Mental Health Awareness Issue (Fall Issue 6)
The weight of these sad times we must obey;
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
William Shakespeare, King Lear, V.iii
Click here to download a PDF of this issue, along with the Greensheet
Zoomiticus Anxietus
By Isabel Ong
Thoughts that run amok in my mind every single time I attend a Zoom class:
“Ugh, my fringe looks weird.”
“Great. What I just said out loud sounds really… lame.”
“Please don’t call on me to answer anything.”
Before the fall term started, one word that a couple of fellow Regent students mentioned when I asked them how they were doing was “overwhelmed.” We’re now seven weeks in, and it doesn’t seem like anything has changed. Of course, this isn’t a universal, shared experience; some of you might be enjoying online classes a lot more than other folks! And while I love taking less-than-five paces from bedroom to (virtual) classroom—as opposed to trudging over to college with icy snowflakes bombarding my face—I’ve noticed a rather sharp spike in my anxiety this term.
I first realized this when my subconscious rudely startled me awake in the middle of the night during the first week of term. I started fretting over what a poor answer I had given to a prof’s question in class, and it took me a long time to fall asleep again. And as term progressed, I began feeling a tightness in my chest every time I thought of all the deadlines and commitments I was juggling.
I’m more than acquainted with stress and the strain it can have on my body, so it doesn’t surprise me that I’ve been experiencing some physical tension. What does surprise me, though, is how much anxiety attending Zoom classes causes me. “It feels like I have to “perform” and be my “best self” in front of the camera, the prof, and all my other classmates,” I commented recently to my husband and fellow Regent student, Victor (who, to my chagrin, replied that he does not experience any of that; someone tell me I’m not alone in feeling this!).
At in-person classes, I’m the kind of student who’s perfectly content to sit quietly at the back of the classroom, head buried in my note-taking and reading. But when I speak in Zoom classes, it feels like a billion pairs of eyes are on me, scrutinizing my every word and facial expression, and hearing my voice in their ears (isn’t that such an intimate thing to experience, too?!). I’m also pretty attuned to body language and behavioural cues, and since Zoom cannot quite communicate these across, I find myself bereft of little ways I can connect with my classmates, like admiring their rain boots or valiantly striving to parse Hebrew words together.
My work at Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries, a Christian mental health non-profit in Vancouver, has given me some handles and helpful tools to process and understand anxiety. I’ve learned that it’s much easier and healthier to allow myself to experience it, rather than suppressing it or trying to crowd it out. Therapist and researcher Hillary McBride dubs this “birdwatching” our emotions, which I think is absolutely spot-on. I’ve also learned to give myself time to probe why I’m feeling anxious, instead of criticizing myself for feeling it.
In a sense, there is something powerfully freeing in allowing these anxious cogitations to come and go. It’s cathartic, really, to relax and breathe into—and yes, write about—this experience of Zoomiticus Anxietus, rather than finding ways to resolve it. Even now, an image comes to me as I wrap this reflection up: I am reaching out to scoop and drink from His deep well of love; it is cool and sweet and (to my great relief) endlessly available.
No worst
By Gerard Manley Hopkins
No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief
Woe, wórld-sorrow; on an áge-old anvil wince and sing —
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No ling-
ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief."'
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.
Practical Ways of Coping with Depression (Part 1)
By Anne Shannon, MA CCC
Anne Shannon is a full-time counsellor in private practice and part of Regent’s network of local counsellors. At the beginning of lockdown, she made available to Regent some further ideas for self-care during the pandemic. Students can find these through the Mental Health Resources link on Moodle (in the sidebar under Student Life).
Depression is hard and creeps into all of our living, and our everyday life. Depending on the levels of heaviness, it can be dealt with from several angles. Sometimes, you only need a few tools, and often a combination of tools and counselling helps.
Counselling, or therapy, can get at underlying issues that have piled up in the background mostly because they are hard to face alone, or we don’t have a framework to understand and name some larger hurts. Having another person guide you through that helps us see what we don’t understand or have trouble putting words to. Finding the words and voicing difficult emotions can often help lift the heaviness that has built up and clear it.
