Mental Health Series - Using a Coping Box

I don't like using medication like an anti-anxiety pill to help me through an upsetting episode like an anxiety attack, panic attack, depression cycle, or even a manic episode. Sometimes, I'd much rather find other ways to cope. So, through trial and error, I've come up with a solution. I call it my "Coping Box" and I've filled it with items that are specific to me that will help keep me calm, distracted, and hopeful.

If you think hard about your episodes and what you can do for your own personal mental health, you might find that there are some similar items you could put in your Coping Box.

I used a 32 quart storage container for my box. And, for fun, I put sticky letters on the outside, spelling "Coping Box" to give it some legitimacy.








Then, I thought about what would comfort me and help distract me during any type of episode.








I like to read magazines about gardens, landscaping, household tips, storage space, and the like, so I included some magazines. You can always rotate out any you've read and put in others that you'd like to read.














So, here is a list of what is in my Coping Box.

1. Magazines
2. Word Search or other Word Puzzle Books
3. Journal
4. Bible
5. Inspirational Books
6. Bubbles
7. Snacks
8. Stress Ball
9. Tissues
10. Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP)
11. Pens, Pencils, Highlighters, Sticky Notes
12. Bookmarks
13. Coloring Books
14. Devotional Books
15. Crayons
16. Colored Pencils
17. Affirmations
18. "Taming Your Gremlin" by Rick Carson
19. A distracting fiction book

This is the progression of adding each of the items.

 I chose a couple of different Word Puzzle books. I like the Word Search Puzzles best.

 I put in a journal that I usually take to the hospital if I'm hospitalized for any length of time due to a major episode. It helps me keep track of my thoughts during the episode, the treatment, and after.

This is the Bible I chose, because it's a Study Bible. I enjoy doing research and learning more than just the scriptures.

 I threw in a variety of inspirational, devotional, and helpful books that will encourage me and distract me.

You have to make your fun any way you can, and for me, the most basic way is by blowing bubbles. You can't be sad and crying if you're blowing bubbles, right?

 I put in some snack bars. You can choose anything that is your favorite and won't make a mess in the box.

A stress ball is a must for helping alleviate your physical reactions by channeling all your energy into squeezing the heck out of this little ball.

Yes, I know, at some point or another, crying is going to happen. That's why I put in a fresh pack of tissues.

The Wellness Recovery Action Plan was introduced to me through an Internet search and happening upon Mary Ellen Copeland's website.

According to the WRAP website,

"The Wellness Recovery Action Plan® or WRAP®, is a self-designed prevention and wellness process that anyone can use to get well, stay well and make their life the way they want it to be. It was developed in 1997 by a group of people who were searching for ways to overcome their own mental health issues and move on to fulfilling their life dreams and goals.  It is now used extensively by people in all kinds of circumstances, and by health care and mental health systems all over the world to address all kinds of physical, mental health and life issues.

WRAP has been studied extensively in rigorous research projects and is listed in the National Registry of Evidence-based Programs and Practices."

I am a firm believer in the WRAP program. I've been using it since 2008. You must realize it's a living document. I review my WRAP after every hospitalization and during major episodes. As people come in and out of my life, or doctors and therapists, I make changes as well.

Now that you've seen how I've created my "Coping Box", I'd like to see what you come up with when creating yours. Let me know by e-mail or in the comments section.

Reflections of the Last Year and Preparing for the New Year

It's been one of those years. You know what I mean, where it seems like one thing after another occurs, and you just can't seem to catch your breath between incidents.

Let's recap 2015, physically and mentally. I started out the year with ECT treatments for medication resistant depression and then a psychiatric hospitalization.

Then, I had a series of low back pain injections, due to a continuing low back problem. I had a major fatigue illness that kept me from doing much of anything, including walking my dog for months. I even had a series of IV infusions that were supposed to help me regain my strength. That did help, after awhile.

I knew I couldn't keep up the rate of work I'd been doing before with running several businesses, giving writing workshops, participating on the Board of Directors for Florida Writers Association, blogging, editing and proofreading others work, and freelance writing. Along with taking classes to become certified to teach journal therapy, I was stretched mentally and physically. This could have led to the energy collapse.

