 Hi there Sophie. How you doing? We's the best buddy in the whole world. Hello there my beautiful lovely talented delightful special internet friends Welcome back to my channel. Thank you so much for joining me here tonight I wanted to talk a little bit tonight about when mental health coping strategies start to fail because this is something I have been experiencing deeply in my life recently Over the past couple months past couple weeks and past couple days in particular Depression has sunk its ugly little teeth and claws into my back and will not let go and here's the thing I am not new to this game. I am not new to the struggle. I've been here before I'm sure I'll be here again And over the years I have made it a point to prioritize my mental health I've made it a point to seek help from talented counselors who I trust I made it a point to spend time with myself working on myself Figuring out what hurts and why and what I can do with it acquiring tools to deal with depression or anxiety or panic Or PTSD when it rears its ugly head. It has taken a lot of time effort energy Pain joy to get to the place where I'm like, you know, I'm not doing perfect But I'm doing good and when I'm not doing good. I know what to do I know things that will bring me up whether that is going for a hike Whether that is sitting and binge watching six hours of a netflix show Feel free to debate me on if that's healthy or not, but frankly it helps me So I'm gonna keep going with it whether that's rejecting the call of isolation And choosing intentionally to spend time with people who I like people who I love people who bring me joy I've acquired this list this hand basket of tools to pull on when it starts feeling like life is no longer worth living When it starts feeling like there is no point to existence. It's too painful and it's never gonna stop I found a variety of people that help of things that help of tools to call upon when I get in these places But recently those tools have stopped working And I think when we get to this place because I don't think this is unique to me. It can be kind of scary I know it's been scary to me being like, you know When I when I started feeling all of this coming on what used to work was just to take a day And go into the mountains and reconnect with nature and myself and my dog and my person And that would stabilize me and making sure I'm getting sleep and exercising and all of this stuff It is all simply vaporized and it's effectiveness It's gone from this list of things That I know sustain me and bring me joy to a checklist of survival And that's been frightening to me because why why would the coping strategies that used to work before suddenly stop working? Why does journaling do nothing for me and feel like a waste of time? Why does exercising no longer bring me any kind of joy because it's something I I generally really enjoy Why is it that I don't feel like I can connect with people at all right now? Why do I feel so disconnected from myself even though I'm doing all the right things? And that's why I want to pause for a moment because I don't know about you I tend to be a big fan Of doing the right thing, right? If I have a list of things that I have to do I can get them done. I can check them off one by one And sometimes I treat my mental health like that and I I want to state. I don't think that's a bad thing I think it's important to have things that we call upon But I think I've started treating my mental health and my emotions like they're a checklist Okay, so I'm gonna go outside and then I'm going to journal and then I'm going to try meditation That I'm going to try to learn something new about something in the world I don't know to expand to him as a person because I know that's that's helpful to me Check check check got those things done. Oh, I should exercise check got that done Oh, I should I should probably get to bed before 11 o'clock tonight. All right. Check got that done Now I should be good because I did all the right things I fall into this trap of thinking that if I do all the right things, I will get the same result I'll get a positive result But the reality of our brains is that they are infinitely more complicated than that The reality of our emotions and our experiences is that they don't quite work like checklists Even though those of us with certain personalities would like them to work that way If they could please work that way, that'd be great So my checklist of how to cope with life and depression when it gets dark and scary Has suddenly stopped meaning much It's stopped feeling effective And that's been really unnerving because on top of fighting depression I now feel like I'm doing something wrong and I'm failing And I was speaking with my counselor this week and I expressed to her that everything feels like a distraction Meaningful important things in my life feel like a freaking distraction From the overwhelming feeling that nothing matters Nothing is worthwhile. There's no worth or value in anything. What are we even doing here? What am I doing here? I don't want to exist. I don't want to exist anymore I don't want to be here And it was frustrating me so much that all these coping tools that I I have that used to bring me up Now simply keep me above water right like shouldn't I feel more in life than simply surviving The answer is is yes, it's something I'd like to work towards But as circumstances change as we change as people as the world evolves around us Fortunately and unfortunately the things that are going to help us are going to shift and change too And though it's frustrating and it's okay to acknowledge that the things that have worked for us before May not work for us anymore because we might not be the same people that we were when they were working It can feel agonizing to have a a basket of things that were sustaining me and now they're not but also For the moment. That's okay Using those tools to simply stay afloat if they no longer bring me joy if they no longer bring me up But they keep me here. That's okay If I'm no longer enjoying exercise and I don't want to sleep But I know that these are good things for me. So I continue to do them That's okay If I feel so utterly disconnected from the world and everyone around me And I used to have these plugs that I could plug into but there's no electrical current coming through that outlet anymore If that analogy made any sense, that's okay It just means that the answer is somewhere else and it might take a little exploration to find it I think I was kind of mad at myself and felt like something was broken in me that All of the things that I've learned to do to make it to survive to breathe Were suddenly not working anymore. So, you know, how screwed up must I be? But the reality is that things ebb and flow and sometimes the things that used to bring us a lot of joy In that moment just aren't going to and sometimes they're important to do anyways to just make it I'm continuing to remind myself that it's okay If everything I'm doing right now feels like a distraction as long as I am taking time to focus on those feelings And I think maybe that's at the heart of what I'm dealing with as we've discussed I tend to turn things into checklists and sometimes the real work Of healing from things the real work of mental health is not checking boxes It's in feeling things Sometimes the reason why everything in life feels like a distraction from I don't know what it should be is Because I am distracting myself From painful feelings and memories that I don't want to work through that I don't want to face And it might take a little while to get to the place where I'm ready to do that and that's okay If any of this rings true for you If you are a checklist kind of person like I am if you feel like everything is a distraction from the agony of life And it shouldn't be that way If you feel like you have this list of things that was helping you and suddenly they are not and why aren't they? Because it's wrong because they should help because they did before Please know that you are not alone. I am actively in the midst of trying to figure this out But I wanted to take a moment to share where I am in hopes that if you're in a similar place You know, you're not alone and also say it is okay There's no shame in us feeling this way It is so important, especially in these moments to really take time to invest in yourself to find people who are Safe to talk to to try to connect even if it feels meaningless and pointless and like it's not going to work To look to things to bring you joy to bring you a moment of feeling alive if you are really struggling Those things are very much worth fighting for Even if they don't feel like it. There's a quote I like and I don't know who says it that goes the only constant in life Is change and that is fortunately and unfortunately accurate. We are never truly static We are always changing bit by bit as people and sometimes that means with strategies that we use To deal with life or mental illness are gonna have to shift and grow with us If what was working before isn't working anymore, you're not broken. I'm not broken It's part of being human and working through mental health at the end of the day I am worth fighting for and you are worth fighting for it's worth the effort that we put into figuring out How to deal with the darkness whatever that darkness is for you I'm gonna keep fighting for me and I sure as hell hope you will keep fighting for you because you're worth it And I think I'm gonna go ahead and sign off there. I feel like I'm questioning the the Wisdom of posting this video. I don't know if it'll ever see the light of the internet If you're watching it, you obviously know my decision there, but if you listen to this, thank you Thank you to my patrons for keeping this channel floating for supporting me in so many ways I truly appreciate each and every one of you Thank you watching this video for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me today It really means the world to me if you're watching this and you're having a hard time Like I said, you're not alone and we will find a way through this I love you guys. I'm thinking about you and I'll see you in the next video