tunnels took shape and I started to travel down them as if on a runaway mine cart. But I had some control of which paths to take. Left and right I hurtled through these tunnels following a distant instinct. After a time I came to a large rocky cavern. Inside the cavern was a word constructed out of rough stone for each letter. The was "INSANE". Using the control I felt I had, I willed the letters "I" and "N" to crumble to the ground. Satisfied with the result I felt the cavern and continued through the tunnels until I reached another. Inside this cavern was the same word "INSANE" grown from giant trees. I chopped down the first two letters. Then onto another cavern with the word shaped by falling water. I stopped the flow for the letters "I" and "N".
A calmness came over me and I opened eyes. I was lying face down on my bed in my room. To this day I don't remember laying down or what I was doing before hand. The memory of falling upwards still carried the sense of panic and inability to distinguish fantasy from reality. As far as my mind was concerned the entire experience was real.
I would go on to experiment with the tunnels and caverns in my mind when I wanted to alter a my mental state. During times of sadness when it felt like nothing could make me feel better. I would close my mind and search for the right words. I would find caverns with the word "UNHAPPY" and destroy the first two letters. Always upon opening my eyes a smile would appear on my face and I felt ready to carry on with my day.
After doing this many times with the tunnels and caverns, it became tedious. So I created switches. I could simply flick a switch when I needed to change my undesirable mood. Easy. From sad to happy, angry to calm. I had complete control over my emotions. Except for some anxiety attacks that were creeping into my nights as I tried to sleep. These still affect me to this day but I learnt to keep them under control. A post for another day.
The emotional switches I had created were working fine for a time. Until they started to affect others. I had used these switches so much that they became a reflex. They were no longer a choice but just something my mind did when I hit a certain emotional threshold. Inevitable arguments and the ups and downs of a developing relationship are a healthy way to grow a connection with someone. In the earlier stages of my relationship with my wife, we would have these times which we all go through. One or both of us would be crying for one reason or another and then I would just stop and be completely fine. No sadness, no anger, no negative emotion of any kind. A serene smile on my face I was just good and happy. This was not the way to build a healthy relationship. I wouldn't work through anything, I'd just turn off negative emotions. At first of course it seemed like a good thing. But, I wasn't experiencing life as I needed to.
I then went through a period of removing the reflex reaction and the switches altogether. I needed to feel the "negative" side of life as much as the "positive". It was healthy to focus on those emotions and learn from them rather than shut them out. The control over my mind that I experimented with had helped me with this focus on learning. The emotions, good or bad, became signals in my head similar to physical feelings of hot and cold, or even pain. They were ways of understanding the outside world and social interactions. I let myself feel the emotions but not control my actions.
As I said at the start, I don't recommend a similar path to working on your mental health. This was a bush bashing way to stubble along a path that works for me. The only advice I have from my experiences is to treat your emotions like physical pain and damage. If you get a cut and start bleeding, waving it around in peoples faces won't help. Hiding in a room and watching it bleed uncontrollably definitely won't help. If you can learn basic medical training you can treat it yourself with a bandage or bandaid, if this doesn't work then seeking professional help is necessary. The same is true for your emotional state. Learning how to calm yourself down and approach situations rationally and logically will help you heal most of the time. Sometimes you may need a friend or professional to help things heal. And it takes time. Learn to be comfortable with your own mind and set a baseline of your thoughts and emotional state. Anything outside of this baseline is something that may need attention.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this experience and any experiences of your own regarding exercising your mental health. Please comment below!
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This was an interesting post, kudos to you for being willing to open up like this. We all develop different coping mechanisms to deal with things in life.
I don't know that I can even recall a specific method it example that I use to deal with negative experiences, except for maybe talking to myself, running, or spending time alone under the stars, which I call star therapy.
Thanks, Casey!
Exercise and getting away from it all (star therapy) are definitely tried and trusted methods. I feel like my experiences are unique to me but lead to the same conclusions as others.
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Great post Kieran - Very interesting read. Thanks for that!
Thanks for taking the time to read it!