So, I chose to concentrate on getting myself well. I resigned from the FWA board of directors, closed my businesses, and stopped freelance writing. I stopped taking journal therapy classes and the weight of it all felt great. I knew my priorities had changed and I now wanted to not only concentrate on getting myself well, but helping others in a more one on one capacity with their writing and with opening up about mental issues. I wanted and did become an advocate for Mental Health.

I even wrote a book titled, "Writing Heals" that gives others an opportunity to discover traumatic issues that had been holding them back, learning to accept them, cope with them, and using writing to overcome them and live a life of joy.

This gave me the strength I needed to schedule my yearly trip to see my kids and grandkids, without fear of flying or travel, or leaving my home. I'd become my own version of my book.

I did have a wonderful time visiting my kids and grandkids in Arizona. My husband even went, giving us some wonderful quality time with everyone.

Then, coming back, I got the news from my Optometrist that I needed immediate Cataract surgery, after a year's determination that my eyes had deteriorated to the point that corrective lenses were no longer available. Going through Cataract surgery for both eyes and then discovering that the healing process brought on Posterior Capsulotomy (a film grew over my new lenses, causing a cloudy view, blurring, halos, etc.) The eye surgeon, Dr. Newsom, said that it sometimes occurs in "younger" patients, when they heal too quickly. So, I then had to have 2 more procedures on my eyes,  to remove that issue.

In the mean time, I was having major GI issues, that ended up with me in the ER, then admitted into the hospital for a series of tests that resulted in a diagnosis of Colitis and Diverticulitis. The Colitis continues to flare up and is not under control yet. While I went through that, I had a black out while walking on the sidewalk behind my husband, that resulted in another trip to the ER to discover that there wasn't anything apparent to cause the blackout but resulted in various bumps, bruises, a chipped tooth, sprained wrist, and broken elbow.

Yay.

And, the year wasn't over yet. I couldn't keep the incidents straight, they were happening so fast. The next thing I know, I'm in the ER again, with muscle spasms in my low back, so severe I couldn't walk, stand, sit, nothing. The pain was so severe, I called my neighbor to take me to the hospital, where after seven hours they sent me home with medication for muscle spasms and pain and an order for a week of bed rest. This meant I was in bed through the week before and during Christmas. I couldn't even decorate for Christmas, which actually ended up as a good thing, which I'll describe below.

Some of the good things that resulted were helping my husband fulfill his life long dream of getting a pilot's license. He'd been a remote control airplane and helicopter enthusiast his entire life. He'd longed to actually fly airplanes, eventually flying helicopters. So, I decided to help my husband by putting all our efforts toward this goal, including giving up a lot of of our free time with him.

One of the best things that happened was in June, when I opened up to my husband, myself, and my doctors about a 50 year old secret that I'd been keeping. I had an eating disorder. A binge eating disorder. I started seeing a new therapist who brought old insecurities and past traumas to light that helped me understand that by keeping the secret I was actually harming myself more. By, facing it, facing old life traumas, and understanding guilt ridden ideologies, I actually found myself letting go of past control issues and taking charge of my life choices, I finally understood that no one had control of my food issues. Only I could make the choices that resulted in a new pattern of lifestyle thoughts and choices that made me feel better about myself and let go of the guilt I had for so long.

I was able to apply my faith and love of God and His word to help me get through. I was able to let go of the obsessive control I had let others have and discover that I could leave the stigma of weight and food to others and not let them affect me.

I now have a more positive attitude toward food, myself, health and now have an even healthier relationship with nutrition and my body.

I now know that weight loss does not equal healthy eating or recovering from Binge Eating Disorder, and being thin does not equal happiness or health.

I am taking it one day at a time.

Best of all, I've learned better coping skills for Bipolar Disorder, Social Anxiety, General Anxiety, OCD, and PTSD. Skills that don't require psychotropic medications. My psychiatrist was in full support and helped me drop one medication after another.

Because of this, I've found that after eighteen years in the same house, where at one time I was so agoraphobic I couldn't leave my own home, I'm ready to move onto a new path in my life. A life that surrounds my husband's desire to fly and live in a community further away from the city and has its own airport. So, we are. We are moving to a community with its own airport and each house has its own hanger for an airplane.

