My first point for this post is fixations. I've had my fair share and I don't mean in the Freud sense where you can get stuck in a stage of psychosexual development and develop certain fixations depending on where you got stuck (like people who got stuck in the oral stage may bite their nails or smoke, those who got stuck in the anal stage are usually very neat people who obsess over tiny little things - hence if you've ever heard the term 'stop being so anal' that's where it comes from... If you have no idea what I'm talking about just forget I mentioned anything and let's move swiftly on).

I've definitely fixated on several things, and not always intentionally, to distract myself from whatever's going on in my head. Before I came to terms that my anxiety and depression had made a comeback late last year I spent a good few days obsessing about getting a new laptop. The short version of that story is that it was all I could think about day in day out, I was making lists, gathering every 1p and 2p I could find to try and make some sort of dent in the price and ended up getting very stressed when nothing was going right. It wasn't until it was brought to my attention that I didn't need a new laptop, and I seemed very unnecessarily stressed over the whole thing that I broke down, and didn't know what else to do. I'd realised that it was all a distraction - something to take away from the fact that I wasn't dealing too well. The worst part for me was that I had no idea. I knew that the laptop was the most important thing at the time, but it wasn't like I intentionally redirected my stress to that.

It's good to be aware of your distractions. At the moment I'm very pro-acceptance. There's no issue in having a distraction, at the minute both my boyfriend and I are doing a lot of crafting and painting. It's cathartic as heck and definitely helps to calm the mood if either of us are feeling particularly panicky that day. 

The difference between my arts and crafts and the laptop debacle was that obsessing over the laptop wasn't achieving anything. I was causing myself more stress than was necessary, especially when you pile it up with everything else I was in denial of at the time. When you want to have something to take your mind off everything going on in your head, it's a good idea to make it productive. In my experience, I always feel a sense of achievement if I can actually produce something, and so my distractions have been something that I can be proud of afterwards, whether it's taking pictures, making mini stones out of foam and paint or spending three hours sifting garden rope in an attempt to make fake grass. It may sound lame and boring and unproductive but it sure beats sitting there beating myself up about not living up to my own expectations. 

I also think there's a strong difference between a fixation and a distraction. A fixation is an obsession, and I don't really think anything positive connotes with the word fixation. We don't want to become obsessed about something because it may get to the point where it lets us down, or we come to the realisation that it's not that important, and we are then left completely stranded and not knowing what to do with ourselves. If you're after a distraction however, as long as it's positive and ideally creative then I think and psychologists I've spoken to in the past also think that it's perfectly healthy and to be encouraged.

We don't want to obsess over things as a form of distraction. As I keep mentioning, we want to accept and acknowledge that our mental health illnesses are present and do whatever we can to keep us from being stuck in our own heads. If I'm not doing anything I quite often find myself thinking very negatively and end up putting myself into a miserable mood that I struggle to get out of. If I'm watching YouTube or Netflix I like to be doing something alongside that forces me to think about something else.

By distracting ourselves I don't at all think we're denying any form of problem that might be happening in our brain, in fact I think it's the opposite. I think by distracting ourselves we're recognising that there's a problem and simply giving it the middle finger and saying 'yeah you can try, but I've got other stuff to do'.

It might not work all the time, I'm very easily defeated and there have been times were I've just wanted to give up on a painting, or a drawing or my fake grass because it wasn't going well and I beat myself up about it, I take the defeat way too harshly on myself but that's just part of my personality - forever taking things far too personally and will most likely cry at some point during the day. I'm not saying this is an alternative to medication or therapy, I'm simply advising a crafty solution to times where you may be by yourself or in a situation that you may be prone to having negative thoughts in. 

Remember: Don't fixate. Be aware of the problem, and be aware that what you're doing is to help yourself. Remember that creativity is good. Remember that obsessing and stressing yourself out over something insignificant is not. 

I hope you're all well and I will speak to you on Friday

Until next time,

-M x