Hi thanks to everyone that has read my mental health post about last year. This blog has mainly been focussed on Microsoft Power Automate but the last few posts have kind of veered away from that a bit. So I wanted to mention that my blog will now be focussed on my two passions (apart from Family of course) and they are:
The Power Platform
Mental Health.
This post will be about why I am passionate about mental well being and also how anxiety can disconnect you from those around you.
I intend to write another post from the perspective of my wife as she has felt with my anxiety as a supporter of trying to make someone feel better.
I’ve always felt that I am an empathic person, I can sense how someone is feeling just by the look on their face or their mannerisms. I really believe I am a good active listener and these are important traits to help someone who may be going through a bad mental health episode.
A few years back I did a Level 2 introduction to counselling and through that experience I learnt a lot about myself. Some might say it opened up a “can of worms”. I’m not so sure that is a 100% accurate statement but it definitely made me hold myself up to the mirror and ask some pretty in depth questions as to why I am like I am and what makes me tick.
I loved that course. I truly feel I am where I am now because I studied counselling. I feel I am a better all round person capable of listening to people without prejudice or unconscious bias.
But...
All that goes out the window when I have an anxious episode. It’s like my mind is fighting itself. Part of me knows and has learnt the techniques needed to help myself but I’m looking down on myself as if I’m a third person trying to get into the anxious shell left behind.
I want to tell him that he will be alright soon, to open up, to talk, to refocus but I either don’t say it or that part of my mind has been filtered right back to my subconscious and it’s gonna take a lot of effort to get that version of me back to the surface.
This is what I see as my disconnected state. I’m despondent, I don’t hear things, I might hear something but interpret completely wrong, blowing things up out of all proportion and sometimes taking that out on the people I love.
I am sorry for that.
But my wife will say, “it’s not you. It’s like you are someone else”.
This picture shows this. I took it in the middle of a really anxious period last year. I mean even to me it really is shocking. I do look physically completely different.
So how do I reconnect ?
Well, I have asked my wife to ask me certain questions. They are like an unwritten cue card for her to start the de-escalating spiral process that is anxiety. She knows what to say, how to say it.
It’s like a reverse trigger to the anxiety, an antidote.
So for those of you reading this suffering with anxiety. You are not alone. You might feel like it when you are inside it, but you are not. Find those people around you and in your non-anxious state tell them what can help to restore your factory settings.
Tell them or ask them to write down questions to ask you to complete the reset. It might take a few times to get it right. But trust me it does work. Get them to ask open (as opposed to closed) questions which will solicit a longer answer than a yes, no or a grunt.
You’ve got this.
My inbox is always open if you wish to talk or reach out too.
Jon@jondoesflow.com