Playing Catch- Up: Mental Health Awareness Week

Good evening fellow mammals,

After what I can only describe as a turbulent couple of months, my second year of university will be officially completed on Thursday 18th of May. You might be thinking, "why the heck are you writing a post if you're not even finished yet omg" give or take a few words. The honest answer is that I'm resting in the name of self-care after a day of panicking and revising; do with that information what you will. 

Unfortunately, due to assignment stress I was unable to get around to writing a post last week. I regret this particularly because it was Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK, which naturally I feel very strongly about. The truth is, talking about mental health is really difficult. You might not think so if you've spoken to me recently, as I've been making a conscious effort to be a lot more open about it to help eradicate the stigma, but actually being open about having a mental health issue can be terrifying. The truth is, I wrote an entire paragraph detailing some specific experiences I have with GAD (Generalised Anxiety Disorder) and deleted the entire thing out of fear; 

"What if they think I'm self-absorbed?"

"What if someone thinks I'm an attention-seeker?"

"What if everyone just reads this and thinks it's pathetic or insignificant?" 

This in itself shows me that we have a serious problem with how we approach mental health. 

Talking about mental health is vital because right now it is often quicker and easier to get a box of emotion-altering tablets than it is to get someone to sit and talk to you about your emotions for an hour-long appointment. 

If you have mental health issues, advice or have a personal story to share - my advice is to allow yourself to talk about it. As I have demonstrated above, sharing personal experiences can be daunting but letting yourself share it in a way that you are comfortable with (counselling, family, friends, online) is a healthy way to raise awareness, receive support, fight stigma and encourage others to speak up as well. I truly believe that human connection and compassion is the best possible way to combat mental illness. 

If you're worried about what people will think, remember- "those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind". 

Of course, my pal Steph has written a beautifully eloquent piece for Mental Health Awareness Week; check it out here. I will always commend my friend for how wonderfully she tackles the issue of mental health and the experiences she has had. 

In other slightly less serious news, I drew a comic about anxiety and also purchased a stress ball. 

Firstly, the stress ball (product link)was an unfortunate impulse buy on amazon and I didn't think to check the reviews before just adding it to my basket of stuff and clicking check out. I realised that most people had managed to burst it within the first 30 minutes of use and had been covered in sticky gel. So when the bubbly sack of strange slime flopped out of the cardboard Amazon box, I wasn't entirely prepared for the fact that I could potentially have it explode in my face. I took it upstairs, held it over the bath and squeezed. Low and behold, my freakishly limp, cold hands were literally too weak to force the little gel bubbles to pop out of the black net. Anyway, after some cautioned two-handed crushing I managed to loosen up the rubber, or whatever, to make it so I could squeeze the weird bubbles out. After doing this for about five minutes, leaning over the bath, I realised that I was never going to be able to actually use this stress ball the way I want to because I'll be constantly terrified that it's going to burst and I was probably going to end up causing some injury to the tendons in my arm if I had to keep squeezing it with as much effort as I was. 

Basically, you guys, I bought a ball that is causing me stress. A literal stress ball. At this point in my life, I'm not even surprised that I've managed to achieve making a stress ball actually stressful. 

With that tragic confession out of the way, I'll leave you with the doodle I made during Mental Health Awareness Week. 

Have you ever thought you were a fraud because you deemed other experiences of mental illness as more valid than your own? You didn't think yours were that bad or that you are somehow wrongly claiming you have something when you don't? I do this all the time with anxiety and have realised that it's just best to trust how you feel. If you feel it, it is real. 

Merry May everyone, 

Lauren Newman a.k.a shrInking violet

Relaxation Music

Good evening gang,

Approximately ten minutes ago, I plodded downstairs and poured myself a glass of milk. Actually, it's not a glass, it's a square mason jar with a handle, lid and straw. My mom has hopped onto the adorable trend of drinking things out of anything that isn't cylindrical. Anyway, because I'm irrepressibly obsessed with consuming things before they reach the expiration date, I was doing the necessary check and noticed the milk expires on the 25th of March. What was my first thought? "When this milk is out of date, my deadlines for this round of assignments will be over!" (or at least for the essays).

