Reaching Out

Hi Hal,

Thank you for your message. I wasn't expecting so much feedback. Yes, I can be very hard on myself. I was working with a mental health professional and during that time I was able to remember practising self compassion but at the moment I'm not seeing anyone and I find it hard to deal with the critical inner voice..

I appreciate you sharing your experience and there was a time that I had to cut contact and put physical space between myself and toxic family members.. but we've been able to resolve alot of our issues, I just find it hard to keep up support when my cup is empty.

My smoking isn't harmful, sometimes it helps me to look at my emotions from a lighter perspective, but the problem comes when I'm unable to moderate and choose to use instead of dealing with life's stresses with a clear mind.

Thank you very much for your response Hal, wishing you the best also on your own journey.

Thank you 😊 Gee it feels good to be able to release some of the mind chatter and to receive insightful feedback from people who genuinely care because they have that lived experience.

I didn't really have much of a holiday, work was hectic over the Christmas and new years period.. but for the most part, I'm trying to be better and work on myself.

@Redjaded3

You have given some great responses to all the questions people have peppered you with. I think one of the things I would say to you is to have a good think about if you have a bias against medication. If your heart was skipping beats, you would not stop taking the medication to give your heart a chance to have more control.

If you really want to take control of your mental health without medication, then you are going to have to maintain the same kind of discipline as taking medicine, IE do meditation each day, journal, exercise. Unfortunately, just like your heart, mental health is affected by bad judgments and can have a major breakdown just like a heart attack if you continue to abuse it with bad habits.

Libraries are free, I would suggest going and getting yourself some books to help you get an understanding on different strategies and then start taking control. Also, start reading books in the field you want to work on. University is just a place where you learn something and an assessment is done on your ability to apply those lessons. You can still read all that knowledge and when you are on track, work with the universities to see how you can overcome your record.

Hey @Redjaded3, I'm so happy you've been able to vent and get so much off your mind!

Reflective practice and questioning myself around why I'm feeling the way I am helps me the most through my emotions or strong feelings!

I'm sorry to hear that you've had a bit of a difficult time in your relationship. You didn't say whether it was you or your partner who strayed, but I truly hope you're able to build that trust back up in the relationship!

I too have struggled to moderate my herb use in the past. The best piece of advice I was ever given for this was to distract myself for 5 minutes with something I wouldn't normally do (I have a speed pop game thing and some fiddley puzzle type things that gets me super hyper-focused which helped me a lot) but also going through a clinic and having a chat to a properly trained doctor and getting a script for the right strain has helped me heaps as well, as you'd know, the different strains do different things! I don't blame you for not wanting to go on medication again, the side effects can be debilitating sometimes!

It sounds like you'd do really well in a peer support position, just by the description you've given around the job you'd rather be in 😀 the best support I've ever had in my hard days was from peer supporters and hearing about their own experiences ❤️