Medication can be helpful, especially if the depression is so strong that it is hard to implement the practical tools or to process in counselling. Medication can help to create space to be able to process, especially when depression is so strong that it is hard to focus.
Our focus here is on practical tools which offer a wholistic approach to help cope with some of the common effects of depression. They are meant to help us ease some of the symptoms and regain a sense that we are people who are struggling with depression, rather than depression being who we are or dominating our life. These are only ideas, that give the principle of what is helpful. Be creative in adapting these to make the tools yours!
PHYSIOLOGICAL:
Supplements, or foods that contain Omega 3 and Vitamin D are helpful to include in our diets.
Exercise: Aerobic & cardio workouts get your blood pumping and can shift cortisol levels in your body (particularly helpful if anxiety and worry is also creeping in). Neuroscience is also discovering that 30 minutes of either walking or running 3-4 times a week gives a rhythmic movement that calms stressors. Even any kind of movement, like stretching or dancing, that lets us move our muscles and limbs can shift the feelings of heaviness that keep our muscles lethargic.
Deep breathing: Take a few minutes, at any point of the day to stop, and notice your breathing, and to breathe deeply, from your diaphragm. This is particularly helpful with anxiety but can also help depression. It increases the flow of oxygen in the blood, that can often help clear our mind and bring back some focus.
Sleep Hygiene: Depression often affects sleep, through insomnia or too much sleep. The feeling when you just want to stay under the covers and make the day go away. A regular routine of going to bed and getting up can be very helpful for both.
Set a regular time for going to bed. Disconnect from social media and the blue light of devices an hour before bedtime. Make your bed a place to sleep and nothing else. Take a shower, wash your face, have some warm milk, or listen to calming music—whatever helps you relax the most. Have a regular wakeup time, no matter what day it is, and create a routine of what you do when you wake up.
EMOTIONAL:
Putting words to our emotions, and noticing that we are feeling them in the moment, is very helpful to clear them and reduce the pileup inside. Listen, pay attention, don’t judge or fear the emotion. It is only a feeling, it is not you, nor does it say anything about you or your life. Naming an emotion begins to make it less overwhelming. Get to know the names of emotions through tools like a feelings wheel. These help us with the ones whose names we don’t know. Describing the feel of an emotion is a second part to putting words to an emotion. Using metaphors, pictures, lines, and colors, add to the names in describing an emotion.
Documenting the emotions in a journal is helpful when you are processing with a counsellor, as they can help you see the bigger picture or the map of what is underlying the depression, even if you just list the emotions and their description. It also helps to have a tangible place, like a notebook, where they are, and that you can close once you are done. It also reduces the feeling of overwhelming emotions.
Ask yourself if you need to give expression to the emotion. Cry if you’re sad; pound a pillow if you’re angry (don’t hurt yourself, others, or property), paint, create some music, scream (again, without scaring others).
Ask yourself (once the emotion subsides) if you need something soothing or calming or comforting. Being kind to ourselves after a strong emotion is a way of validating ourselves in our experience and letting our whole being know that we have just had a feeling, but it is not who we are, nor does it take up all the space of our lives.
Sometimes, thoughts or emotions flood up at night, once the day is still. If that is the case, and we find its interrupting sleep, it can be helpful to keep a small notebook by our bed to write them down and promise ourselves to look at it the next day. Set aside time in the daytime (not at bedtime) to check in with ourselves about emotions we have been noticing. This is helpful if our lives are busy, especially with children, work demands, or other responsibilities of life. And use those times to work through the above exercise with emotions.
Check next week’s issue for more tools to help cope with depression.
Make Art. It’s Good For You.
