Awareness

How do you feel today? Are you agitated, stressed, anxious, hyper? I often feel all of these things, sometimes all at once. Do you ask yourself this question? Are you attuned to how your mind and body are feeling? It took me a while to become aware of changes in my mind and subsequently my body.  I also realised that my emotions and my thoughts manifest in some part of my body. 

Like all physical illnesses, all mental illnesses have symptoms like anxiety, stress, sleeplessness, mood swings and so on. Yes, everyone experiences these symptoms to a degree, but in my experience, they are magnified in a person with a mental illness. It is important to recognize whether what you are feeling is normal or an overreaction to a given situation. 

For example, a last minute change of dinner plans used to cause me tremendous anxiety, irritation and stress. I wasn’t even aware of this till I was made aware. Once I realised, I started looking at it logically and thinking in terms of worst case scenarios. In this case, there really isn’t any catastrophic worst case scenario. But systematically thinking it through helped me to deal with the anxiety and I found myself enjoying the evening no matter the plans. 

Recognizing stressors

In the larger scheme of things, the above example is a minor stressor. Major life events or changes, like unemployment, dysfunctional relationships, death of a close one, making life changing decisions etc. may cause extreme stress and anxiety. For everyone these situations are hard to deal with but they can send someone with a mental illness into a downward spiral.

When I have faced situations like these, I have felt such debilitating anxiety that it felt like I was on the precipice of an abyss. And I have fallen into that abyss, more than once. I will talk about that in later posts. The point I am trying to make here is that when I am able to identify what the stressor is and how it is making me feel, I can try to find a solution to feel better. Often the situation is not in my control at all, say Covid. So in that case, all I can do is to tell myself to accept the reality and move on. 

External stressors may not always be responsible. Often everything is going well and suddenly I feel a drop in my mood. It’s very unexpected. I may be laughing one second and the next I just want to curl up into a ball and cry. Although there isn’t a consensus among researchers as to what causes this kind of extreme mood change, it is likely that they occur due to some chemical changes in the brain. When this happens, I just stay with the feeling and it passes eventually. I try to make mental notes about the situation, about what I am feeling and thinking. Making mental notes has helped me become more aware of physical manifestations of my mental state.

Mind and body

My psychiatrist and therapist taught me to recognize where in my body I feel stress or anxiety. Most often I feel it in my stomach. I tend to clench my stomach when I am feeling anxious or depressed. My therapist taught me to put my hand on my stomach and breathe into it to release the tension. 

The mind and body are more interlinked than you might think. My emotional state always manifests itself through my body. If I have an exam or a stressful work situation, I feel physically sick or sometimes even come down with fever. In retrospect, it has always been the case. When I’m going through a depressive cycle, apart from feeling negative and low, I also feel physically tired and listless. I have heard of people experiencing other physical uneasiness like nausea or migraines.

Symptoms

How do we know if something we are feeling is a symptom? Thankfully, there is decades of research on this topic we only have to google to find the symptoms. Here is a list of some of the symptoms of Bipolar II Disorder that I experience most often. 

1. Insomnia
2. Anxiety
3. Anger/irritation
4. Hopelessness
5. Mood swings
6. Withdrawal from friends and family
7. Listlessness / lethargy
8. Suicidal thoughts

In my understanding, these symptoms are common to many mental disorders. You can check a fairly detailed list here. I think, today, learning to identify basic symptoms of mental illnesses is kind of a necessary skill; not just for oneself but also for people around us who may need help.

A person may look like they’re perfectly fine but they may be suffering from turbulent thoughts and feelings inside. Symptoms of mental illnesses may not be easily perceived on the outside by another person or by the person going through it either. But they are very real and they can be extremely debilitating.

What next?

Through practice I know that one of the key solutions to feeling better is to become aware of what I am feeling, my thoughts and how they affect my body. My psychiatrist and therapist have given me tools that have helped me to become attuned to my mood patterns, and how my mind and body are connected. They have also taught me to accept what I feel, no matter how horrible, and stay with it. This acceptance has in turn helped me to understand how these emotions affect me and that has helped me to be kinder to myself.

In the coming weeks, I will talk about the different symptoms and some solutions I have found in order to help me feel better. 

If you are experiencing any of the symptoms mentioned above, please contact a mental health professional. 

I am not a mental health professional. All blog posts are based on my subjective experiences and opinions.