After spending the day completing an assignment, panicking and introducing myself to John Milton's Paradise Lost, I think it's safe to say that I am stressed. Bearing in mind that I am no more stressed than people around me, my friends have been working tirelessly on their assignments and my boyfriend has been working continuously for several weeks, I am a believer that "others have it worse" is usually not a relief.

So what do we do? Those of us who are constantly confronted with stress? I was chatting with a colleague at the end of my lecture on Monday about assignment stress and she was very surprised that I suffered similarly to her. We talked about the inevitable comorbidity of tears, panicking, sleepless nights and assignment periods. Is such stress unnecessary and avoidable?

Unnecessary? Maybe. Avoidable? Not for me. My general logic is that if I care about something I will worry about it, regardless of what it is. Therefore, and this leads me to my point, healthy coping mechanisms are essential. To lighten this up, and to get to the point of what I wanted to do tonight, I am sharing some music that I use to deal with worry. Should someone with Generalised Anxiety Disorder even be recommending ways to relax? Probably not. Are they going to do it anyway? Of course. (Not to mention there will be a post about dealing with anxiety in the future but if you want one right now, my friend Steph has already written a brilliant one: here).

(In no particular order because that would make it too stressful for me).

1.) Roslyn - Bon Iver & St. Vincent

I know I've recommended this song previously, but it's one of my favourites for when I need to empty my mind. If I'm being completely honest I still don't know the lyrics because I find it hard to work out what they're saying and don't really want to ruin that by looking at them, if that makes any sense at all. I love the atmosphere and images that it conjures up in my mind - I'd tell you, but I think it'd be more fun for you to make your own!

2.) Pearly Dewdrops Drops - Cocteau Twins

This is band I recently looked into as they were recommended to me by my lecturer who has previously recommended some great music. This song in particular stuck with me because it has a way of making me feel something indescribable. I could only attempt to describe it as a feeling so personal, it's as though nobody else could possibly have felt it. Not to mention that 'Pearly Dewdrops Drops' is one of the best song titles I've ever seen.

3.) There She Goes - Sixpence None The Richer
4.) Kiss Me - Sixpence None The Richer

Truthfully, I love the original of 'There She Goes' by The La's too, but I have a special place in my heart reserved for Sixpence None The Richer. My earliest memories of music are the late nineties, and 'Kiss Me' was played constantly in my house so when I hear that song I can smell my childhood and feel what the house used to feel like when I was little. I highly recommend nostalgic songs but be warned - nostalgia sometimes feels sad.

5.) Prelude in E-Minor (op. 28 no. 4) - Frédéric Chopin

I have always loved classical music. I'm not very well acquainted with a lot of it, but I love quite a few pieces from various composers. I know that most of Chopin is quite sad, but music that makes me cry has a strange way of making me feel calm.

6.) Howl's Moving Castle OST

This one is highly dependent on the fact that I have watched the film and adore it. For anyone out there who has never seen a Studio Ghibli film - I insist you must try them at least once. This song is so uplifting, gentle and simple and fills me with all the emotions I feel when watching the film.

7.) The Very Thought Of You - Billie Holiday

It was difficult to choose between this and 'I'll Be Seeing You' until I remember that the latter does actually tend to make me not-the-good-kind-of-sad. 'The Very Thought Of You' literally sends shivers down my spine and gives me goosebumps because her voice is so comforting and the crackle of the recording gives me that warm, flooding feeling that music is eternal and can awaken such complex emotions.

8.) God Only Knows - Bioshock Infinite Barbershop Cover

Anyone who knows me, even just a little, knows I adore the Beach Boys. However, I'm also a sucker for good covers. I found out semi-recently that I adore barbershop quartets (I don't really know how or why) and when I realised that Bioshock Infinite, the third in a great game series, had added this into the game I was completely hypnotized by it for weeks. Most people I know haven't been taken with it in the same way I have, but that makes it all the more personal to me.