By Bryana Russell
On day five million of the pandemic, I could feel the tension rising in our home/school/workplace. It was that time of day, secretly known amongst parents as the witching hour. Camaraderie dissolves into bickering, co-operation into contradiction, and the wheels on the bus, which once went round and round, all. fall. off. Compounded by social isolation and the loss of normality, our communal mental well-being took a nosedive. In a stroke of desperation or genius, I reached for four unmarked canvases, pulled out the art supplies, and invited a pouring out of paint and emotion. How had I forgotten the help and healing of creative action?
A recent article from Harvard echoes what art therapists have long known: the act of creating is important as people seek to move through difficult times. Studies suggest art-making not only decreases stress, offering aid to anxiety, depression, and grief, it also contributes to cognitive capacities such as memory, brain plasticity, attentiveness, and even IQ. Friends, taking time to doodle, finger paint, or arrange flowers could actually help you with that Greek exam whilst decreasing stress! My own art practice has provided additional benefits. In the midst of uncertainty and fear, it causes me to be present and attentive to the details of beauty in my midst. Humbled as I create, I am reminded of the Creator who holds and molds me.
As we approach the witching hour of the term, friends, I invite you to practice art-making this week. It need not involve canvas and paint. A trip to the beach can inspire Andy Goldsworthy style art with pebbles and multi-coloured leaves. (Google him. Please.) Take time to sketch your thoughts, colour a picture, or play with your (or someone else’s) children’s playdough. Make. Imagine. Create. Let it be an act of self-care, of prayer, and of attention. And let the benefits seep into your soul.
For more inspiration, visit schindellgallery.ca to see and read other artists reflect on the gift of making art in isolation.
Addiction is a Second-Date Conversation
By Amy Deutscher
Some of us know the joys and pitfalls of dating in a global pandemic. You can make a move without everyone in the Atrium watching and there are more people than ever on dating apps. But how do you know their hand is sanitised when you reach for it? How do you introduce them to all your friends when choosing your bubble is more brutal than choosing your MySpace Top 8?
Regardless of what stage the City of Vancouver has us in, the ambiguity of appropriate date topics has always haunted the dating world. When is it too soon to talk about women in ministry, ask if they’re a cessationist, or confess I’m a celiac? (I once had a dream I was on a date with Chris Pratt and when he found out I couldn’t eat Dominos, he dumped me. Perhaps a subconscious fear?)
I think the question stems from an unspoken agreement that some topics are “too heavy”—especially for a first date. First dates are for appearing fun, interesting, alluring. Hence, the well-meaning advice my friend received too late—“Addiction is a second-date conversation.”
Apparently there’s nothing sexy about addiction and the mental health challenges that swarm around it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen “I live with depression” on a Hinge profile. Shame, guilt, and stigma urge us to hide such information—not just in the dating world, but from all our social contexts. In a life of mainly online interactions it can be easier to hide and easier to feel more isolated.
The truth is, mental illness is all around us. The Downtown Eastside is renowned for its high rates of mental illness and addiction, a reputation that repels the wealthy and keeps them to the clean streets of town. It also tends to define the stock standard image most have of ‘mental illness.’ But let’s not forget that someone with lived experience could smell lovely, have clean and fashionable clothing, and not be screaming obscenities to the air. Mental illness affects us, the people we date, our family, co-workers, professors, and fellow students.
Australian poet, Beau Taplin, speaks to this in his poem ‘Isolation’:
Be aware and understanding of all
people regardless of their standing
and circumstances. Even the most
privileged life can be miserable and
isolating when the mind is sick.
We do not get to decide how
happy someone should feel by how
seemingly wonderful the world is
around them.
(Bloom, 2018)
We often assume a correlation between circumstance and mental health but circumstance is only one part of the complex equation. Such an assumption does not serve us or our communities well.
And so the aim of this little collection of words is not to help us gain clarity for our next dating ventures; it’s a very personal decision when to bring up mental illness in a dating relationship. My aim is to encourage us to reach out to one another and to our city. Spend some time at a Jacob’s Well community meal, go for a walk with a new student, send your professor an encouraging email, be vulnerable with others about where you’re really at. We may not have the answers, but we are the hands and feet of Christ, called to community.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers
By Emily Dickinson
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.