I can feel it through your feelings. For me every emotion is useful, whether we name it good or bad. If you don't experience pain and sadness, you won't be able to fully feel happy and healthy emotions. We feel thirst, we will feel it more deeply when we drink water. So each person's mental health is a matter of their perception and choice to control it. It will be easy for those who perceive it clearly. I still enjoy all my emotions, even depression
Anything that lets us know we are alive. I've always seen things in terms of Order and Chaos rather than good or bad. What's good for someone can be bad for another. But Order and Chaos are more defined. Take away the definition of "good" and "bad" emotions and you become more comfortable with your own life.
Your experience at high school sounds very scary. I can't imagine what that was like for you.
I haven't experienced anything like that. But I would say that learning photography in the park has helped my mental health immeasurably through a very difficult time. A few years ago I was really ill, and after the illness I was diagnosed as having post infective fatigue. I went from being really fit and healthy, and having a job that I loved working as an animator for a really cool company, to being exhausted and a shadow of who I used to be. I left my job to give myself space to get well, which was the weirdest feeling in the world as I've always had a job. Thankfully my husband was very supportive. No one could tell me how long it would take to feel normal again, which was very upsetting and stressful. It was during my recuperation that I bought my camera as I needed to do something creative, and I've always felt that I had a good eye for composition. I live close to Richmond Park, and on the days when I felt like I had enough energy, I would drag myself there and take photos, and teach myself how to use the camera properly. I'm now much better, I've been back working for my old company for over a year, but freelancing, which is nice as I quite like having time off in between jobs as I can do other things. I don't think I'll ever want a full time job again.
The weird thing is that although it was an absolutely miserable experience, it exposed me to photography. I didn't realise at the time that it would become an obsessive hobby, and bring me so much joy. Plus, I suddenly found a whole bunch of amazing people on social media who have the same passion that I do. As well as all the other photographers who also go to the park. I've met some really nice people.
So the illness ended up shaping my life in an unexpectedly positive way. I guess it's also the reason that I'm now on Hive sharing my photos. I suppose the take away for me from my own experience is that out of a horrible situation, I was given a new creative way to express myself, and so I wouldn't change what happened to me, even though it was very hard to go though at the time.
Thanks for sharing your story. It was really thought provoking, hence my quite long comment! :)
Thank you so much for sharing your experience too! At the time we can't imagine how anything positive could come from such seemingly negative times in our lives. We see a downward trend that only points to more sadness and troubles. With all the crypto charts I've been looking at I can't help but notice a correlation. When things are going down for a few days it feels like the peak was reached and nothing will ever be the same. Then a month later there's a new all time high and I wonder why I was ever worried in the first place! We may not have charts for our lives but our memories and experiences show us that we're in control of setting new all time highs after a down trend.
That's a good analogy!
Life is a roller coaster, and I think that as long as I can recognise that, it makes the down bits a little easier to get through.
BTW - I never commented on your collection of photographs - they are absolutely amazing. The infinite pattern arrangement is very cool... :)
Thank you very much :)
Respect mate for posting this. That's some crazy visions; I have never experienced anything so visual and immersive outside of a dream state. I think we all struggle with the balance between ups and downs and what is an acceptable range of emotions to express. The tendency to block rather than work though emotions is very real. I am likely (hopefully) half way though my life but still have a long way to go developing my EQ; not sure one ever really gets there. We thought we were a super mentally and physically resilient family but living on a boat for two years in confined space, with hurricane season, and the pandemic raging and of a nationality who had locked their own citizens out, became like a pressure cooker and a difficult emotional time for our family. You learn what you're really like in situations like that; as apposed to what you think you're actually like.
I honestly can't imagine what those kind of conditions would do to me. The fact that you are home now, alive and well, is testament to your emotional strength. There's no way anyone would be expected to be ok with those conditions. You'd be entitled to any feelings of stress, anxiety, or outbursts of frustration. I really do commend you and your family on your resilience during the time on your boat.
I learn something by reading this post. And I agree with you in this one. Thanks for sharing @kieranstone.
Thank you for taking the time to read it. I'm glad you got something out of it :)