Well Well Wellness

Photo by Alice Donovan Rouse on Unsplash And we all thought 2016 was a terrible year. Well, nine months behind us and it looks like 2017 is giving it a run for its money. Whether the disaster you're dealing with is on a personal or global scale, remember to check in with yourself. While you're worrying about all the shit that's going on around you, please also take the time out to take care of you . This morning I managed to drag myself on to my yoga mat after letting it collect dust for a week or so, and I found one of my favourite Youtube yogis, Adriene Mishler , has uploaded a timely session called Yoga for After a Disaster . It was such a lovely, slow, nourishing start to my day, and it gave me the time to just let go of the stress and anxiety that's been building up this week. It's so easy to get caught up in all the bad stuff, and some of us might feel guilty or feel that you don't deserve to feel good with everything that's happening in the...

The other night I was at a social event, a couple of my close friends' local theatre group was putting on a small play. I didn't expect it to be triggering, but hey, that's just how it goes sometimes, isn't it? When hit with anxiety in public, I try to remind myself of the following coping mechanisms: Don't forget your meds Seems pretty simple and self-explanatory enough, but since I try to limit my benzo intake, I often forget I even have them. Keep a couple emergency pills on you, and don't be afraid to take them if necessary. Try not to draw attention to yourself I've tried it all sorts of ways: announcing it to the group, telling a close friend, keeping it to myself. If the person you're with is part of your support system, someone you know understands what it means when you tell them your anxiety is acting up, great, tell them, let them help you. If not, I've found that telling people about it is (a) just going to make other people unc...

While this site is still in its fetal stage, I'm still kind of feeling the place out, finding my voice, seeing what direction to go in. It's all trial and error, missed exits and abrupt u-turns. I have a lot of hopes and doubts that all this will ever turn into anything beyond me mumbling about my mood disorders and hatred for exercise to the 10 odd people who happen to click on a hyperlink that led them to this little corner of the internet. We'll just have to wait and see what happens. The thing is: my parents can read this. My old high school friends can read this. The manager at the craft beer place I patronise way too often as it's just up the street from my building can read this. It's just kind of out there for anyone to stumble upon. And that's terrifying. I debated with myself about what name to use and what degree of anonymity I wanted to remain under. To be honest, I'm still not quite sure. I've had a couple of exes who shied away from the...

Have you ever thought about associative memory and how the tiniest things can throw you for a loop, or in my case, go down an anxiety spiral that can last minutes or days? It's an age old tale. Proust wrote about it after eating a madeleine and was suddenly like whoa, major flashback,  just from a bite of something seemingly innocuous as cake dipped in tea. There's a list I keep that's really kind of depressing, but I guess it's better to acknowledge the reality of it and make my peace with it, because the thing is likely to grow longer as I progress in life. Whether you're living with mental illness or you're just an over-thinker, you're going to have to face a lot of things which will forever be marred by the undesired thoughts you associate with them. I'm absolutely positive everyone has that one song that makes you cry/cringe/ponder all your life choices and all the things that could have been when you hear it. On the other hand, there's no d...

Today, I was listening to The Weeknd and my face suddenly flushed with hot rage. This is not a usual occurrence as (a) I'm not one to get angry too often, particularly when listening to pop music, and (b) I actually like The Weeknd very much. Now, I'm aware of how problematic pop music lyrics can be, especially in terms of how they portray women, and I'm usually able to bypass the misogyny of some of Starboy's lyrics to focus on how gosh darn catchy his songs are and let my head bop accordingly. But today, I felt angry upon hearing these simple words from one of my favourite songs of his, Reminder , in which Mr. Tesfaye states, "When I travel 'round the globe, make a couple mil' a show / And I come back to my city, I fuck every girl I know." So I actually don't even think the lyric is overtly misogynistic; for all we know, he and every girl he knows in his hometown have a certain arrangement, that they just fuck when he's in town and everyo...