Hello, so I’m back and I just want thank everyone for the lovely comments on my last blog post, it’s been a strange couple of weeks and I haven’t been sure what to write since the loss of my nan so I thought I would just do a ‘journal style’ blog today.
These past 3 weeks have been extremely difficult, stressful and exhausting. This Thursday we had the funeral for my nan, it was a beautiful service and I think she would have loved it but it was so difficult, I think it’s reality sinking in that life really is going to be different with her not here anymore. So I thought I would would write a blog about what I’ve been experiencing these past few weeks mentally/ spiritually and just in life.
Mental Health
So I have mentioned this in a previous blog post but I struggle with anxiety, depression & OCD. I actually went into therapy for my OCD this year and finished last month and was no longer struggling with high functioning OCD. So it was really interesting (and frustrating) when dealing with grief my OCD really came back in waves when I was faced with a lot of stress and emotions.
My OCD manifested in contamination, it began at the beginning of the pandemic and I never dealt with it because I assumed that was completely normal given the situation the world was in, I thought my routines and compulsions were just how everyone was acting. I only realised it was out of control when I was starting to become frozen in anxiety and the only safe space was my bedroom because I could control what would be ‘contaminated’. After this I spoke to a lot of different people and eventually a therapist and learnt it was just a way of my brain trying to get control when everything seemed out of my control.
So it’s been a really long process and I still struggle with it but I’ve made such progress in the last two months and don’t feel the compulsions so strongly anymore. So the past few weeks with have been really difficult because it’s the first time I’ve had to go through something such as grief and learn not to use my compulsions to deal with emotions. The night before the funeral my auntie said she wasn’t feeling well and this almost felt like the universe just testing me to see what I would do! I knew my brain would focus in on that but I sat with myself and actually got angry at myself for being worried about someone being ill instead of focusing on my nan’s funeral. So that morning I woke up really anxious and was really stressed but kept telling myself that even if I did get ill, what is so scary about that? I wasn’t going to avoid my auntie on the day of her mother’s funeral, it’s horrible that your OCD makes you think I’m that way but I really just got angry at it and refused to give into the thoughts. Funnily enough my auntie wasn’t ill and I spent the day with everyone just fine and the thoughts or compulsions stopped coming into my mind.
This really was a real test for me and I really proved that I have have a long way and have definitely made a breakthrough in my OCD because if that had been a few months ago, I probably would have been an anxious wreck and probably sat on my own, avoiding everyone or been constantly running to clean my hands. I don’t know if I will ever fully be free from my OCD but I now know that I have enough tools to go through the day, especially really stressful days and not be focused on controlling everything around me and recognise that it’s okay to feel anxious.
Spirituality
Okay so I have really struggled with this blog more than usual in the last few months. That is mainly because this is meant to be dedicated mostly to spirituality and since July I have been completely spiritually disconnected.
I started living on my own at the end of June and about two weeks after that I just seemed to have lost any connection to my spirituality, intuition or interest in anything spiritual.
I have struggled mentally a lot in recent months, more than I expected and at one point thought I had seriously slipped back into depression. I think I have been ‘grieving’ the life I had before moving because I’ve never been on my own before and it has been so much more difficult than I expected, I lost my job because I just wasn’t going in because I couldn’t get myself up in the morning.
I think all of this just put my spirituality on pause, I have have crystals all over my flat and I love my crystals but I haven’t looked at them, I haven’t meditated in months. Also a huge part of my spirituality is nature, I feel most connected sitting under a tree in the middle of nowhere but where I live isn’t anywhere near nature or fields so I have lost my connection to the earth which is the one thing that upsets me the most because that is the one thing that has helped me through absolutely everything, happy, sad, anxious, excited, adventurous, nature is where I go to be free and to be myself. I truly believe family & nature is my true home I always want to go back to and I really feel like in recent months I have lost that connection, which makes me so sad.
About a month ago I had a real call back to spirituality but I didn’t know where to even begin, then I started my course for a spiritual counselling diploma, which brought back that spark a little bit as I started my first module in tarot card reading, it was just what I needed but also helped me realise how disconnected I have become because when I was trying to tap into my intuition my mind was just blank, and I had no messages or guidance to really give anyone in the readings. It was a good step back into spirituality and something completely different that I had no idea I would really enjoy and was so fascinating to learn about.
Then about three days after this course module my nan passed away, which for some people can bring a lot of spiritual awakenings or experiences. It hasn’t really been that way for me which I’m learning to except but I think I’m the back of my mind I was hoping I wails feel more connected to my nan through my spirituality but I’ve still been very disconnected but it’s a very emotional experience and when the time is right, I will get the call back. I have been drawn a bit more back to my crystals the last couple weeks and went and brought a new quartz necklace that I have been wearing, also have been drawn back to nature a bit more but I’m having to learn that I’m just going to have to go a lot further to be on my own in nature, but it’s worth it if that’s what brings me happiness and grounding.
Blog
So I have a lot of great ideas for the blog, it might be more focused on mental health the next few weeks/ months and a few on spirituality but I can’t write about something I’m not experiencing at the moment. I’m sure I will come back to it when I’m more connected to it, I just have really struggled to find what to write about in recent months because I feel like I am lying or talking about something I’m not going through which I can’t do, that just feels like I’m being fake or not honest and the honest truth is that I haven’t been spiritual for the past three months and have been focused on my mental health so that’s what I will be sharing mostly with you. I want to talk a lot more about OCD as it’s something that’s not talked about a lot and it’s such a complex mental illness, I apologise if you read this blog for spiritual posts.
Okay so thank you for reading and hope this was interesting in some way! Thank you again for the support from Dealing With Grief post, it was so lovely to know that it resonated with you.
See you in the next blog!
Emily’s Perspective 