I'm not even freaking out about it. I think the move will be a wonderful way to start 2016.

Although, when my husband and I thought about moving from our current home, we thought we'd be downsizing and thinning out our possessions. This new home is bigger than the one we have, it's on more land, and if you add the hanger space, three car garage space, and home space, it's more than three times of living space than we have now.

So, that's been my life this past year. Good and bad. Each event led me to a revelation about myself and my life's priorities.

And, my first commitment to myself is to give myself permission to change the direction of the memoir I'd struggled to write for the past year or so, and write with a passion for helping others. That makes me very happy.

I'm also going to make a commitment to increase my physical activity, as the community we are moving to gives Jack (my American Eskimo dog) and me more areas to walk, without getting near a major road.

I'll continue my therapy work on Binge Eating Disorder, reinforcing new techniques to help me be more mindful of my eating habits and choices.

And, I'll work with other writers, giving them of my time and knowledge, to help them become the best writer they can be and help them achieve their writing goals.

I have a wedding to look forward to, as my son is getting married to the love of his life and that could mean more grandchildren on the horizon. (yay!)

Finally, I'll continue my work learning as much as I can about the Bible and Christian History so that I can not only answer my questions, but give me a further perspective about my relationship with God.

The best thing is, with my progress with Bipolar Disorder and other mental issues, I am going to help as a Mental Health Advocate by reducing stigma and increasing knowledge for those who want to learn.

That's it. That's been my 2015 life, and my feelings about my future for 2016. Am I going to make a resolution? Doubtful. I don't think they are necessary and I'd rather work on improving myself physically, emotionally, mentally, and personally with positive affirmations, thoughts, and actions.

I hope that you had an enlightened 2015 and that you can look forward to 2016 without making unnecessary or unachievable resolutions.

Be kind to yourself and to others. Follow Jesus' commandments to love God and one another.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable -- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy -- think about such things. -- Philippians 4:8

Turn your thoughts to positive things, as urged by Paul. Make a conscious effort to think gentler, more noble thoughts. Replace all of your bad thoughts with kinder, love-filled thoughts, reducing stress and increasing your peace. Before long, you'll re-train your brain to naturally turn to truth, purity and excellence.

Happy New Year!

Vicki

P.S. I hope you are enjoying my series on Mental Health. If you have any suggestions for a topic, please let me know.

Medication Slip Up - There are No Second Chances

I can only imagine. When all that I do is only worship you. Dear God. That even in the good times something like this could still happen.

I nearly killed myself this week and I didn’t even try. I wasn’t depressed. I wasn’t despondent. I loved life. I was enjoying getting ready for the next Bible class. I was working on the next Writers workshop I was going to give on May 3^rd.

I’m working on developing a new business for a trauma therapy.

So, why am I on pseudo-suicide watch from my husband? Why am I not allowed to do certain activities? Why am I not allowed out of my husband’s sight? Why am I not allowed to make decisions?

Why did I take a nearly quadruple dosage of Topomax for nearly a week?

Because I didn’t pay attention when I got the instructions from my doctor. And then I again didn’t pay attention to the instructions from the pharmacist when I picked up the medication from the pharmacy.

Listen and listen well, people. You only get one chance to listen to your doctor and to your pharmacist if you are the only ONE in your life. I am so lucky I have my husband in my life. He realized something was wrong with me and contacted my doctor by e-mail.

We are so lucky I keep what I call a Wellness Recovery Action Plan. In it is a list of all my medications, the dosages and when I’m supposed to take them. Somehow, even though I got all the other instructions wrong, I got the instructions right enough to put them in my book. I updated my book. Thank you, dear Lord God.

Between my husband and my doctor they figured out that I had mixed up my medication. They made a plan between the two of them for the rest of the week and I’m going to see the doctor in a week.

I scared my husband to death.

He is taking it out on a new water heater.

I’m scared.

I’m tearful. What if my husband wasn’t watching me close enough?

I love him with all my heart. He is my everything.

We now have a new medication plan. Together we put my medication together for the next week. We double-check each other.

I’m still feeling the effects of the medication overdose. I’m taking things slow. But, with perseverance and faith, I am going to be back, better than ever.

Image credit: dianazh / 123RF Stock Photo