No need for extra words. This is one side of a board seen in downtown New Plymouth. In a country with appalling rates of youth suicide, anything that supports and encourages better mental health is very welcome.
depression
Just what the doctor ordered
There is quite a lot of evidence that engaging in creative activities improves health — mental and physical. Writing, drawing, painting, making crafts or music, even doodling and colouring in — they can all help to focus our thoughts, increase our happiness, boost our immune systems and even help treat dementia.
I’ve experienced periods of depression for most of my adult life. Of all the treatments I’ve tried, what seems to work best is making stuff; focusing my mind and hands and energy on some creative project, however small. At the moment, it’s Christmas cards.
I’m always a bit reluctant to recommend anything, especially for something as serious as mental health, but there is a significant body of research behind this — and it works for me.
The Changing Seasons, July 2017
Staying aloft. Image: Su Leslie, 2017
It seems that July just hasn’t been a photographic month for me. Which I think is really a way of saying I haven’t felt inclined to lift my eyes and gaze upon the world.
It’s not that I’ve totally abandoned my camera. More that I’m disappointed in both the quantity and quality of the shots I’ve taken. Knee pain has kept me from the morning walks that provide both inspiration and some inner calm, while the struggles of those I love best have occupied my consciousness and spilled over into the darker recesses of my own psyche.
My July has not been a visual feast, but I’ve reached August knowing that I have enough. Enough strength and enough sunlight and enough support to stay aloft.
Like the flower, I am attached — though neither you nor I quite see how.
The Changing Seasons is a blogging challenge hosted by Cardinal Guzman with two versions: the original (V1) which is purely photographic and the new version (V2) where you can allow yourself to be more artistic and post a painting, a recipe, a digital manipulation, or simply just one photo that you think represents the month.
These are the rules, but they’re not written in stone – you can always improvise, mix & match to suit your own liking:
The Changing Seasons V1:
Tag your posts with #MonthlyPhotoChallenge and #TheChangingSeasons
Each month, post 5-20 photos in a gallery.
Don’t use photos from your archive. Only new shots.
The Changing Seasons V2:
Tag your posts with #MonthlyPhotoChallenge and #TheChangingSeasons
Each month, post one photo (recipe, painting, drawing, whatever) that represents your interpretation of the month.
Don’t use archive stuff. Only new material!
Friday flip through the archives
“And I tell myself it’s just a blue day. And it’s hard to see it any other way …” Blue Day, Colin Bayley & Murray Burns (1983). Image: Su Leslie, 2015.
It’s 1984 and I’m in a state of metamorphosis. The life I’ve fallen into since leaving my parents’ home has become as constraining and ill-fitting as that which I originally fled.
I cut my hair very short and bleach it very blonde. I acquire a wardrobe of vintage clothes; oversize men’s shirts, pencil skirts and beaded cardigans.
I catch glimpses of an unfamiliar woman in the mirror and wonder why she doesn’t look happy. Some days the world beyond my bed is a void I’m afraid that I will fall into and become lost forever.
I listen to a lot of music. Sometimes it makes me feel better.
Caught up in the wilderness …
Magnolia; edited with Snapseed and Stackables. Image: Su Leslie, 2016
Personal and political; Paul Weller’s thirty-year old hit ‘My Ever Changing Moods’ nicely captures how I’m feeling right now.
I wish we’d come to our senses and see there is no truth
In those who promote the confusion
For this ever changing mood, yeahThe Style Council – My Ever Changing Moods
“Joy like great art should take you to the skies”
Mt Ruapehu, North Island, New Zealand. Image: Su Leslie, 2014
The mountains and the sea. I’m neither climber nor great swimmer, but give me proximity to New Zealand’s snow-crusted volcanic cones, or to a stretch of its coastline, and light begins to filter through chinks in even the darkest despair.
Te Arai, North Island, New Zealand. Image: Su Leslie, 2014
This post was written for the Daily Post Photo Challenge. This week the theme is state of mind. The title comes from Stepping Down the Glory Road, by Scottish band Runrig.
Wordless Wednesday: prisoner of my own thoughts
Not doing too well talking down the negative thoughts. But I recognize there’s a problem, and that’s a start. Photo: Su Leslie, 2014
Six word Saturday: if I could show you depression …
Feeling a bit like a swing in a storm; out of control and ultimately pointless. Photo: Su Leslie, 2014
The black cloud has been hovering for a while and none of my usual fixes are working. I guess I’ll just be riding this one out.