9.) Tugboat - Galaxie 500

When I first heard this song in 'The Perks of Being a Wallflower' I fell in love immediately. Every time I listen to it I feel like I've slipped into another world, one which is magical and beautiful and when it picks up at 2:25 I literally feel my heart flutter. I realise this doesn't feel good for fellow anxiety sufferers, but fluttering for good reasons is always worth it and I feel so calm afterwards.

10.) Sometimes You're The Hammer, Sometimes You're The Nail - A Day To Remember

Just a heads up, this is most likely not going to be everyone's idea of "relaxing". ADTR are one of my favourite bands and after going through a significantly distressing experience, this song is a genuine relief and somewhere I can unload my feelings. If you want to skip the screaming, I know it's not everyone's thing, 2:50 is the part that genuinely hits me in the chest. The lyrics make me tear up every single time because it symbolises my coming to terms with anxiety, the responsibility for the mistakes and choices I have made and defending my sensitivity.

I hope anyone who reads this can take away at least one new song that they like. I hope to make more lists in the future. I recently did an exchange of ten songs with a friend when we realised we had no idea what each others' music taste was, it's a fun exercise in getting to know someone a bit better!

I'm going to go and pass out now before an early lecture tomorrow!
Sweet dreams,

Lauren Newman a.k.a shr-Inking violet

Time

The funny thing about time is that when you're doing a degree you suddenly don't have a lot of it. That's my subtle apology and excuse, not only for barely posting here, but also for generally being unavailable whilst I'm panicking over working on course-related reading and assignments.

I'd like to say I'm incredibly resentful of the fact I have no time for social or personal activities, but I'm genuinely grateful for the opportunity to get a degree. It's hard work and I'm finding it quite easy to get stressed out but I don't think I'd still be here if it wasn't what I truly wanted to do. In fact, I'm finding it enjoyable and rewarding when I actually work hard and come out with a good grade at the end.

Today I attended my lecture on Shakespeare's Hamlet. Initially I found the play pretty boring and I can still say that I don't take pleasure in having to read extensive notes before I can fully understand the actual meaning of a sentence. However, after watching film clips of the play and discussing it in lecture I have, at last, found an interest in it! A similar thing did happen with The Tempest and has generally been the case with other texts on my course. It's fun to break down a text and explore themes in my lectures as it finally gives me something to get my teeth into that is reliable and safe to absorb. I think that doing this degree has opened me up to a lot of texts that I would have otherwise never picked up, which I am also grateful for.

Whilst working on something for a module called Text, Context and Spin, I was listening to a band called This Mortal Coil. My lecturer recommended them to us today and I was excited to find that I had already unknowingly been listening to one of their songs already; Song To The Siren. I almost always take up the opportunity to listen to music recommended to me. I'd been using Song To The Siren as part of a soundtrack I listened to when I went through a phase of doing Tai Chi (yes, I know). Although it didn't work for me, I highly recommend that anyone who is prone to stress or anxiety give it a try - everyone is different.

On that note, I will recommend one of my favourite songs that I use to relieve stress or just generally listen to whilst studying or tidying; Bon Iver & -St. Vincent - Roslyn.

So, time. What can it do? I'm staying on this theme because despite my confession of having very little personal time at the moment, I have managed to work on something. I decided to take a relatively old piece of digital art I created in 2014 - a punky-floaty-goggly human - and remake it using whatever new techniques I had learned since. Truthfully, I was concerned about the results. Three years, give or take a few months, is not a long time, is it? I have never felt like I have progressed or improved artistically and always felt as though I was going backwards rather than forwards. This exercise was truly helpful for me, because it has helped me see how a lot of time invested in art is never wasted time,

I issue this challenge to any artists who happen to be reading! It's fun and relaxing to remake something you used to think was pretty good, but now think you could do better!

And with that we have the results;

Merry Wednesday and a Happy New Thursday!

Lauren Newman a.k.a shr-Inking violet