I absolutely love being warm. I love feeling cosy. So, it is unsurprising that I hold the unbeatable sensation of feeling both warm and cosy, in very high esteem. When I feel low and anxious – my depression almost always being paired with anxiety – I crave the experience of being in a hot, deep bath. In inhaling aromatherapy essential oils like my life depends on it. When I step in, it is actually feels like my brain just switches off as it is forced to focus on the sensory experience I am presenting it with. And, I am ever-thankful of my brain just stopping its catastrophising and rumination and its negative narrative. I think my body is also unbelievably thankful for the warmth to relax the muscles that I am undoubtedly holding so tight. So, baths are great for my head and my body and often when nothing else is bringing me pleasure or even lifting my mouth into a smile, there’s always a hot bath of hope to hold on for.

I am forever setting goals – I am goal driven and probably live too far into the future, even though I strive to be mindful. The other day, in the midst of a month long depressive/anxious state, I came across a bipolar journal which I had started. There was only one page filled in – a page of personal goals that I had written just over a year prior. I was in a negative state of mind and my self-esteem had been really knocked but, as I read the ten goals, I suddenly realised that I had actually met eight of them in entirety and two of them partially. I remember, the unforgettable feeling of a natural smile spreading on my face and the words ‘I’m doing ok. I am doing well, actually’ going through my mind. It pinged me out of my bleak mindset into a much more realistic one. It always surprises me how easy it is for your mind to be tricked by both anxiety and depression. I love the affirmation ‘your anxiety is lying to you’. I was feeling flat and useless, uncreative and unproductive and overall unsuccessful but by looking at the black and white words in front of me, I was forced to look at the truth rather than let my emotions dictate the narrative.

I have had several periods of mental ill-health over the years but what has always helped me, is the reminder that I have been here before and I have always recovered. I know that I use it as a mantra alongside a ‘fake it ’til you make it’ attitude, with the overriding sense is that if I have done it before, I can do it again and this provides me hope. A lot of my low feelings are of guilt, despair and hopelessness and the latter is often the driver of all others. I am guilty of a lot of catastrophising. Its such an unhelpful way of thinking because it just lumps everything into the same box – ‘everything is awful’, when often it is just not true. Trying to be grateful for what you have got sounds very flippant and could add to the guilt that a depressive mindset often has but done carefully and sensitively, I find it helps. At the end of each day, I try and count four blessings – whether when I’m in bed with my eyes shut counting them on my hands or writing them down in a journal or diary, at best, it counts as an exercise using the grounding technique but also it plugs into that good-old hope that will eventually pull you through dark times.

Life’s little lifts, I call them. I feel eternally grateful that for most of my life I am well, stable, hopeful and upbeat. I take a lot of pleasure in a lot of things and my baseline mood, is probably higher than most people’s. I do thrive from the butterfly-adrenaline surges that punctuate my days, being triggered by tiny things like the reflection of fairy lights in a puddle on a dark night, to more ‘normal’ excitement like looking forward to seeing a friend on a night out. I have found that these physiological sensations are ones that I get fairly hooked on and I certainly know that when I no longer feel these flutters, I am probably either over-medicated, unwell or both. As I type, I am just coming out of a really tough month and am completely aware of just how much pleasure I had lost in my life. I have often written that when I am low, my only pleasures are baths, bed, books and my cat so now when I see a tempting cinnamon bun in a cafe or a lit-up Christmas display in a window or the poster or a film I want to watch, I am feeling both pleasure and hope simultaneously and life becomes enjoyable again.