Luckily, other bloggers have much more cheerful Six Word Saturdays to share. Here are some that I liked:
http://elainemcnulty.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/six-word-saturday-what-else-but-the-weather/
http://whenwordsescape.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/six-word-saturday-51714/
http://lingeringvisions.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/six-word-saturday-dream-more-while-you-are-awake/
http://restlessjo.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/six-word-saturday-112/
http://magicalmysticalteacher.wordpress.com/2014/05/11/roxaboxen/
http://magicalmysticalteacher.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/sombrero/
http://ccchampagne.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/short-and-sweet-2-six-word-saturday/
http://vivinfrance.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/6-word-saturday-79/
http://rlavalette.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/six-word-saturday-145/
http://mcguffysreader.blogspot.co.nz/2014/05/home-work.html
http://allisonsbookbag.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/six-word-saturday-meme-41/
http://retired-not-tired.blogspot.ca/2014/05/six-word-saturday_17.html
Weekly photo challenge: nostalgic for what?
Miss Simpson’s infant class, Sinclairtown School, Kirkcaldy, Fife 1966. I wonder if any of us look back on those days with nostalgia?
Nostalgia: a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition (Merriam-Webster dictionary).
Spoiler alert: I’m not nostalgic.
I can’t really think of a single thing or time from from my past that I get particularly sentimental about, or yearn to relive or return to.
I admit that I kind of miss the few years in my early twenties when I was slim and promiscuous (these two things are almost certainly connected), but if I’m honest, the sex may have been great but the rest of my life was still a mess.
I don’t miss the past because mostly I don’t remember it with much fondness. That’s not to say that there haven’t been moments when I’ve felt really happy, but in general I don’t think I ever learned how to turn life over to find the bright side. I’m definitely a “glass half empty person” with an uncanny talent for locating large black clouds to stand under.
I’m particularly not nostalgic for my childhood, so I guess my choice of photo probably counts as an attempt at irony.
I hated being a kid. I was all the “un’s”: un-athletic, unattractive, unpopular and probably pretty un-likeable. I hated school because the only thing I was any good at was the actual schoolwork, and lets face it – that doesn’t really count for squat in kid universe. I think even the teachers didn’t really like me. It’s ok to be brainy, but not nerdy too.
At home I had to contend with parents who were so desperately wrestling their own demons they didn’t have the time or perhaps the sensitivity to notice that I was miserable, stunted, lonely, suffering.
And anyway, none of that really mattered since my main role in the family was to give my parents something to brag to their friends about – preferably a glowing report card at the end of every term with a few sensational exam marks in between. This I did, but no matter how good I was, it was never quite good enough. “Ninety eight percent! What happened to the other two?” Eventually I learned that they coped with my deficiencies by massaging the truth of my achievements a little. I’m not sure if they did Apgar tests when I was born, but if they did my parents would have insisted I got 11 out of 10.
So really there wasn’t much point in trying … Except … Except that I wanted them to love me, and I didn’t know of any other way, so I kept on getting A’s and knowing that without the little plus sign, they might as well have been D’s. For a long time it didn’t even occur to me that there was any other point to education.
So I guess I’ve wandered through vast tracts of my life totally without any sort of navigation device. Which is probably ok, because I didn’t know where I was supposed to be going anyway. I still don’t really.
If I was making this up, I’d be able to tell you that at some point I had an epiphany; a moment of clarity when it all started to make sense and I got my life on track, blah, blah, blah.
Sorry. As a narrative, this one doesn’t obey any rules.
I’ve probably had lots of mini-epiphanies — epiphanettes if you like. I’ve probably even tweaked bits of my existence as a result. Whatever.
I’m a different person now. Maybe my present – reasonably happy – existence is the result of lots of dialectical hopscotch, or maybe it’s just what happens when you get older and slower and less willing to give a shit.
What I do know is that although I still find black clouds and get caught in their storms, I can also make my own shelter and dry myself off and carry on. I’m not waiting for anyone to rescue me.
I can go back to university after 20 years and get A’s because I want to do each assignment as well as I can – not because I think it will make someone love me.
I still don’t have a destination in life, but I have a morality that helps me navigate each day, and at the end of most of them I feel ok.
So right now I feel no nostalgia; and I almost hope I never do because that would mean life and I had stopped getting better. And that would be a shame after how far we’ve come.
Zimmerbitch 